Delorme PN 60

[+dwayne23]

I had to get a new computer this weekend and it's windows 10 and Topo North America doesn't work with windows 10.  I also didn't know Delorme was part of Garmin now and Topo is not supported.  Does anyone know of a fix or I will have to figure out another good GPS to get.   

[+Mineral2]

I'm not sure what the best advice is in this situation. I can certainly understand if you don't want to ditch your GPS for a new one, though there are certainly benefits to having one with more semblance of support.

The first question I might have is why you need to have Topo North America installed on your computer in the first place. Is it required to transfer files to the GPS? Do you need it to transfer maps? Do you not already have your maps installed on the GPS itself?

The next question is about the condition of your old computer - is it still useable in any capacity, even if you have to replace some hardware yourself? You may need to just use it as a dedicated machine for your gps. Alternately, if you still have access to the windows install files and serial number from your old computer, you could install it on a second partition on your new computer or with a virtual machine (look up Virtual Box).

Edited February 12, 2018 by Mineral2

[+dprovan]

The only thing I ever used Topo for was to download maps when I had the map subscription.

The better way to load caches to a PN-60 is to connect it to the computer as a disk and copy pocket query .gpx files to the waypoints directory. You don't need Topo North America for that, although you do need to have "recent" firmware. The latest firmware, which I think is over 5 years old now, will do the trick. If you'e never updated the PN-60 firmware, last I checked, you can still find it on-line.

[+Capt. Bob]

10 hours ago, dwayne23 said:

I had to get a new computer this weekend and it's windows 10 and Topo North America doesn't work with windows 10.  I also didn't know Delorme was part of Garmin now and Topo is not supported.  Does anyone know of a fix or I will have to figure out another good GPS to get.   

What version of Topo North America do you have?  TNA 9.0 works on Windows 10.

[+dwayne23]

The software is for loading different maps Mineral2. 

dprovan, I think I kept the firmware up to date. 

Capt. Bod I will look and see what version but I looked on the box and it didn't say anything about windows 10. 

[+Mineral2]

 

1 hour ago, dwayne23 said:

Capt. Bod I will look and see what version but I looked on the box and it didn't say anything about windows 10. 

that might be because the software was made before windows 10 was released. Here I thought you tried to install it and Windows gave you an incompatibility message.

As for the mapping, the PN-60 has 3.5 GB of internal storage, plus the ability to expand that storage with a microSD card up to 32GB. So my suggestion: just plop the cd or DVD in your new computer, assuming it came with an optical drive, and try to install the program. Install the entire map on your GPS. If you need to use a SD card to fit it all, then do so. In fact, this is the route I recommend. Once the map is installed, you'll never need to install the program on your computer again.

[+dprovan]

7 hours ago, dwayne23 said:

dprovan, I think I kept the firmware up to date. 

Excellent. A lot of people didn't notice the firmware updates, so they don't have the ability to mount the PN-60s as disks. Although, come to think of it, that was a bigger problem with my PN-40, so maybe PN-60s all came with the disk access firmware.

5 hours ago, Mineral2 said:

As for the mapping, the PN-60 has 3.5 GB of internal storage, plus the ability to expand that storage with a microSD card up to 32GB. So my suggestion: just plop the cd or DVD in your new computer, assuming it came with an optical drive, and try to install the program. Install the entire map on your GPS. If you need to use a SD card to fit it all, then do so. In fact, this is the route I recommend. Once the map is installed, you'll never need to install the program on your computer again.

Well, you don't need Topo to load maps, either. I always copy them around through the disk access like PQs. But this is an interesting idea of loading all the maps. I thought there were way too many to load in 32GB all at once, so I've only loaded the ones I needed, which at this point is probably about half.

[+Mineral2]

I'd be surprised if a topo map of north america takes up 32 GB. The US map for Garmin is about 3 GB, granted it's a 1:100 scale. I'm not familiar to the Delorme product or how the PN-60 handles maps, but in Garmin GPS units, maps are broken up into tiles and a GPS has a tile limit - most of the units built around the time that the DeLorme units were developed had a 4000 tile limit. Newer GPS can handle more tiles.

[+dwayne23]

I will go and get some sd cards the old computer is barley making so I will try and load them on sd cards quickly.  There is 4 CD's and one of Canada.  

[+Mineral2]

CDs or DVDs? lol It will make a difference.

At this point, I'm also assuming that the PN-60 can read more than one map file at a time. If that's not true, then you may need to use the program to compile as much of the map as you can in a single file, and do the same with the rest of the map.

[+dprovan]

15 hours ago, Mineral2 said:

CDs or DVDs? lol It will make a difference.

At this point, I'm also assuming that the PN-60 can read more than one map file at a time. If that's not true, then you may need to use the program to compile as much of the map as you can in a single file, and do the same with the rest of the map.

They're DVDs, of course. Sorry, it's been so long since I saw a data CD, I'd forgotten there's a difference.

