DeLorme Earthmate

[+Pat in Louisiana]

Does anyone know anything about the DeLorme Earthmate? We travel a fair amount and the Wife always brings her laptop. Is it worth the money or should I just stick with my Legend?

 

Pat in Louisiana

 

I never get lost. I simply investigate alternate destinations.

[GLSailor]

Pat,

 

I have an even earlier version called Tripmate and was able to make it work with Delormes Street Atlas with few problems (it sometimes takes a long time to lock onto sats.)

 

Downside: the unit eats batteries pretty quickly 4-AAs last about 6 hours at best. FWIW, you might be better off getting a serial cable and attaching your GPS to the laptop and working out the compatibility issues from there. Garmin is pretty good about attaching to and communicating with various mapping programs.

 

GLSailor

[peter]

Your Legend will work fine with DeLorme's Street Atlas software, so I see no reason to get the Earthmate. If you'd sometimes be using the Legend when your wife would also want a GPSr to connect to the laptop I'd suggest getting a second stand-alone unit. That way it's a good backup to your current one. It also has the advantage that you can use Street Atlas to download routes to the GPSr and leave the laptop at home for shorter outings.

[oldforester]

Pat

 

I have an earthmate with GPS PostPro, TopoUSA 3.0 & Solus 3.0 I use with my Palm IIIxe. I can download maps to the Palm with solus from topousa and follow where I go on the palm screen. Post pro allows me to download info from the palm and "correct" it to accuracy of a meter or two. It all works pretty good if you don't mind bateries, cables, and computer time to get the accuracy. It's all compact and easy to use in the woods but lacks "goto" and a a good user interface. If the unit you have now works with your laptop, it's at least as good as the earthmate. If your unit can be plugging into the vehicle electricity, all the better.

 

For traveling, get the Delorme atlas for the state you're traveling. It requires no batteries, has all sorts of information about sites to vistit like museums, campgrounds, histoical, etc., topo contours, topo colors, all the roads you ever need to explore, allows you to mark things with a pen or pencil and costs about $20 per state. I carry the New England states in my truck all the time.

 

oldforester

[+Zinnware]

I have an Earthmate that I use with a laptop. I use it for Car Navigation and have used it to map Bike trails as well. I also have a Garmin eTrex Vista.

 

I recommend you get the USB cable for the Earthmate to avoid the need for batteries when connecting to your Laptop. If your laptop does not have a USB, then I see no need to buy the Earthmate because the Legend should work fine. Garmin does sell a cable to insert and power some models via the cigarette lighter. I see no difference in the software performance when using either my Earthmate or eTex with the Delorme software. I am happy with mine, and use the eTrex when going on hikes and backpacking. I use both the Street Atlas Deluxe for car navigation and Topo 3.0 for mapping trails. I like the Voice command and voice response features of the Street Atlas Deluxe.

[+Borgt]

I sold my Earthmate so I could buy my eTrex Legend. The eTrex does everything the Earthmate did, and more. It can hook up to the laptop used with several software programs.

[+haygood]

I just got my New Earthmate and Street Atlas 2004 and I love it. No batteries for the GPS, but the program takes a couple of minutes to boot on a 1.8 GHz machine. GPS locks on quick. I'm trying to find some older software that might work on my older 166MHz laptop.

[+Prime Suspect]

Stick with the Legend. Get a combo power/data cord, and you're all set.

 

"Don't mess with a geocacher. We know all the best places to hide a body."

[+George501949]

You can get a cord to plug your Legend into your laptop.

 

Lets have fun out there, we are.

[+Trek Trio]

Pat<BR><BR>I have an earthmate with GPS PostPro, TopoUSA 3.0 & Solus 3.0 I use with my Palm IIIxe.  I can download maps to the Palm with solus from topousa and follow where I go on the palm screen.  Post pro allows me to download info from the  palm and "correct" it to accuracy of a meter or two.  It all works pretty good if you don't mind bateries, cables, and computer time to get the accuracy....<BR><BR>For traveling, get the Delorme atlas for the state you're traveling.  It requires no batteries, ....<BR><BR><BR>oldforester

How did you get the Earthmate to work with the Palm? I have an old serial Earthmate that I am attempting to connect to a Palm tungsten via a null modem connector. It works erratically at best. My current theory is that the battery on the Tungsten drops voltage quickly and doesn't put enough signal on the DTR pin to get the Earthmate to respond.

 

And I endorse keeping the Delorme state maps (I think they call them Gazettes) in the car. Lots of information at hand for not much money.

[Overland1]

I also have a TripMate, which I will soon offer for sale because I will be getting a new USB EarthMate (along with the StreetAtlas 2004 software, as a package..... maybe a Christmas package?????).

 

First, the TripMate has been a great receiver which has never let me down. I installed the jumper to allow running it from a 12-volt DC source after tiring of supporting the Energizer Bunny for several years. Running a cigar-lighter 'Y'-adapter to run the unit and the laptop, I was never out of power (nor satellite range).

 

I now have a Sony VAIO FRV-37, which requires almost 20 VDC, so the AC adapter is a must while on the road. I have connected this to an inverter and all works well; the 'Y' adapter will no longer be necessary because the TripMate will be powered from the USB line.

 

The advantage of having a separate hand-held GPS (Vista) and the TripMate/laptop setup is that they can be used simultaneously at different locations. If my wife wants to use the laptop to locate something (or somebody) during a SAR operation, I can be on foot, bicycle, or motorcycle with the Vista.

 

One must decide whether or not the handheld and the laptop GPS receivers need to be used separately. The disadvantage, as stated above, is the higher cost of having two receivers.

[+Ish-n-Isha]

Get the earthmate USB and when you get to a cache jump out with your Garmin and find it. Your batts will last longer and fooling around with cables every stop is a real waste of time. Your garmin wont auto route so click your next waypoint before you leave the car and when you get back you'll be ready to drive!

[DaMoosen]

Do you need the Earthmate GPS software to run a Legend with Street Atlas 2003 from DeLORME?

Or, is there ETrex specific software that you need?

I am trying to understand these permutations of "unit-to-laptop-[which]software". I want to avoid buying cables/GPS software/map-paks that I don't need or will be less than satisfied with.

[+Ish-n-Isha]

Pretty much any GPS connected to a laptop is reduced to a simple GPS reciever. The software on the laptop is what is used for maps, routing ect.

[Captain Chaoss]

we have a Magellan MAP 300 that came with a combo PC/12 volt connector. We have a laptop running Delorme Street Atlas 2003 USA. The system is great for "on the fly" routing.

 

Its a little bulky; thinking a PDA rather than the laptop might be better - IF a PDA is powerful enough to run this type of software (?) I also have considered the earthmate unit, but I think a 2nd stand alone unit (happy anniversary honey is a better idea. i like to have the gps set with a straightline GOTO my waypoint as a backup to the travel route of the laptop software.