Vlad

send garmin an email (support@garmin.com) explaining what happened and they'll probably just send you one for free.

keep in mind that the button is mandatory if you want to use any of garmin's vehicle mounts or their fairly cool carabiner clip - whatever you do don't fill it with something permanent.

i usually just keep it in my jacket also but it you have to use it for prolonged periods in very cold temps... go out and buy yourself some of those inexpensive, cheap and dirty disposable handwarmer packages. you can use a couple of elastic bands to hold it in position on the back side of the gpsr. keeps the unit and it's batteries warm, and warms your hand as you hold it also. we frequently see -35C and colder here in the prairies...

you can buy bluechart on cd. it includes all regions throughout north and south america on the one cd - it's called bluechart americas. just like the preprogrammed cards, you can only unlock one region. pricewise it's a bit cheaper on cd because there's no memory card but it's not a big savings.

yes, that is the case.

you actually can't view them on the pc unless you unlock them to a specific garmin gps serial number first - it sucks, but that's how it is. also note that you get the use of only one specific region on the bluechart cd, not all regions that are on it.

wow holy bunch of magellan fans here batman...! garmin's are easier to use, their company provides much better after-sales support, they have a wider selection of maps available, they have a wider array of third-party maps available, they are more widely supported by third-party software manufacturers (garmin is the defacto standard) and much more. look at the wide range of products that garmin makes - they are spending huge amounts on r&d - they are fanatical about the technology and delivering innovative and interesting products - this is a company that is not likely to lose their #1 position in the consumer gps marketplace anytime soon.

in the compass settings where you specify the speed where the compass comes on set it to ZERO mpg/kmh. the time interval is irrelevant. that way the compass stays off unless you tell it to come on via the page button.

turn by turn works on cd-based products also. not sure about the basemap as i never did try that but as garmin provides this capability on most other autorouting units i'd be surprised if the venture doesn't do this also.

you get the right to unlock two gps units. note that you also only get to pick one of the regions on the americas cd - you do not have access to all regions. so that's one region, and that one region can be unlocked to two gps units. bluechart updates again will only allow you to update the maps within that same one region, and again, only to those original two gps units.

the film is often found on vehicles with front windshield electrical defrosters

the only thing i have to add is that the more you are zoomed-in the greater the placement control you will have

that must be a garmin europe thing because that is not the way unlocks and upgrades work here in north america. unlocks are tied forever to gps serial numbers and software updates only work with those originally unlocked units at least here in north america...

i would continue to use the same amperage as the cigarette lighter came with (1.5a). if you want to be extra careful you can run a lower amperage - say 1 amp or even .5 amp but there is more likelihood that general power surges (starting, lights on/off, etc) might pop the lower amperages like .5 i've never had to change a fuse in my cig adapter for my 60cs and have used that same adapter on several different gps's over the years - gps48, map76cs. never blew a fuse and never had any issue with the 1.5a fuse being too much for any of these gps units.

not quite - you need to select the maps you want in metroguide but also reselect the maps you want in topo and then simultaneously download both to the gps - if you just download metroguide to your gps you will be overwriting topo and it will no longer be on the gps

have you installed the patch for us topo from garmin's website? it may make a difference.

try the patch on garmin's website first

go to the updates webpage - on the right hand side of the page click on show all updates. find your gps in the listed models and download the software for your unit. run the update manually.

If this site could deliver some FAQs that cover the more general topics and the more popular units I'm sure that would be appreciated by all. That said... The flip side to that is that someone has to do the work of putting the FAQ together, and maintaining of that FAQ. Some might feel that you can have several people work together to submit content and that can work if you've set some standards and people are communicating clearly and with team goals in mind. However, creating a FAQ can become a labor of love and over time the contributors often start to lose interest feeling that either they've done more than their fair share of the work or that perhaps their FAQ has somehow become tainted or changed in some negative way by the others working on the FAQ. If you want to do this then I'm happy to support and promote the cause but I think we're just feeding the symptom and not treating the disease - people are just too lazy to help themselves. Instead of spending the time doing the research they're looking for a quick fix. Spoon-feeding people is not going to change this attitude. I don't have a problem sifting through lots of threads trying to find answers - I often learn other bits of useful info by doing this. I would recommend that FAQs be limited to geocaching-related processes, maybe some repetitive hardware issues (like USB-related and/or NMEA-related), and information on the various pieces of software out there like babel, gsak, maybe some of the pocket pc stuff etc. Generally, these are things that stay with us year after year with various software upgrades etc. GPS units, one the other hand, tend to change relatively frequently and even more so also get software updates meaning that a FAQ on that unit might start out indicating problems with the unit and then later on in the FAQ indicate that those issues have now been addressed with an update. Stopped reading too soon thinking it wasn't a good unit? Confusing for the new user? Maybe not, but maybe so. Are people going to take the time to read them? Well, obviously some will and some won't. But at what cost to you (the FAQ author/manager) in terms of your time and effort?

keep in mind the arrow will only appear if you're on a goto (waypoint, follow track or route etc)

sputnik's reply is correct. the gps18 uses one of the 2 unlocks in the package and the unlock is hard-coded to the 18 right from the factory - you do not have any choice in this. the second unlock can be used for another garmin gps. you can also use the gps18 with other non-garmin software packages (if they support it) without using any unlocks - garmin unlocks are there to protect garmin's proprietary mapping information - city select, city navigator, bluechart, etc. there are other nuances to this but this is it, in a nutshell...

indy's point is that it's not topo that's updated - it's mapsource itself. the title of the post implies that topo is being updated when in fact only mapsource itself is being updated.

no problem sputnik - with all the rumours and speculation on websites generally I understand your desire for the truth!

rebate forms from garmin are my source - widely available tomorrow

yes, 60 floats with lithium batteries - i've seen this also.