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Appreciate the advice from both Boyd and Seldom...I had decided on the Dakota 10 even with the memory constraints. But when I went to Amazon to make my purchase, there was the Dakota 10 for $100.49!! Couldn't believe it! It is not refurbished (or at least I have a description of New). I don't have it in hand yet, but supposedly it has shipped.

Once again, thank you both for your insight.

I am planning on purchasing a GPS for my daughter and her boyfriend; they do a lot of hiking and bike riding. I have pretty much settled on either the eTrex 20 or the Dakota 10, fairly equal price points on Amazon. The major difference seems to be Touchscreen on the Dakota vs expandable memory via an sd card on the eTrex. I have an Oregon450 and really like the touchscreen but I have some concerns about the 850MB limit on this unit. If I look at some maps I dl'd from this site, the *.img files can be as high as 600-700MB (eg, Northeast Topo Part 1) which seems to be getting seriously close to the Dakota limit.

Am I estimating the space on device correctly here? and what advice can you offer to help differentiate between the two units? Is 850MB sufficient for general recreational use?

Thanks so much for any advice!

John

I think if you locate the directory where you first installed the map you'll find an uninstall.exe Run that and you should be good to go.
Can't help with the second question on backup, sorry

I'm also a little bummed as I wanted to try and accomplish pretty much the same things as you have posted. There was a thread on a similar topic in another forum: http://forums.gpsreview.net/viewtopic.php?t=23222   I'll restate one more possibility for you to consider. Many of the hikes that I was looking for had 'tracks' already posted somewhere online. Lots of different hiking sites contain these gpx or gdb files that you can download to your handheld and follow while you're hiking. Last weekend I hiked the Knob Mountain/Jeremy's run trail in the Shenandoah national Park. There were at least a couple of postings where folks had saved their track and shared it online. These tracks can viewed over the topo's available on this site and you're good to go.

Got a track?  If I remember correctly, the NPS data I have for shenodoh sucks.

jbensman, I think this is what you were asking me?

Here's one example of what I meant:
http://www.hikingupward.com/SNP/JeremysRun/
The links to the gps files can be found in the yellow shaded area near the top of the page. The *.gdb file appeared to work fine today (I did get a Save File message box) but the *.gpx file caused an error.
Here's another link for the same hike:
http://www.midatlantichikes.com/id82.html
gps file link is below the topo pictured

I'm also a little bummed as I wanted to try and accomplish pretty much the same things as you have posted. There was a thread on a similar topic in another forum: http://forums.gpsreview.net/viewtopic.php?t=23222   I'll restate one more possibility for you to consider. Many of the hikes that I was looking for had 'tracks' already posted somewhere online. Lots of different hiking sites contain these gpx or gdb files that you can download to your handheld and follow while you're hiking. Last weekend I hiked the Knob Mountain/Jeremy's run trail in the Shenandoah national Park. There were at least a couple of postings where folks had saved their track and shared it online. These tracks can viewed over the topo's available on this site and you're good to go.

Not trying to add to the confusion, but I am running Windows 7 Home Premium on a 64 bit system and have not experienced a problem with any of the maps available here or OpenStreetMap for that matter. I also have both Mapsource and Basecamp loaded and running smoothly.

First, let me thank all of the map authors and posters on this forum. You all have made learning the ins 'n outs of my Oregon 450 a lot more enjoyable. Your expertise and patience is really appreciated.

I am still struggling with the differences in Routes vs Tracks. I realize that a Route represents a collection of way points which I want to follow (future tense) and a Track is a collection of way points that I (or someone else) collected (past tense). But is there something more fundamental than that?

For example, I am planning a backpacking trip in the Shenandoah next month and would like to have the trail I selected highlighted on my GPS. I have done this on a local walk around my area, I load the Track and follow it, the GPS shows me via the location symbol when I stray from the intended course. What got me confused however, is when I dl'd the file of the Shenandoah hike I'm planning, it was in *.gpx format. I used GPSBabel to convert to *.gdb. The thing is that GPSBabel asked whether I wanted to load a Track, Way point, or Route.

Bottom line to my long winded question is this: isn't the difference between a Route and a Track simply one of tense? or is there something more?
Thanks again for all your help
John

First, a disclaimer, I am no expert but have been wrestling with some of the issues you've raised.
From my point, I think you might be asking a little too much, but maybe not...If you can do all of the items on your list with just a paper topo laid out in front of you, then maybe you're all set. I for one probably couldn't, except roughly. For example, I could navigate along a stream bed, but that doesn't mean that I could pre-locate a spot to get access. Same way for an overnight spot, the conturs are at best good for 20' or so, what they don't show might rule out lots of sites, (boulders, tree stands, who  knows)
If you can get trail head info from a Park or other source, then you should be able to list it as a way point and send it to your gps. For example, the organization that covers portions of the Appalachian Trail has guidebooks and maps with that kind of info. You might need to get precise location coordinates though.
Detailed trail 'tracks' can be located online for some/many trails. These tracks are way point collections that someone else has recorded when they hiked that particular trail. You can download them as gdb or gpx files; at that point you could consider them 'routes' on your gps. If the author located water access, campsites etc, then you would have that information as contained in his file. (Here is a sample for one in the Shenandoah Forrest, VA  http://www.hikingupward.com/SNP/JeremysRun/      Look for the 5th or 6th point in the table near the top where it lists gbd or gpx files. When you open in Mapsource or Basecamp, the trail is visible. Hope this helps some. Good luck
J

Clearly screwed up as I intended to only quote a few lines from Boyd's post. Sorry

John

That will best be answered by playing with them, there is some overlap but they're really very different. But do it this way (the order is important)

Just curious why the order is important? I too purchased an OR 450 based on high marks it receives in this forum (especially from Boyd!), installed Mapsource and was up and away. Figured I'd see what Basecamp brought to the party and so installed that one a few weeks later. As far as I can tell, both are working fine, no conflicts, and I can see all the maps (thanks to GPSFileDepot and all of the generous talent represented) that I've downloaded in both applications.

John

I'm in Delaware. But it sounds like my problem is that I thought I should be able to see the transparent map in Map Source. I'll try sending it to the gps and see how well that flies. Thanks all.

I'm also having some trouble viewing transparent maps over other installed maps, but I'm chalking it up to being very new to this whole area. In any case, I recently downloaded teh transparent map "My Trails", but when I view it in Map Source, I see essentially no detail at all. I can't figure out how to get Map Source to 'select' more than one map in its pull down menu. I have not tried viewing My Trails on my device (Oregon 450); perhaps that's the real problem...transparent maps are only suitable for viewing on a device, and not through Map Source.
On a different note, thanks to all of you experts, this is THE site for learning some of these technologies. You are all so extremely generous with your time/replies and expertise.