The PN-60 comes with 5 DVDs with 6+ GB of maps on each one, so I suppose that means you could cram them all onto a 32GB SD card. The reason I can't is that I've also downloaded a lot of additional delorme maps -- mostly imagery, actually -- that fills up half the disk. I suppose the OP won't be worried about that, so the idea of downloading all the maps that come in the base product seems more plausible now that I've thought about it.

Part of my problem is that I got in the habit of being miserly with PN disk space because my PN-40 only has a 8GB SD card. In case you're curious, the map DVDs delivered with my PN-40 in 2010 were exactly the same as the map DVDs delivered with my PN-60 a few years later. That's when I knew Delorme was going downhill. It's no longer a surprise when I run into roads that have been around as long as I can remember that aren't in the standard PN-60 maps...and vice versa.

Oh, just so you know: the maps are all independent -- five files cover California in a little over a GB -- but the PN-60 loads whatever's needed without the user knowing anything about the individual map files. It's as if there's a single map file, but it's done automatically by the GPSr, not by anything a program does before copying the files to the PN-60. As I said, I always copy the individual files by hand.

[+Mineral2]

Those are huge maps. Are they routable in addition to being topographic? Is the topo data at 1:24k resolution or higher?

 

[+dprovan]

4 hours ago, Mineral2 said:

Those are huge maps. Are they routable in addition to being topographic? Is the topo data at 1:24k resolution or higher?

 

I'm kinda surprised you're saying that since we started out -- I assumed -- expecting to put the entire map of North America into 32GB, and what I described lines up with that goal. Maybe I'm not clear in what way those maps are bigger than you expected.

I have to admit, I'm not sure what the terms you're using mean, so I'm only guessing at what you're asking. They are routable in that they have street information (but not trail information), so the GPSr can plot driving routes to any public road, at least as far as I've seen. I don't know what the resolution is off hand, I'll see if I can track it down later, but the precision is somewhat rough, close enough to get by, but I sometimes end up on the wrong side of a creek. Contour lines are good enough to give me the lay of the land, but not good enough for me to be able to see the actual altitude at any given point.

We're talking about the standard maps that come with the unit. Delorme also sold a subscription to their mapping service which provide maps that were theoretically better, although I didn't find the other maps very useful except for the ones that were essentially space imagery.

[+Mineral2]

Are the topo lines 20 feet, 40 feet, 100 feet?

Garmin units with a "t" added to the model name/number come preloaded with a topographic map of the US that has approximately the same detail as a USGS 100k quad, as opposed to their regional maps which come with detail more comparable to a 24k (7.5 minute) quad. The 100k map only covers the US, including Alaska and Hawaii, but does not include data for Canada. There's a lot of information, but the roads are not routable (they are on the regional/state maps which cost extra). For the US, that map comes in at around 3.4 GB in size. Garmin's purely routable map, City Navigator NA covers the US, Canada, and Mexico, does not have topographic and land use data (Beyond parks that show up green), but the streets are fully routable and comes in at just shy of 2 GB. So I suspect that if the topo map included Canada, it would be about twice the size, maybe 7 or 8 GB, plus 2 more GB to make it routable. So ~ 10 GB of data total.

So if the entire DeLorme map barely fits on a 32 GB sd card, it's either a more detailed map, or Garmin was better at data management. Garmin's maps are vector maps. If DeLorme's maps are raster images, then they will be much larger in file size.

[+dprovan]

Dunno anything about the maps, I just use them. I just looked, so I can tell you the topo lines are 20'.

[+Mn-treker]

On 2/11/2018 at 7:39 PM, dwayne23 said:

I had to get a new computer this weekend and it's windows 10 and Topo North America doesn't work with windows 10.  I also didn't know Delorme was part of Garmin now and Topo is not supported.  Does anyone know of a fix or I will have to figure out another good GPS to get.   

I am not sure why topo won't work on your windows 10 system. I have both topo 9 and topo 10 loaded and working on my windows 10 computer. An update knocked my topo 10 out for a bit. But a reinstall using the repair option fixed my topo10. Funny though that windows 10 update that knocked out topo10 did not knock out topo9. But yes TOPO 10 Northamerica should work on windows 10.

[+Team CowboyPapa]

DeLorme Topo North America 10.0 is running on this Windows 10 Home computer as I am typing.

The Elevation Interval varies:  ZL's 10, 11 & 12, 50 ft.; 13 & 14, 25 ft.; 14, 15, 16  & 17, 10 ft.

[+Mn-treker]

One possible reason for my TOPO is working. I also have IE 11 installed.

 

[+jimchest]

On 2/11/2018 at 8:39 PM, dwayne23 said:

I had to get a new computer this weekend and it's windows 10 and Topo North America doesn't work with windows 10.  I also didn't know Delorme was part of Garmin now and Topo is not supported.  Does anyone know of a fix or I will have to figure out another good GPS to get.   

VMWare is what I use to create a separate Virtual machine for my windows 7 setup.  Works fine.  Note it is free for home use.