Magellan Uploads

Hello - havent had a Meridian for a while so a bit rusty on possible issues. Need some clarifciation on your specific problem though....How are you uploading regions if the serial cable is not working as you state? Are you using a card reader for this?

With GPS connected and turned on have you tried (within DiscoverAus) using the auto detect function (OPTIONS - GPS SETTINGS - AUTODETECT) - this will search available com ports for your GPS unit. If you have tried this (and failed) then your com port is being used by some other device (even if not plugged in) - this sometimes happens if you have a PDA (or similar device) that plugs into serial port - you need to disable this....unfortuantely my PC does not have a serial port and I have forgotten how you do this ..maybe someone else can provide advice (assuming this is your probelm).

Cheers
Greg

Not sure but i didnt see if you said the computer was a desktop or notebook and it may make no difference anyway, but it could be worth goign to the BIOS setup of the computer when you turn it on at startup.

Usually yu press the ESC button or F1 or somethign to go into this mode. HOWEVER be very careful in here if you change settigns that you don't understand you can completely disable the PC.

What i suggest you look ofr in here is to check that the COM port is actually enabled as in some cases it might be disabled and thus nothgin you try will work.

Usually it is on by default but if the computer is second hand or previoulsy had other devices connected that conflicted with the com port then someone may have disabled it.

The other quick check of the com port is do you ahve any other serial devices, like a mouse or modem that you could plug in and see if they work before tryign lots of other things.

In order to troubleshoot this kind of thing the following alwyas helps me,

1/ get a logical order
2/ only change one variable at a time
3/ elimanate or confirm things are workign or not one at a time in ease of testing

Therefore in your case i would try the following,

1/ try a device on the com port to find out wheter anythgin works on it
1 a) if nothign works on the com port move then check the bios settings
1 b) if the bios settings are on there may be a faulty com port

2/ if possible try the cable for the GPS on anohter computer
2 a) if this works you know it is not the GPS or the cable
2b) if this fails try the settigns on the GPS
it is highly improbable two PC's will both hav ethe same com port faults

If you can elimaante the fault to weihter the GPS or the com port quickly you will save an awful lot of time mucking around trying thigns that will only get other items more stuffed up.

I also have the Meridian Gold GPS and have had no problemsa with the linking at all with my notebook and can upload and downlaod the tracks and routes and regions at will, did it only earlier this week.

Hope some of the above helps.

Mark

Greg ,

These are three quotes from your emails from when I had this problem - I am not sure , but I think you wrote them when I had this problem .

"Hello mate - as mentioned in my first post there are two file formats used by Magellan Meridians (and FX units I assume) - files saved to your SD card are in a different format to that used by DAST and GDT (or any Magellan software for that matter) which are downloaded direct from the GPSs INTERNAL memory. Files saved to your SD card direct from Meridian GPS CAN NOT be opened using these Magellan mapping programs - they can only be utilised by the GPS "

"Hello - Magellan GPS units use two different formats for data storage. Data save to SD card is in a different format to that used when saving files direct to Magellan software. You have 2 options
1. Reload the data to a Magellan GPS, connect to a PC and use the track or waypoint menus in the Magellan sofware to "download from GPS"
2. Convert the SD stored data using GPSBabel and then use the track or waypoint menus in the Magellan software to "load from file."

"Willie - hello mate - found a new way to open SD card saved track files in DiscoverAus - change the extension to *.txt and import as a text file (Track - import - select text files). Not sure if it works in reverse but worth a try "

Greg - I hope it is OK to reproduce them here . You can see I value them as I have saved them all .

Cheers ,

Willie

Thanks everyone for your advise and especially Willie, that changing the file works great. Someone might have to tell Magellan to write a new mamual for DAST,thanks again guys.
Cheers Bruce