GPS delima

Submitted: Wednesday, Apr 27, 2005 at 22:32

ThreadID: 22436 Views:2192 Replies:3 FollowUps:5

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Swoosh

Ive worked my way from the basic to the Garmin 276C is a powerful, expensive GPS.
It does everything which I suppose many would say is unnecessary. However, my only concern is the GARMIN compac flash storage card. As such, buying additiion cards is very expensive. Any comments on this GPS.

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Reply By: Member - Tim - Thursday, Apr 28, 2005 at 11:45

Thursday, Apr 28, 2005 at 11:45

Hi Swoosh,

I have the 276c. Love it since I use it both in the car and the boat. Haven't had to get out the UBD for around Brisbane for ages. I have a 128mb card in it and that fits the Blue charts for the region, the Metro Guide for the whole of Australia and the City Navigator for the whole of Australia. Only issue I have is that it does not seamlessly swap between the city navigator and metroguide if I want to find a location in a regional city, I have to turn off the city navigator maps to get the detail of the metroguide. Only problem as with all of the mapping gps is the lack of ability to load your own maps for those areas where the coverage is not great. Actually there is one other problem, I spent almost as much on maps and software as I did on the gps in the first place and I am about to spend some more on Oziexplorer and some maps to go with that.

Tim.

AnswerID: 108572

Follow Up By: Member - Barry T (NSW) - Thursday, Apr 28, 2005 at 14:55

Thursday, Apr 28, 2005 at 14:55

The 276C is a great GPS, I have the 176C which I just use on the boat now. I recently bought the Garmin 60CS which is a more flexible device than my 176 but use it with Ozi to manage all the map images.
I just create my waypoints on the PC, create a route, upload both to the GPS and then check detail on the PC if required - like any unclear junctions that appear between waypoints.
Cheers, Barry

FollowupID: 365351

Follow Up By: Big Woody - Thursday, Apr 28, 2005 at 16:50

Thursday, Apr 28, 2005 at 16:50

Hi Barry,

I also have the Garmin Map 60CS. I use it in the boat and the bush and have the Garmin Bluecharts and the Garmin Metroguide.

I see in your post you use it with Oziexplorer software. Can you tell me how this is done and do you know if any topographical maps can be loaded into our GPS or do you just use the waypoints and routes on the Basemap of the GPS?

I am guessing from your post that you might also have a laptop in your car for checking map details. Is this correct?

Regards,
Brett

FollowupID: 365388

Follow Up By: Member - Barry T (NSW) - Thursday, Apr 28, 2005 at 17:15

Thursday, Apr 28, 2005 at 17:15

Hi Brett,
Basically the GPS just feeds NMEA (position data) into the PC via cable and the Ozi s/w then displays your position on the loaded map. I use a laptop for checking detail when I get stuck/have doubts :-)
I plan to get a touch screen one day (check them out at the National 4WD show), so I can wedge the laptop out of the way and still be upto-date when checking position. Unfortunately you can't load bitmap files into the Garmin (or any other GPS), they use vector maps in a proprietary format. I'm becoming a bit of a map collector since it's so easy to load different maps while retaining all your track detail - Ozi even locates the new map in the same relative position, :-)
Re your question, yes, I create my way points/routes on the computer and upload into the GPS. The way points can be closely spaced for confidence or just sanity checks at each turning. The PC gets hauled out and connected if I'm really unsure. Just select 'Get track from GPS' to see where you have been.
As I said in a previous post, the Auslig 250k maps are really useful for 4WDing. The Hema maps have reasonable track detail and a heap of locality information - pity we can't post screen shots of bit maps here.
Regards, Barry

FollowupID: 365394

Follow Up By: Big Woody - Thursday, Apr 28, 2005 at 20:56

Thursday, Apr 28, 2005 at 20:56

Thanks for the reply Barry.

I contacted my brother who owns a communications business in Victoria this afternoon and he tells me to expect Garmin Topographical maps after mid year.
Sounds good if it happens.

Regards,
Brett

FollowupID: 365445