Can't Interface Etrex Legend And Laptop

[+Team Romo]

Hello all,

 

First time visiting. Can't seem to get my GPS to connect to my laptop computer. I have a Garmin eTrex Legend with a serial cable. I do not have a serial port on my laptop, but have purchased and IOGEAR GUC232A serial/USB adapter which I have just installed. I would like to upgrade the firmware from garmin and begin using EasyGPS, but have not been able to make the connection. I do not have a single clue about serial data formats and which I should select. Any information you can provide will either help me figure this out or dump the adapter and find some other way. I do not use any MapSource CDROM software yet, and it will be a while before I can afford it. Not sure what the various formats mean, but the only difference I can see is that my computer automatically selects 9600 Baud and can't be changed. Thanks

[+Maxine&Me]

I have had issues with USB to serial adapters not working in other situations (non-GPS). You may want to look in device manager (assuming Windows) and ensure that the Operating System sees the adapter. Is there an option to select the COM: port you want it to emulate? Try selecting different ones.

 

To interface with Easy GPS ensure the interface on the GPS is set to GARMIN format. If you are wanting to interface with MAPSource you need to change this seeting to NEMA.

 

Hope this helps

[+Team Romo]

AHA!!!!

 

I figured it out. Thanks for the help in regards to GARMIN format and the fact that after careful searching on other threads I found that just "creating" COM5 and having my laptop search for my GPSr on COM5 worked great. Finished updating the firmware and even copied my waypoints to EasyGPS from the Legend. I am completely psyched knowing that I now have more power at my hands to just go and have fun. I appreciate all the help and the nice folks who geocache. Perhaps we'll run into each other on the trail somewhere. Thanks again.

 

RomoFam