ANDILLYO! Posted March 10, 2009 Share Posted March 10, 2009 I recently recieved a Garmin Etrex Legend GPSR for Valentines and have been bitten by the Geocaching bug as well as my fianc'ee and our kids. I am looking into getting a map program for this unit and would like to hear opinions from users with experience with these programs as to the pros and cons as well as suggestions for use with this GPSR. I am sorry if this has been covered before, likely it has, when I tried to search it timed out 3 times on me. I appreciate your input, thanks!!! Quote Link to comment
+IBcrashen Posted March 10, 2009 Share Posted March 10, 2009 I recently recieved a Garmin Etrex Legend GPSR for Valentines and have been bitten by the Geocaching bug as well as my fianc'ee and our kids. I am looking into getting a map program for this unit and would like to hear opinions from users with experience with these programs as to the pros and cons as well as suggestions for use with this GPSR. I am sorry if this has been covered before, likely it has, when I tried to search it timed out 3 times on me. I appreciate your input, thanks!!! GPSFileDepot for free, great maps. And you are lucky, there is a topo for Idaho available there. Quote Link to comment
+Redwoods Mtn Biker Posted March 11, 2009 Share Posted March 11, 2009 What IBcrashen said. Also, you can get MapSource for free using this method. Lastly, I like National Geographic TOPO best for printed maps. Quote Link to comment
ANDILLYO! Posted March 11, 2009 Author Share Posted March 11, 2009 GPSFileDepot for free, great maps. And you are lucky, there is a topo for Idaho available there. Thanks for the link I will definitely look into that one, hadnt heard of it before. Quote Link to comment
ANDILLYO! Posted March 11, 2009 Author Share Posted March 11, 2009 What IBcrashen said. Also, you can get MapSource for free using this method. Lastly, I like National Geographic TOPO best for printed maps. Thanks for the link, I will look into this as well. How does National Geographic Topo compare to some of the others that I have previously mentioned? What do you like about it and dislike about others? Thanks again for your reply. Quote Link to comment
rickzman Posted March 11, 2009 Share Posted March 11, 2009 What IBcrashen said. Also, you can get MapSource for free using this method. Lastly, I like National Geographic TOPO best for printed maps. Thanks for the link, I will look into this as well. How does National Geographic Topo compare to some of the others that I have previously mentioned? What do you like about it and dislike about others? Thanks again for your reply. The National Geographic is great for printing but the maps can't be loaded on a Garmin GPS. However, you can load the waypoints and routes from teh NG map. Topo maps are great but sometimes you need a street level map. You should get a copy of City Navigator from Garmin or ebay. This is a routable map which means you can have the GPS route you to a location (see your manual). From Garmin this is about $100. There also is an excellant free stree level map of the US from Ibius (sp?). Look around this forum and you'll see a link to it. Rick Quote Link to comment
+Walts Hunting Posted March 11, 2009 Share Posted March 11, 2009 Nat Geo maps are very high in detail. The elevation change between elevation lines is small and give me a much better feel of the terrain than the MAPSOURCE. I forget the ratio but it is very high. They are expensive $80 or so per state. I have them for California and Arizona since that is where I do most of my caching that would require a good TOPO. Quote Link to comment
ANDILLYO! Posted March 12, 2009 Author Share Posted March 12, 2009 The National Geographic is great for printing but the maps can't be loaded on a Garmin GPS. However, you can load the waypoints and routes from teh NG map. Topo maps are great but sometimes you need a street level map. You should get a copy of City Navigator from Garmin or ebay. This is a routable map which means you can have the GPS route you to a location (see your manual). From Garmin this is about $100. There also is an excellant free stree level map of the US from Ibius (sp?). Look around this forum and you'll see a link to it. Rick Good to know thanks for the information, I will look around for the Ibius or whatever map when I get a chance. Thanks again!! Quote Link to comment
