+jacques0 Posted April 4, 2005 Share Posted April 4, 2005 The explorist series uses a patch antenna, with 14 parallel channels. Don't worry. It's very accurate. Quote Link to comment
+embra Posted April 4, 2005 Share Posted April 4, 2005 (edited) It'sa patch, although the preliminary reports still seem to give it good marks for reception. Edit: doh. Caught by the page change agin... Edited April 4, 2005 by embra Quote Link to comment
+EScout Posted April 4, 2005 Share Posted April 4, 2005 JohnnyVegas: regarding the USB cig lighter adapters: They usually come packaged with cell phone and PDA USB cables. I am sure they are available seperately. If you can't find one cheap, I will send you one. Regarding the antenna: The 500 it is a patch, but it appears to get very good reception holding it vertical also. It receives well in cars, and decently under tree cover, indoors, etc. Out in the open this morning on a hike, it showed tracking 14 sats (12 plus the 2 WAAS). It showed 7 Ft EPE/Accuracy, and testing it on several known waypoints it was right on. Regarding the Battery: Yesterday, I had the unit on for 12 hours, caching, transfering waypoints, actively using it. It showed about 3/8ths-40% left on the meter when I turned it off and started charging. Quote Link to comment
+JohnnyVegas Posted April 4, 2005 Author Share Posted April 4, 2005 Thanks, I will look for one, Re antenna I have used my Explorist 500 next to my Meridian gold and I did not see any difference in reception under trees. I am also getting the WAAS corrections on my explorist, in most cases it appears to be looked onto two WAAS birds. Quote Link to comment
SwissTeam Posted April 5, 2005 Share Posted April 5, 2005 I'm trying to save and upload data from MapSend DirectRoute to my Explorist 500, but when I'm saving the file to the hard disk, it is a .img file instead a .imi file which the 500 needs. The Magellan Conversion Manager is only accepting .imi files. How can I get DirectRoute to save as .imi? Any ideas? Thanks in advance! Quote Link to comment
+embra Posted April 5, 2005 Share Posted April 5, 2005 I'm trying to save and upload data from MapSend DirectRoute to my Explorist 500, but when I'm saving the file to the hard disk, it is a .img file instead a .imi file which the 500 needs. The Magellan Conversion Manager is only accepting .imi files. How can I get DirectRoute to save as .imi? Any ideas? Thanks in advance! Have you tried just renaming the file to end .imi? Somebody said that worked for wpt/poi files. Quote Link to comment
SwissTeam Posted April 5, 2005 Share Posted April 5, 2005 I'm trying to save and upload data from MapSend DirectRoute to my Explorist 500, but when I'm saving the file to the hard disk, it is a .img file instead a .imi file which the 500 needs. The Magellan Conversion Manager is only accepting .imi files. How can I get DirectRoute to save as .imi? Any ideas? Thanks in advance! Have you tried just renaming the file to end .imi? Somebody said that worked for wpt/poi files. Yes, I did. The conversion manager then dutifully converted the "fake" .imi file, but once I put the SD card in the 500 and I selected that region, the message said, that there was a error reading that file. Any recommendations out there ... ? Quote Link to comment
+embra Posted April 5, 2005 Share Posted April 5, 2005 I'll watch for any other bright ideas, too, but at this point I'd probably call Magellan and see what I could pull out of 'em. One would think this Conversion Manager would take the img file and, I dunno, convert it or something. Frustrating. I'm eager to hear how DR works on your 500 once you solve the puzzle. Quote Link to comment
+jacques0 Posted April 5, 2005 Share Posted April 5, 2005 escout...you've beaten me. I have very often had 12 sats., and occasionally 13, but never 14. Congratulations. What part of the country do you live in? I'm in N. Minnesota. Quote Link to comment
+JohnnyVegas Posted April 5, 2005 Author Share Posted April 5, 2005 (edited) I have not tried loding direct route into my Explorist but I have been able to load several Topo 3D maps into my Explorsit while the SD card is load in my GPS, I was also having problems with my Card reader (But my card reader has never worked very well) It only take a few minuted to load the SD card while it is in the GPS, so I am not sure there would be a great advantage to loading the card while in the Card reader. Edited April 5, 2005 by JohnnyVegas Quote Link to comment
