Can I use Etrex to navigate with Laptop?

[mkamla]

I have an Etrex H, and just purchased the USB cable on ebay. Will I be able to hook this up to my laptop and navigate? Years ago I navigated this way, but that unit requires a PS2 and a serial port connection, so it is collecting dust.

[+Red90]

Yes, sure.

[jbuffethed]

My Legend worked with Nroute.

[+Prime Suspect]

I have an Etrex H, and just purchased the USB cable on ebay. Will I be able to hook this up to my laptop and navigate? Years ago I navigated this way, but that unit requires a PS2 and a serial port connection, so it is collecting dust.

 

Depends. The eTrex H is a non-mapping unit, so it's unlikely that you own any of the Garmin mapping software. If you have some of the older mapping software, you can run it in nRoute. The latest versions of City Navigator will not run in nRoute, and never will. Garmin had dropped support for nRoute, so this will not be fixed.

 

If you have other mapping software, like Street Atlas, then you should be able to use it for navigation.

[+gelfling6]

I have an Etrex H, and just purchased the USB cable on ebay. Will I be able to hook this up to my laptop and navigate? Years ago I navigated this way, but that unit requires a PS2 and a serial port connection, so it is collecting dust.

 

Depends. The eTrex H is a non-mapping unit, so it's unlikely that you own any of the Garmin mapping software. If you have some of the older mapping software, you can run it in nRoute. The latest versions of City Navigator will not run in nRoute, and never will. Garmin had dropped support for nRoute, so this will not be fixed.

 

If you have other mapping software, like Street Atlas, then you should be able to use it for navigation.

 

I think that was what he intended.. The "H" is a USB port (Mini-5), compared to the original eTrex's serial 4-pin,.. Using output from the eTrex H as a GPS Puck, for the laptop.

 

It irks me, that Garmin won't release a version of the Forerunner interface software that'll run under Vista.. That way, ALL Garmin handhelds (Not the NUVI or car-type GPSr's) wiht a USB port will be able to emulate a serial port.. Also too bad, there wasn't a hack to the DeLorme driver for the LT-20/40, to simulate a Serial I/O..

[+bnpkidz]

I have used MS MapPoint in the past. But NIB is $300 so that might be a little too expensive. It worked great, though.

[+ewerts]

You may want to look at what format your GPS outputs. My old blue Etrex Legend had an option to output data in NMEA format which could be used by Microsoft Streets and Trips running on my Laptop (and any other software that can read NMEA). My new Legend HCx doesn't have that option so I can only connect it with Garmin software (NRoute, etc.).

[+Red90]

There are dozens of mapping software packages out there to use. nRoute is just one of them.

 

You can use Garmin's Spanner or GPS Gate (for more options) in order to convert to a NMEA signal for these programs.

[Ken in Regina]

My eTrex Legend HCx outputs NMEA by default. It requires a specific request from the nav software (eg. nRoute) to get it to output Garmin protocol. I've used it with Streets&Trips, Mappoint, Street Atlas and iGuidance as well as nRoute.

 

...ken...