ANDILLYO! Posted March 12, 2009 Author Share Posted March 12, 2009 Nat Geo maps are very high in detail. The elevation change between elevation lines is small and give me a much better feel of the terrain than the MAPSOURCE. I forget the ratio but it is very high. They are expensive $80 or so per state. I have them for California and Arizona since that is where I do most of my caching that would require a good TOPO. Thanks for the reply I havent seen much of NG Topo but it sounds like alot of you guys prefer it over the others that are available. Thanks again!! Quote Link to comment
ANDILLYO! Posted March 12, 2009 Author Share Posted March 12, 2009 Well I went the route of downloading Mapsource the way that Redwoods Mtn Biker suggested and also got the Topo map of Idaho that IBcrashen gave me the link to. They work great, thanks alot guys I reall apreciate it. The only issue I am having now is connecting my GPS to the computer. The Etrex Legend comes with a serial port connector and I dont have one on my home pc, just usb. I did go buy a generic serial port to usb cable ut it doesnt seem to want to find it. Does anyone know if this is something that wont work or not? I know Garmin sells a serial to USB cable but its a quite a bit more than what I got the generic one for. Any thoughts? Quote Link to comment
+JBnW Posted March 12, 2009 Share Posted March 12, 2009 Well I went the route of downloading Mapsource the way that Redwoods Mtn Biker suggested and also got the Topo map of Idaho that IBcrashen gave me the link to. They work great, thanks alot guys I reall apreciate it. The only issue I am having now is connecting my GPS to the computer. The Etrex Legend comes with a serial port connector and I dont have one on my home pc, just usb. I did go buy a generic serial port to usb cable ut it doesnt seem to want to find it. Does anyone know if this is something that wont work or not? I know Garmin sells a serial to USB cable but its a quite a bit more than what I got the generic one for. Any thoughts? The serial to USB connectors have been known to be a bit flakey at times. I did a search for "serial usb connector" and found many links with helpful info on how to do this, and I know it can be done, had one myself for a while. Here's a link to one prior thread: http://forums.Groundspeak.com/GC/index.php...=205150&hl= Hopefully your cable came with a driver disk. Install the driver before connecting the GPS, and then check that your computer recognizes the cable in Device Manager. there may be more steps required, these seem to be the big ones... Hope this helps. Quote Link to comment
ANDILLYO! Posted March 12, 2009 Author Share Posted March 12, 2009 The serial to USB connectors have been known to be a bit flakey at times. I did a search for "serial usb connector" and found many links with helpful info on how to do this, and I know it can be done, had one myself for a while. Here's a link to one prior thread: http://forums.Groundspeak.com/GC/index.php...=205150&hl= Hopefully your cable came with a driver disk. Install the driver before connecting the GPS, and then check that your computer recognizes the cable in Device Manager. there may be more steps required, these seem to be the big ones... Hope this helps. Thanks JBnW I am going to research this some more. My serial port-usb cable didnt come with any drivers and searching around on google leads me to believe that this is the biggest problem here. I am trying different drivers with no luck so far. I might just have to buy Garmins cable and be done with it. I did get the GPS to download on my work computer, it has a serial port, so I know the unit works. Thanks for all your help guys I truely appreciate it. Quote Link to comment
Grasscatcher Posted March 12, 2009 Share Posted March 12, 2009 Probably the best, least expensive, most permanent and trouble free "fix" for the problem is to go buy and install (plug in) a "serial port card" for your PC. Total cost....approx $10. Immediately recognized and no more problems. Quote Link to comment
ANDILLYO! Posted March 12, 2009 Author Share Posted March 12, 2009 Probably the best, least expensive, most permanent and trouble free "fix" for the problem is to go buy and install (plug in) a "serial port card" for your PC. Total cost....approx $10. Immediately recognized and no more problems. Thanks for the comment and idea Grasscatcher. To be honest I actually hadnt though of that. I will have to see if the home PC mother board can be expanded to accept one or not. Its a Dell and they arent great about leaving spaces for future expansion. Thanks again!! Quote Link to comment
+Redwoods Mtn Biker Posted March 12, 2009 Share Posted March 12, 2009 I never had any trouble with serial:USB converters as long as I stuck with a good name brand. Quote Link to comment
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