You can take waypoints and tracks off the GPS memory, put them on your computer, and do some basic conversions on them.
To download the data off of the GPS you have to use something called Garmin Mapsource, which is basically Garmin’s software for interfacing with your GPS unit. With the Garmin units some corrections are applied, but your data isn’t as heavily manipulated and adjusted as when you get it off your phone.
That’s fine if you’re playing Pokemon GO, but if you’re looking to record GPS data or tracks, in the cleanest way possible, all those adjustments can really mess you up.
It uses position data from nearby cell towers, position data from wifi networks, position data from GPS, mixes them all up, and comes up with your position. When you use your cell phone’s GPS, the cell phone applies a whole bunch of corrections and adjustments to make your GPS behave like you’d expect it to. It knows what to do.Īnd, another plus: the GPS data isn’t so manipulated and distorted. I don’t have to go into a bunch of messy software settings in order to get a track recorded, or a waypoint stored.
Plus the recording features on my Garmin GPS are really convenient. With my Garmin GPS, I simply carry around or pack of AA batteries and whenever I run out (if I happen to run out, because this thing lasts forever on a pair of AA batteries) I simply pop out the old ones, and 30 seconds later I’m back in business. And if you’re out on the trail, in the middle of the rain, the last thing you want to be carrying around is a lithium battery. And don’t even start on the “solar cell phone charger” story or the “battery banks”… we all know those are just bulky toys you buy for your cell phone, hoping someday they might be useful but in the end you don’t get half as much use from them as you thought you might. You’ll probably end up without your phone for a couple hours, until you can find an outlet to charge from. If you’ve ever been away from civilization and run out of charge on your cell phone, you know how much of a pain that can be. Why do I still love this thing so much? Well it’s got several interesting advantages over a cell phone GPS: the biggest one is that is uses regular old AA batteries. But first hiking trips or visits to job sites you’ll probably see me carrying around my etrex. Even this far into the 21st century, when even the most basic cell phones have a built-in GPS unit, I refuse to give up on my Garmin.ĭon’t get me wrong I still use my cell phone’s GPS for the normal everyday stuff like driving, tagging photographs, the usual deals.
However, if you purchase a map upgrade, then the map download link will show up on the page listed above and you'll be able to load it to Mapsource.Call me old school, but I still love my Garmin eTrex Vista GPS. I'm not sure if the maps can be copied from one computer to the next. If you DON'T see the download link (maybe you bought a used GPS), you may be out of luck on the map upgrade.
Once the download finished, it'll install the files and you should be good to go.
Select just computer (you can also choose to keep the upgrade files on the PC) and then go away for an hour or so, depending on your internet connection speed. After that you should be able to get to a selection screen where you choose what you want to upgrade - GPS, Computer or Computer and GPS. Click on that, go through the Garmin Communicator plugin install. You will hopefully see a download link for the most recent copy of detailed maps available to you. Now you'll need to get into my. (you have already signed up, right?) and go to the myMaps tab. Once you've done all this, you'll find that Mapsource has a VERY basic basemap, with no detail. Again, make sure you gt the version that's correct for your OS.
Then download and install the Mapsource update file from the following link. Get that here - just make sure to pick the correct operating system version. You'll need to download the Training Center software first (it's free - Basecamp will probably work as well) and you'll probably never use it again, but it needs to be there first. Bit of a pain, but there is a workaround. But it does need some "other" Garmin software installed before it'll install itself. The Garmin website seems to imply that you need to buy a copy of Mapsource - not true. If you ever get a new computer or have to reimage or reinstall an existing one and don't have a CD to install Mapsource, or you bought a Garmin and it also didn't come with a Mapsource cd and you try to download the "update" Mapsource version, it'll just tell you that the update failed because you don't have an existing version.