Maps for Garmin etrex Vista HCx

[B&LHunting]

We are new to geocaching and I read what I could and bought a Garmin etrex Vista HCx thinking I would have what we needed. When I loaded in a few geocaching locations and started out to look for them the streets were only the main streets and not very useful for navigating. We had borrowed a Magellan unit that had all the streets, and showed a path from point A to point B.

 

My question: Do I have to purchase another $$ worth of software or something to be able to navigate around with this unit? Any suggestion on what to do, what it will cost, etc.

[+cachensfun]

Try these maps they are free and work with Garmin GPSs

 

http://garmin.na1400.info/routable.php

[+Chuy!]

Yes, mapping software for the handheld units is an additional fee unles you buy a navigation kit along with the GPS, but that adds about $130.

 

Your Vista HCx works best with City Navigator North America NT (When you shop for it, do not get it confused with the update version.) The kicker is Garmin updates this software on a yearly basis. However, Gamrin offers a lifetime update of maps, for a nominal fee, of course.

[Motorcycle_Mama]

But try the free maps first. They are very good and may be all you need.

[+Team Cotati]

Try these maps they are free and work with Garmin GPSs

 

http://garmin.na1400.info/routable.php

 

I'd recommend purchasing maps from Garmin, they probably work much better and could also be more reliable and accurate:

 

"Address search

To use the address search you must:

- Enter any housenumber first (it does not have to be an existing housenumber)

- Enter the streetname (at which point the GPS will start providing feedback about possible matches). You can choose the street from the matches or

- Enter the placename to narrow the search down to the correct street.

 

Work in progress

This is work in process and may be very buggy! You will find new features and bugfixes regularly the next few weeks. The URL may change so use this bookmark. Also, a number of maps have failed to build especially in Northwest Europe. I will try to correct this in later builds.

 

Limitations

- Because of the default style for Mkgmap to be focussed on car routing, these maps work best for car routing. Short bicycle and foot routes work fine though in general.

-A tile limit is enforced because reality showed that too many people are greedy and request excessive amounts of tiles which causes other requests to suffer from long waiting times and huge bandwidth usage. I see little reason why anyone would need the entire world as Garmin map.

 

Known problems

- Looking up addresses does not work very well. Not much I can do about it. Other map providers using the Mkgmap tool suffer from this as well. I'm sure this will improve in the future.

- The 'Find Places' option in MapSource does not work. It is related to the previous issue.

- Oceans and other very large areas of water are not being handled properly, so you won't see them.

- When someone requests one or more non-existing tiles (the red ones) then the RoadTrip installer build script will most likely fail, so don't choose red tiles if you care about MacOSX and RoadTrip.

- Server harddisk is sometimes full which causes requests to (partially fail). I try to keep disk usage as low as possible.

- Some tiles in Northern Europe (Denmark) and North America (USA) fail completely. Resolving this requires optimizing the splitting process by hand. I have no time to sort this out at the moment."

[marnat3]

that's a great resource. but which of the many files that they e-mail do i need to download in order to use them. blink.gif unsure.gif

Sorry if its a dumb question but i am very new. Thanks

[Motorcycle_Mama]

Zoom in to the area you want. Click the checkbox next to the Rest button. Select the tiles you want. Enter your email address in the box above the Build map button. Click the Build Map button.

 

Here's another resource. http://www.gpsfiledepot.com/

[B&LHunting]

Yes, mapping software for the handheld units is an additional fee unles you buy a navigation kit along with the GPS, but that adds about $130.

 

Your Vista HCx works best with City Navigator North America NT (When you shop for it, do not get it confused with the update version.) The kicker is Garmin updates this software on a yearly basis. However, Gamrin offers a lifetime update of maps, for a nominal fee, of course.

 

Any suggestions on the best place to buy?

 

Is it better to buy DVD or the SD card?

[NordicMan]

If you do decide to BUY maps from Garmin, personally I recommend the DVD option is better as long as you have only ONE GPSr, because if you have more than one unit the SD map can be easily swapped from one to another.

 

But if you only need maps for one GPSr then the DVD makes more sense because you'll have the added ability of seeing the maps on your computer.

[+Chuy!]

Yes, mapping software for the handheld units is an additional fee unles you buy a navigation kit along with the GPS, but that adds about $130.

 

Your Vista HCx works best with City Navigator North America NT (When you shop for it, do not get it confused with the update version.) The kicker is Garmin updates this software on a yearly basis. However, Gamrin offers a lifetime update of maps, for a nominal fee, of course.

 

Any suggestions on the best place to buy?

 

Is it better to buy DVD or the SD card?

I prefer the DVD. As Nordic Man explains, you can view the maps on the computer. Plus, if you get Topo software or free maps (there are some excellent Topo maps for California), you must install them together, which erases the previous mapset in the memory card.

 

Best I have seen is $75 at ErwinComp. I think that's where I got my Topo maps. Future updates will be about $55 each, or you can get the lifetime updates for about $100 - that's in addition to the 1st purchase.

[B&LHunting]

Yes, mapping software for the handheld units is an additional fee unles you buy a navigation kit along with the GPS, but that adds about $130.

 

Your Vista HCx works best with City Navigator North America NT (When you shop for it, do not get it confused with the update version.) The kicker is Garmin updates this software on a yearly basis. However, Gamrin offers a lifetime update of maps, for a nominal fee, of course.

 

Any suggestions on the best place to buy?

 

Is it better to buy DVD or the SD card?

I prefer the DVD. As Nordic Man explains, you can view the maps on the computer. Plus, if you get Topo software or free maps (there are some excellent Topo maps for California), you must install them together, which erases the previous mapset in the memory card.

 

Best I have seen is $75 at ErwinComp. I think that's where I got my Topo maps. Future updates will be about $55 each, or you can get the lifetime updates for about $100 - that's in addition to the 1st purchase.

 

 

Thanks for the post. I ordered the DVD and a card to load it on.