Messages

Cheese_Spread_Butties 
Yes the maps are pretty good, the imagery is more real to the eye, but does lack the precision and crispness that a line and symbol drawing has. The BirdsEye Imagery, the bitmap looks crisp also. When enabled Yes  the display is about half as fast as without it, but when zoomed in, it travels along with you pretty good, kinda neat 

I'm not sure but will check to where the maps are located, they might just be on the unit not the card. Great tip I'm going to do that  , (totally because Garmin yes puts their maps onto a card, their system is build around a card.    SUPER TIP THANKS.
B

Boyd, Thanks for your help 
Drawing and data display have come a long ways in the last 20 years, from diskettes to these tiny GB chips and then we have the cloud. Your drawings are cool, wow using the repository as a base, neato. Your system manages the roadnet text, line weight and color?              Are there also behind the scene triggers to capture data at intervals? There are some big systems out there that need live data (or maybe just daily, weekly or monthly cuts).

When working, our department used at times a large construction GPS (using.. can't recall what sw  ) in which we would load civil utility, property maps. We'd clip a piece from the orthophotos and display them similar to the BirdsEye. Also with AutoCAD Map we'd clip a piece of the drawings and load them to the GPS. We'd use this so a field worker could update database properties, then have his results loaded back to main for updates.

These days with my new toy  , I get to wander new trails I've dreamed of for years.

I found a couple individual rechargeable AA's that had gone bad, they didn't hold a charge like their mate (have kept them as pairs for a few years now). I pulled them out and have mated the good ones into a pair as third string backup. And yes the backlight, found it with a long push on the power button, now have it displaying at about 25% brightness rather than 100%, that will help conserve some juice.

I find the GPSmap 62s (2011 era) faster to display maps than the older eTrek (2005 era). The eTrek was a great compact unit, displaying 4 levels of grey but was only soso in deep forest; it worked ok as a trail head locator or for navigation in a whiteout or thick fog. I picked up the 62s used and it will be easier to keep the collection of maps I have available and ready to go. Prior to this, the Etrek's 8mb of internal only memory wasn't quite enough and I needed to switch maps between a winter and summer use (Backcountry skiing, Mtn Biking/Hiking). I used IMG2GPS to transfer .img files to the GPS, com/rs232 port and a baud rate of 57600, it would take 30 minutes to transfer 8mb. Basecamp works better, so much better with the 62s.

The ease of enabling map sets I'll try to keep only loading the specific map for the task at hand (32mb on the gps and 16gb card is lots now). I like the GPS unit for its ability to navigate while out of cell phone coverage. I live in Alberta Canada and enjoy adventures in the local Rocky Mountains, some areas don't have cel coverage. I also have an older Garmin 301 that I used for fitness with a heart rate monitor, it outperforms my Fitbit watch as it's a bit bigger so I notice it more and make a conscience effort to turn it on at the trailhead, where the watch at times I forget, plus the watch then also needs an app to run on my iPhone and that draws the phone battery down, nothings perfect, the 62s I hope will be for hiking and skiing adventures.

Regarding routing, I wasn't sure if that was something useful on the trail. I've navigated waypoint to waypoint or followed my previous track, or navigated using a summer hiking trail while skiing when a brief snow whiteout blew in, it was helpful in navigating the top of a rock band then down along a ramp. Following a download GPX will be something new to use, I presume similar to following a trail marked on the map.
The map pan and zoom speed of this units seems much better than what I was used too before, memory card I'm using is a Kingston 16gb Micro SDHC Class 10 UHS-1 80MB/s R 10MB/s W ($10 cdn).

I followed your link to your boydsmaps online, pretty cool. Cooks maps as an intro, wow, cartography yes, this is cool. I like the looks and color of your Boyds Map of the Pines HD, love the colors. I was a draftsman for 36 years, 7 years pen and ink, 12 years Intergraph Microstation, 17 years AutoCAD Map (10cm pixel resolution orthophotos, dem with breaklines for a ground model, datums and coordinate systems) we were looking at ERSI when I retired (local municipal government was using it for their mapping and we could get update from their cycle, was to save some effort on our part).

I've no BirdsEye subscription, but I tested it and was able to get an demo area covering 5.6 X 4.0Km (22 sq km) of the local city streets and nice walking park. Looks pretty good like what you might get with Google Earth zoomed into the neighborhood, I can see a 1-2m pixel. I see in the BirdsEye Imagery dialog, number of images 1665, downloaded completed 1655, downloads failed 0, 18.3mb. Previous owner must have used lots of these.

Thanks for your explanation regarding Routable and Transparent maps.
I see now a variety of configurable options within each profile and with the activity option, I need to ensure this is setup properly.

Hum, I noticed within the profiles, there are various screen layouts, colors and sounds which are again different between the profiles. Could I select a profile that looks what I like, then copy and rename to My Profile, then review and change as needed to help get me a profile that I like or would that not be a good idea?

Also do you know if the unit consumes more battery power if more maps, waypoints or routes are available within its memory or if that does really impact its use?

I'm coming from a Garmin ETrek Legend (8mb Blue), now I have a GPSMap62s and need a bit of clarification regarding the new capabilities, how to tame this thing.

I have basecamp running, no Garmin dedicated maps, just maps from this site I believe.
Mainly use the GPS while hiking or skiing on trails I've not been on before, but have been trying things out in the city before actually relying on it in the backcountry.

What in you experience is the best method, pro's/cons of each for traveling on unknown trails
1) waypoint to waypoint
or
2) create a route or a track then follow that

3) The unit has different profiles, some give a calculation error when trying to navigate to a waypoint.
(At first I thought it might have been due to the maps not being routable, not exactly sure what that is, not familiar with this option from the older eTrek Legend)


4) I see within the Maps I have, the Southern Alberta Trail Map is routable, what does that mean and what does that allow me to do over the non-routable Ibycus maps v4?

5) Any idea if these maps are routable?
Worldwide DEM Basemap,NR
OpenMapChest Canada 2020.04.17


6) If a map is transparent what does that help or do?
How can I tell if a map is Transparent?
If two maps are transparent, which map is displayed?


Thanks in advance for your responses, this site is really helpful, 
Thanks again 
Barry