luckyramu Posted March 29, 2011 Share Posted March 29, 2011 Hello. I'm very new to geocaching, but think its a great activity. I just ordered an oregon 450 at what I consider a very good price (299 shipped)(ordered just now, so I'm waiting in anticipation). My question is this: Are there free maps somewhere that can be downloaded and installed (opensource maps?) or am I at the whim of Garmin and have to rely on their maps that I have to pay for? Sorry for such a newb question, and I'll be sure to search the forums also. TFTR & TFTC's Quote Link to comment
+mpilchfamily Posted March 29, 2011 Share Posted March 29, 2011 All the free maps you could need right here. http://www.gpsfiledepot.com/ Quote Link to comment
luckyramu Posted March 29, 2011 Author Share Posted March 29, 2011 Ok. I'm very impressed. So.. there's really no need for the 'garmen brand' maps I take it. Will my oregon 450 be able to hold a significant amount of maps? or will it be limited? I truly have no understanding of how this works. Quote Link to comment
+Triple Crown Posted March 29, 2011 Share Posted March 29, 2011 Ok. I'm very impressed. So.. there's really no need for the 'garmen brand' maps I take it. Will my oregon 450 be able to hold a significant amount of maps? or will it be limited? I truly have no understanding of how this works. Also check out Open Street Maps for routable street maps. For hiking & caching you'll want 1:24K topo maps to get enough detail. A 4GB microSD card should hold all the street maps you need and a good chunk of the country in topo. Quote Link to comment
+OhanaAveiro Posted March 29, 2011 Share Posted March 29, 2011 We just started Geocaching 2 weeks ago. Had thought about it several years back when a friend started doing it, but let it pass. We went this past Saturday and Sunday and the weekend before (Sat/Sun). After 4 days in Washington State rain our Garmin Nuvi 255W is going to need replacing and I was also interested in the 450. Cabelas (right down the road from me) had it on sale for $250! I am broke and couldn't afford it, but am interested to see how it does for you! I wondered about the same things you did! Quote Link to comment
+myotis Posted March 29, 2011 Share Posted March 29, 2011 For OSM, is there a way to easily download all of the US or just the 48? Or do you have to select each tile for the country? Quote Link to comment
snowfleurys Posted March 29, 2011 Share Posted March 29, 2011 So.. there's really no need for the 'garmen brand' maps I take it. Depends on what you 'need' in a map. Only Garmin knows how they include address searching and 3D elevation data. Quote Link to comment
+Triple Crown Posted March 29, 2011 Share Posted March 29, 2011 For OSM, is there a way to easily download all of the US or just the 48? Or do you have to select each tile for the country? Use the pulldown menu at the top to select an entire country. It's much easier than selecting all the tiles. Quote Link to comment
luckyramu Posted March 29, 2011 Author Share Posted March 29, 2011 Another question please. I understand there is something called birdseye view. But I think there is another way to do it by photcapturing pics from google earth satelite pics. 1. Can I do this and add sat-pics on areas that I drive in a lot? 2. Has anyone had a great degree of success or failure doing this? 3. Does it make the unit run slower? 4. Did they fix the bug with the firmware update whereby the peeps lost the streetnames? 5. Can I place such maps on the unit itself, or do they have to be on the SDdisk? Newb questions i'm sure. sorry. Quote Link to comment
+Triple Crown Posted March 30, 2011 Share Posted March 30, 2011 Another question please. I understand there is something called birdseye view. But I think there is another way to do it by photcapturing pics from google earth satelite pics. 1. Can I do this and add sat-pics on areas that I drive in a lot? 2. Has anyone had a great degree of success or failure doing this? 3. Does it make the unit run slower? 4. Did they fix the bug with the firmware update whereby the peeps lost the streetnames? 5. Can I place such maps on the unit itself, or do they have to be on the SDdisk? Newb questions i'm sure. sorry. The Garmin BirdsEye Imagery is an easy to use method of getting pretty good satellite imagery onto your GPSr but it cost $29/year for all you can download, and once you download it you own it forever. The alternate method is a lot more work, but it is free. Discussion here. Maps are maps, and they shouldn't make the unit run slower, but most people store them on the microSD cards because they do take up a lot of space. Quote Link to comment
