Which map to buy? And do SD HC cards work?

[+sackvillesearchers]

Hi there, I am looking at buying a UK map for my Garmin Legend HCx, but am unsure of which to choose. I have looked at the Garmin Topo maps, the Anquet maps and also the Memory maps but don't really know which is best. I understand the Memory maps only cover the country in separate chunks, so you have to buy the one where you want to go but is this good value if the mapping is better? Any advice is greatly appreciated.

 

Also I need a Micro SD card to keep the mapping software on, I have looked on the internet and found the biggest you can buy is an 8GB version but all the 8GB versions are HC ones, will they still work or do I need to opt for a lower capacity, which isn't HC for it to be compatible?

 

Thanks

[+Corey]

As I understand it, the eTrex firmware can only address 2GB of map data (there's also a limited number of map tiles it can use).

So a card over 2GB is just going to be wasted space. POI's and tracklogs take up very small amounts of space.

A 2GB card works very well for me.

I believe 2GB is also the maximum for the SD format; anything above that is SDHC. I'm not sure about compatibility.

 

For maps, I might suggest a freely available map first.

[+Corey]

Oh, apparently the latest firmware update adds support for maps over 2GB!

[+sackvillesearchers]

So how big an area are you able to fit on your SD card? I have downloaded the contour map and have put it into map source but don't understand how to add the road mapping back on top of the contours. Any ideas?

[+Corey]

I'm not sure that Mapsource can display more than one map at a time -- Garmin's Mac software can't.

Once they're loaded onto the GPSr, multiple maps can be layered.

 

My 2GB card currently has about 1.3G of maps on it including all of California Topo, the western third of Ibycus USA, and part of Washington Topo along with a few smaller maps.

[+GrateBear]

I've got the entire U.S. City Navigator NT loaded on a 1 gb card. My GPS seems to be slower than when I had only a few surrounding states loaded on the card. I don't think I'd want to load another type of map on the same card, assuming that can be done. I'm a computer dunce, so the easier the better!

[+grateful cacher]

I'm not sure that Mapsource can display more than one map at a time -- Garmin's Mac software can't.

Once they're loaded onto the GPSr, multiple maps can be layered.

 

My 2GB card currently has about 1.3G of maps on it including all of California Topo, the western third of Ibycus USA, and part of Washington Topo along with a few smaller maps.

 

MapSource on the PC is able to do that. I created a map for my City Navigator NT (states west of the Mississippi River, and the deep south to Alabama), then opened the Topo 2008 and repeated the same area from it. I was then able to save it, and then transfer it to my GPS. It was about 2.3gb in size and took a couple of hours to transfer, but after loading it, everything was great. You are correct about the layering, you can control that amount of detail from the GPS. Too bad it won't work that way with preloaded maps. I currently have a 16gb SDHC card in my 550t, works like a charm.

Edited July 28, 2009 by ivhs72