How to transfer Garmin City Navigator from DVD to eTrex?

[eridium]

Hi,

 

I just bought a Garmin eTrex Vista HCx with the City Navigator DVD.

I'm a mac user but am doing this on a friend's Windows/Vista machine, which I have to return in 2 hours, so I'm in a bit of a rush.

 

Basically I can't figure out how to transfer the City Navigator maps to the unit.

Since I have a 2GB SD card and City Navigator is only about 1.x GB, I figure I might as well transfer the whole thing. So I run Mapsource and click on "Transfer" ... "Send to Device..." but it tells me I have to select maps or create waypoints in CN. But I want to transfer ALL of the data -- as if I had bought the entire CN on an SD card. How can I do this on Windows?

 

(At the moment I'm converting the maps using MapConverter, hopefully that will be able to make it Mac-accessible, though it's taking forever) Thanks!

Edited January 10, 2008 by eridium

[sanramonhunter]

In mapsource you need to highlight the areas (in this case all) that you want to transfer. Just think of it as highlighting a group of cells in Excel. Highlight the entire U.S. and then hit transfer. By the way it takes awhile to transfer the whole u.s.

[strumble]

 

 

Using the maptool select all the map tiles!

Look at the detail bottom left!

[+fratermus]

The info given is accurate.

 

I would be surprised if you will be able to do the indexing and uploading of all of CONUS before the 2 hrs is up. I'd like to be wrong about this.

[eridium]

Ahh, thanks to you both.

This is my first time using it so forgive the idiot question. After deselecting the places that I'll probably never visit, I started up the transfer ... seems like it'll take a little less than an hour for 700+MB of data.

 

Such a shame City Navigator "North America" doesn't include Mexico (I live in Los Angeles, drive into Mexico from time to time)

[sanramonhunter]

Ahh, thanks to you both.

This is my first time using it so forgive the idiot question. After deselecting the places that I'll probably never visit, I started up the transfer ... seems like it'll take a little less than an hour for 700+MB of data.

 

Such a shame City Navigator "North America" doesn't include Mexico (I live in Los Angeles, drive into Mexico from time to time)

 

That's what I thought the first time I uploaded the Whole u.s. to a sd card. Took forever, not sure why. I don't think it's just a straight data dump. But I'm not sure why it isn't

[eridium]

Wow ... when there was about 5 minutes left in the transfer, the laptop computer (plugged into AC) went to sleep. Oh how I love Windows ...

 

So I had to restart everything, deselect more maps, and am restarting the transfer. How silly for the Garmin software to not let its activity be known to the OS (if that's it).

 

But this leads me to useful questions:

 

1. How do I know the maps are confirmed/transfered?

2. How do I access the CN maps on my Garmin? On my eTrex I looked through what I could and saw no way to select maps (from the base map to the CN). Presumably it wasn't transfered (even though it was 95% done) but if it goes through this time, how can I be sure? Unplug the Garmin from the computer, and then how do I access CN on the handheld GPS?

 

Thank you

[+Miragee]

You should get a "Transfer Complete" or "Transfer Successful" message. Then, on the GPSr, when you are on the Map page, hit Menu. There are several options there, and when you have the one highlighted that lists the maps, hit Menu again. From there you can choose to "Show City Navigator" or "Show Topo" or "Hide City Navigator," etc.

Edited January 11, 2008 by Miragee

[eridium]

Whew, thanks Miragee, everything works!

 

I have a lot to learn about GPSing but I'm pretty excited.

 

Can I ask one more question:

How can I pan on this map?

Like, on Google Maps you can click and hold the screen, then drag off so that you see areas to the N/E/S/W. Do you just push the pointer off the map, or is there a more elegant way of doing this?

 

Thanks