+myotis Posted March 30, 2011 Share Posted March 30, 2011 For OSM, is there a way to easily download all of the US or just the 48? Or do you have to select each tile for the country? Use the pulldown menu at the top to select an entire country. It's much easier than selecting all the tiles. When I select the United States, nothing gets selected. When I select a state, that state gets selected. Quote Link to comment
+Triple Crown Posted March 30, 2011 Share Posted March 30, 2011 For OSM, is there a way to easily download all of the US or just the 48? Or do you have to select each tile for the country? Use the pulldown menu at the top to select an entire country. It's much easier than selecting all the tiles. When I select the United States, nothing gets selected. When I select a state, that state gets selected. Hmmm, not sure why it does that, but it did that for me too. When I select European countries it worked as advertised...unfortunately I'm number 1020 in the queue to get my maps and they're saying 4.3 days. Might have to do it a state at a time I guess. Quote Link to comment
+kentwoodkrew Posted March 30, 2011 Share Posted March 30, 2011 Hello. I'm very new to geocaching, but think its a great activity. I just ordered an oregon 450 at what I consider a very good price (299 shipped)(ordered just now, so I'm waiting in anticipation). My question is this: Are there free maps somewhere that can be downloaded and installed (opensource maps?) or am I at the whim of Garmin and have to rely on their maps that I have to pay for? Sorry for such a newb question, and I'll be sure to search the forums also. TFTR & TFTC's send me an email and I will tell you how I set up my 450 not at the whim of Garmin. Quote Link to comment
NordicMan Posted March 30, 2011 Share Posted March 30, 2011 Hmmm, not sure why it does that, but it did that for me too.... It's probably because it's a *free* service (donations appreciated) running on limited servers. Memory chips are getting cheaper all the time, and the last thing they want is for hundreds of thousands of people clicking on "planet" (or all of USA) as a download filter. There servers couldn't handle the load. Just pick the states you need Quote Link to comment
+myotis Posted March 30, 2011 Share Posted March 30, 2011 It would seem much simpler and efficient to have a link where you could download the latest version of the US that is updated every so often. It seems much better than having to build custom maps. Quote Link to comment
luckyramu Posted April 2, 2011 Author Share Posted April 2, 2011 Thanks for the great help so far, especially the http://www.gpsfiledepot.com/ link. I also downloaded Mapsource and have it working, but I am having a bit of problem. I had a map I transferred from an etrex that had some california topo. I used mapsource to create a tennessee map using their SE topo. When I did this, it erased my California topo, and dropped in the SE tennessee. I did a test, and it looks like I can drop in both SW and SE together. Questions: 1. Can I save these maps in a custom file on a SD card or under custom maps on the unit, or will it always erase the map on the garmin? 2. If not, can I transfer them into a custom file (so I'm not losing what I've already created- or having to include them in a new build)? 3. My Garmen recognizes my custom maps (i've been making Satmpaps from google earth and gimp) all as one chunk or file, even though I have about 10 of them. Is there any way to put them in files that the garmen recognized them separately (so I can enable/disable them separately)? Thanks! Quote Link to comment
JustMyName Posted April 2, 2011 Share Posted April 2, 2011 (edited) For OSM, is there a way to easily download all of the US or just the 48? Or do you have to select each tile for the country? http://daveh.dev.openstreetmap.org/garmin/Lambertus/07-03-2011/ Download the 4000MB file, copy it to a SD card and enable it setup -> map -> map information select map. It's also routable in the automotive profile. Edited April 2, 2011 by cohentl Quote Link to comment
snowfleurys Posted April 2, 2011 Share Posted April 2, 2011 The OR450 will recognize a mapset named somename.img. MapSource only creates a gmapsupp.img file. Simply rename that file. MS will write over an existing gmapsupp.img file the next time it creates a gmapsupp.img file. Vector mapsets go in a Garmin folder. Garmin uses the custom folder for raster image data. Quote Link to comment
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