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Dakota 20

Started by Scorpio49, January 10, 2012, 12:10:01 PM

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Scorpio49

Considering the purchase of Dakota 20.  If I purchase a 4g or 8g  SD cards what capacity of maps would these hold? I live in Georgia can I fit Southeast U.S. maps? What would you recommend to install?

Also trhoughts on the Dakota 20?

Seldom

4G is the useful limit for vector maps, but memory over that can be used for raster graphics.

You can figure out how much memory a given map takes precisely by downloading it and installing it in MapSource or BaseCamp.  Selecting all the maps you want to send to your GPSr will give you a precise total. 

If you are looking for a SWAG approximation, figure about 1.25 times the size of the installer file you see on this site.  That should account for file compression in the installer. 

Since there is no charge for the download, I suggest the former method.

EagleBoy

I like my D20 except for the slightly finicky power switch.  the latest update lets you add JPGs to the image viewer and geotag photos.  Or even put your electronic airline boarding pass on it!

Boyd

You shouldn't need anywhere near 4GB to load the maps you describe. In fact, they will probably fit into internal memory with lots of room to spare. I'd say the main consideration regarding memory card size is whether you plan to subscribe to Birdseye. If you want to cover a large area with the highest quality imagery, that takes a lot of space. I have a 16GB card that is almost full.

However, keeping that much data on the card really slows down the boot process, which I find frustrating personally. I would just wait until I got the unit and figure out what your needs are before buying any card. Or maybe you have one lying around the house already, from some other device?

Oldy

Today new on the forum but "Old" on the GPS.
You can use a 16 Gb Micro-card in the Dakota 20. It has to be SDHC. Class-nr just tells something about read/write speed. I always use Class 2. Use a small USB-Card-reader for sending maps (gmapsupp.img's). The USB-bus in the Dakota is very slow. For a Dakota you can rename these maps to: country.img. Don't forget to make a Garmin directory on it to place the maps in it.
If you merge maps together don't overwrite 4 Gig; Vectormaps do work, but very slow. Bitmaps have no limit. Best way to have a speed boot: put the renamed maps on the SD in a different directory and only the map you use in the Garmin directory. Connected to the/a computer you can always manage them from one dir to another. I always travel with2 SD's and a small USB-cable in the small GPS-bag(Countries N-Europe and countries S-Europe).