+EScout Posted April 5, 2005 Share Posted April 5, 2005 jacques0 Posted on Apr 4 2005, 05:39 PM escout...you've beaten me. I have very often had 12 sats., and occasionally 13, but never 14. Congratulations. What part of the country do you live in? I'm in N. Minnesota I was in a very good spot for sat reception: In So. Calif, about a mile from the ocean, on a ridge, 700 foot elevation, with a clear view of both WAAS sats over open ocean. (The coast is east-west, ocean is south in this part of the coast, N33° 45') I tried changing the extension on a Topo 4.20 file and ran it through the conversion Manager.......it was sent to the SD card, but did not work, the 500 froze/hanged, and needed battery removal to turn off. Quote Link to comment
+Mr.BadExample Posted April 5, 2005 Share Posted April 5, 2005 Do you know if you'd be able to have maps from both Directroute and Topo 3D loaded on the 500 (one on internal, other on SD?) I'm trying to talk myself into upgrading from my Sportrak color Quote Link to comment
SwissTeam Posted April 5, 2005 Share Posted April 5, 2005 I'm trying to save and upload data from MapSend DirectRoute to my Explorist 500, but when I'm saving the file to the hard disk, it is a .img file instead a .imi file which the 500 needs. The Magellan Conversion Manager is only accepting .imi files. How can I get DirectRoute to save as .imi? Any ideas? Thanks in advance! Have you tried just renaming the file to end .imi? Somebody said that worked for wpt/poi files. Yes, I did. The conversion manager then dutifully converted the "fake" .imi file, but once I put the SD card in the 500 and I selected that region, the message said, that there was a error reading that file. Any recommendations out there ... ? O.K. Problem solved! Just talked to Tech Support, they told me to get the Explorist 500 Serial Number from the Explorist menu under "About" Explorist SN's start with 1. Unfortunatelly, I jused the SN which was in the batterie compartment, and there the SN started with 0. So DirectRoute thought that it is a Meridian GPS who's SN starts with 0. In short, if you need to put in your Explorist SN into DirectRoute, be sure to take it from the "About" screen and not from the back from the batterie comp. Also, if you are concerned about putting in the SN number into DR, Tech Supp. told me, that theoretically, you can enter in 3 different GPS SN per DirectRoute software, BUT there are according to Tech supp. 2 solutions to this, either you erase the registration file in DirectRoute which sets it back to 0, or you uninstall/reinstall DR. Quote Link to comment
+JohnnyVegas Posted April 5, 2005 Author Share Posted April 5, 2005 Do you know if you'd be able to have maps from both Directroute and Topo 3D loaded on the 500 (one on internal, other on SD?)I'm trying to talk myself into upgrading from my Sportrak color You can load as many maps as you like onto the SD card form Direct route or Topo 3D. Quote Link to comment
+Marky Posted April 5, 2005 Share Posted April 5, 2005 Also, if you are concerned about putting in the SN number into DR, Tech Supp. told me, that theoretically, you can enter in 3 different GPS SN per DirectRoute software, BUT there are according to Tech supp. 2 solutions to this, either you erase the registration file in DirectRoute which sets it back to 0, or you uninstall/reinstall DR. I've always figured that you must be able to do this, but I've never actually seen it spelled out anywhere and tech support told me that it wasn't possible, when I asked. This was just after DirectRoute was released and I didn't know there was a limit and I had foolishly offered to download a map to my friends old Mag 310 to see if we could get it would work and it used up my last DR SN available. I don't think we ever got it to work. Good to know that I can reset and use my DR and Topo 3D with my 600, when ever it gets here. --Marky Quote Link to comment
robertlipe Posted April 5, 2005 Share Posted April 5, 2005 I had foolishly offered to download a map to my friends old Mag 310 to see if we could get it would work I do note the occurrence of "foolishly" in that sentence, Marky, but since the 310 isn't even a mapping unit, that would have been quite a feat! Quote Link to comment
+JohnnyVegas Posted April 5, 2005 Author Share Posted April 5, 2005 I don't think we ever got it to work. Marky, but since the 310 isn't even a mapping unit, Maybe thats why Quote Link to comment
+Marky Posted April 5, 2005 Share Posted April 5, 2005 I had foolishly offered to download a map to my friends old Mag 310 to see if we could get it would work I do note the occurrence of "foolishly" in that sentence, Marky, but since the 310 isn't even a mapping unit, that would have been quite a feat! Maybe it was a 315. I know it was some rediculously old unit that we had no right to be even trying to get it to work on since it had like only 4 megs of map space. People who know me well know not to trust my memory and just correct my mistakes for me in their heads. Just insert some old Mag unit that does maps and that will work for the story. --Marky Quote Link to comment
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