GPS & Laptop & Map Point 2002 ???? HELP!

[HillbillyBiker]

I really want to get started in this new adventure, but haven't purchased my GPS yet..trying to get the biggest Bang for my bucks, If I end up buying Meridian Gold,can I incorporate my laptop and Microsoft Map Point somehow? or do I need to buy Mapsend etc. I don't want to limit the GPS ONLY for Geocaching after passing out the bucks..gotta show the "BETTER HALF" it was worth the $$$ so want to impress her of ALL the different uses!!!! What all is possible when you unite the Laptop & GPS? Already have the compass & maps but NOT the knowledge, so fixin to make the GPS purchase soon!

[radpsxlist]

I recently purchased a Garmin etrex. I tried it out with a laptop and Map Point 2001. It worked great. I think the only thing you need to make sure it has it the capability of sending and receiving in NMEA 2.0. If you look at the help in Map Point it will tell you what you need.

[zapped]

I also have the standard (yellow) eTrex ($89 at Fry's). I use it to talk to my Toshiba laptop which has no legacy (serial/parallel) ports, so I'm forced to go thru the Garmin eTrex-to-serial cable to a USB-to-serial adapter, to the laptop's USB port. Amazingly, it works fine with the following three programs I own:

 

1) Delorme TopoUSA 2.0 with the TopoUSA patch from their website, eTrex talking in "Garmin" mode. Download/upload waypoints, route, and tracklog just fine. TopoUSA 3.0 has come out since, and 4.0 is due out in April. I haven't tested either of these programs.

 

2) Delorme Street Atlas USA 8.0 works with eTrex again in "Garmin" mode. The "talking" feature of the program, which verbally informs you when turns on your route are coming up, is really nifty! Have not tried upload/download since I use this program only for navigating.

 

3) Microsoft MapPoint 2002, works with eTrex in "NMEA" mode only as far as I can tell. Still it does what it's supposed to - places your location on the map & pans when it needs to. MapPoint has the most primitive GPS display since the current location is an icon of a circle with a car inside it, with no direction show. Both Delorme products show direction, and TopoUSA also shows bearing and speed details in a sub-window.

 

Whichever hardware/software you buy, try to buy it from a local store with a liberal return policy. Play with the interface in both the hardware & software to see if NMEA or a native manufacturer's mode works. Make sure you don't have ANY devices using the serial port you hook the GPS to (e.g. PalmPilot's HotSync running in the background sometimes causes problems

[muddy_shoes]

I'm just getting acquainted with my Meridian Platinum. It works fine with Streets and Trips 2002. The Meridians can output NMEA data in three different revisions, and at several different speeds. You'll need to set it to NMEA 2.0 and 4800 baud for most mapping software to be happy.

 

I also bought MapSend Topo for Meridian. It has all of the streets, as well as elevation stuff.

 

I questioned the value of the compass and altimeter in the Platinum, but now that I've used it, I like it a lot. Because you get direction info even when not moving, I can stop for a moment and let it get a solid location fix. Then just slowly turn until the desired point is straight ahead and walk the distance to the waypoint. As might be expected, however, the compass does not work well in the car.

 

Rick WØYGH Belton, MO

N 38°49.370 W 094°33.150