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Software Help . . .


zul

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I have decided on the Garmin 60cs. I will be using this unit to provide driving directions to area attractions and trail heads as well as hiking and geocaching.

 

It seems like I should purchase MapSource US Topo and MapSource City Select. Is there a different software that will give me detailed streets and hiking trails?

 

zul

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Moving this to the GPS Units and Software forum, but before I do, here are my two cents:

 

THere is no Garmin map program that combines both. You need the combo of City Select and Topo. I'm running both on my 60CS and it works great. I just switch to the mapset I need.

 

One thing about Topo. It uses USGS maps, so it may not have all, or any of your area's hiking trails. In my region at least, only a handful of very old hiking trails are shown on Topo. Still, its a very valuable took for hiking and geocaching in the forest.

Edited by briansnat
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If you are going to use auto-routing you will need City Select. Like briansnat I have both City Select and Topo on my GPS. I use the city select to autoroute to the parking area and topo when I am hiking to the cache. It is really helpful to see that there is a monster hill between you and the cache and that if you are smart enough to walk around that hill you will get to the cache without killing yourself. This is something I have had a hard time learning. <_<

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You may want to check out the Topo 24k software. It should have more detailed info but, unlike Topo, it is sold in 3 separate regions - each for around $100. If you really only need your region (Western, Central, or Eastern) then you may well get better trail info from that package.

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I am a little slow.  Does that mean:

 

City Select = two units

US Topo = one unit

 

Additional unlock codes can be purchased for each?? :)

Topo is not locked software. Technically you could put it on as many units as you want.

 

City Select is locked and requires an unlock code which allows for 2 units.

Edited by CenTexDodger
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Another silly question . . . Mapsource US Topo 24K, National Parks.  Will it provide detail on trails or just National Parks?

The 24k Topos are for specific national parts only... Outside of the park, you are on your base map...

 

Try These garmin mapsource demos:

East 24K Topo (Eastern National Parks)

East 100k Topos

Metroguide for the whole USA

 

Now zoom into the same area on all the maps. (I use firefox, and open each of the above links in a tab and then zoom them all into the same place. For me I chose Arcadia since it's on all 3 maps. WATCH FOR THE YELLOW OVERZOOM ON THE BOTTOM RIGHT... Once this is on there is no more info as you zoom in...

 

Here are the 3 zooming into my house (oh no, now you know where I live...):

 

24k topo (same as base map because I don't live in a National Park... no detail)

topo 100k

metroguide

 

topo 100k down to .2 miles.

metroguide zoomed down to .2 miles.

 

Now the one thing I've notice in my area is that topo 100k has the same streets as metroguide, but metroguide has them all listed with names where they are just drawn on the topo maps (metroguide will also create a route, even if your GPS can't which is very nice). The topo draws them at a "wider" zoom which I like. For me I can navigate pretty well without the street names and the maps are smaller (memory wise) due to living in an area with a lot of streets. For this reason I'm going to get topos since I can store my whole state, and then some when using topos... Also they have different POIs...

 

If you let me where you live (state/town), I can do a similar zoom for you if you can't figure it out...

 

Good Luck!

Ben

Edited by jacobsen1
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I've been out of the geocaching scene for a while and now. A couple of months ago I lost my pc due to lightning. I'm trying to load all my old software onto the new pc, but can't for the life of me remember how to do a full install of the MetroGuide software. I have both the MetroGuide USA and TOPO. Can anyone help me get all the maps installed on the HD so that I don't have to pull them from the CD-ROM everytime I want to use them?

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