Need help with my eTrex Vista HCx

[Andy73]

My Kids and Wife gave me the Vista HCx for Fathers day this year. Of course I was very excited and already opened everything and have been playing with it. Just trying to get the basics down since this is my first GPS unit. They also gave me The Topo US maps on Disk and the City Navigator maps on disk. Now here is my question. What is the best way to use the maps? Do I buy micro sd cards and put them on there? One card for each map? If I want to go after a cache that I have to drive to using the City Nav. then Hike the rest of the way switching to the Topo maps whats the best way to do it???? I guess my question is whats the best way to put the maps on the unit? and how do i switch back and forth between them?

 

Thanks

Andy

[MtnHermit]

Purchase a 2GB mircoSD card and a card reader, a whooping $10 online. Put either CD in your PC and install Mapsource. It'll look like this:

 

 

Then using the Map Tool, select as many maps as you want, they'll appear in the map table on the left. Now insert the second CD and repeat. You can have 2025 maps segments in that table. Once the table is finished, use the Send to GPS button to send the files to the card via the card reader. Your remaining lifetime isn't long enough to use the cable and GPS as a card reader.

 

Then switch between the maps inside the GPS like this:

 

To see this screen do the following:

From the map display > Menu > Map Setup - Information > Menu > after scrolling to the map set > Press Enter

 

I lifted these screenshots from Above the Timber's website.

[Andy73]

Sounds simple enough. Thanks!

[+Miragee]

My Kids and Wife gave me the Vista HCx for Fathers day this year. Of course I was very excited and already opened everything and have been playing with it. Just trying to get the basics down since this is my first GPS unit. They also gave me The Topo US maps on Disk and the City Navigator maps on disk. Now here is my question. What is the best way to use the maps? Do I buy micro sd cards and put them on there? One card for each map? If I want to go after a cache that I have to drive to using the City Nav. then Hike the rest of the way switching to the Topo maps whats the best way to do it???? I guess my question is whats the best way to put the maps on the unit? and how do i switch back and forth between them?

 

Thanks

Andy

I have the same GPS unit and have the older Topo maps and City Navigator on it. As already stated, once the maps are installed on your computer, you can easily switch between them. Before sending them to the GPS, you select all the maps using the 'Maptool.'

 

If you use Road Navigation to get to a cache, do a second "Go To" using the "Off Road" option before searching for the cache. If you aren't being Prompted for "Follow Road" or "Off Road" when you do a "Go To," you can change that in Menu/Setup/Routing.

 

If you change to Topo maps for a hike, make sure you change them back to City Navigator when you return to your vehicle and before you ask the GPSr to "Follow Road." If the Topo maps are showing, the poor GPSr is going to try to route on the basemap roads, which can be a problem if you are a long way from a major highway . . .

 

Welcome to the addiction!

[Andy73]

Is it better to keep the maps smaller? If I put on a much larger area then I need will it slow the unit down?

or can I put the whole US on the micro sd card with no significant loss of processing speed?

[+UncleJimbo]

Is it better to keep the maps smaller? If I put on a much larger area then I need will it slow the unit down?

or can I put the whole US on the micro sd card with no significant loss of processing speed?

I have the US City Navigator and Europe City Navigator on microSD cards (I bought them already on cards), and my eTrex Vista HCx processes route calculation very fast.

 

I wonder if you could put the Topo and the Navigator maps on the same microSD card? That would be ideal.

[+Miragee]

I have the Topo and City Navigator on the same card. Since I don't travel much anymore, I only got a 1 GB card. My Vista HCx makes route calculations quickly, as long as I don't request a very long, complicated route.

[Andy73]

Thanks for all the quick answers

[gallet]

Using the "Zoom In" key instead of scrolling to the "OK" button on the keyboard, makes using the HCx a lot nicer.

[Andy73]

Thanks for the hint