Need help finding a GPS and software combo

[rash_powder]

Hello all,

 

I am hoping that you guys can help me here.

 

I currently have an eXplorist 500, and the accompanying software. This unit is used primarily for hunting. What I would like to do is to be able to draw fence lines, or borders, of landowners property so that I can have all the places we have permission to hunt loaded into the GPS. This would be nice because then I could get the property descriptions from the county and have the exact borders in, preventing me from inadvertently trespassing. It has been a while since I last looked, but I do not believe that I can do this with this unit and software.

 

So, I am not afraid of having to get a new GPS. I would rather like it, actually, if I can find one that will do the mapping I want from above and maybe have a few driving features in it also.

 

Being there are so many to choose from, I am having problems making an educated decision as to which one will be the right one.

 

Any recommendations?

 

Thanx,

 

Matt

[+Native20559]

Easy enough to accomplish with what you have. Being a avid bowhunter myself, I'd always walked the perimeter of the property (if possible) while preseason scouting and saved it as a track. Color the track nice and bright and your set.

 

Recently though I bought the bundled Delorme PN40 pack with the TOPO 8.0 software. This mapping package seems to do it all for me. Takes a while to get the hang of it but becomes very intuitive after a while, and for hunting, THERE IS NO BETTER PACKAGE for me. I have set up the Sat10 imagery layered with the 24k 3D topquad topo's followed by the additional regional 100k maps (which are routable for driving ease) on my unit and am awed by the results. Total flexibility. Talk about being spoiled!!!! Getting a birds eye view of the area AND seeing accurate topo contours allowing one to deal with approach angles, blind location and placement are very easily done. Here in Colorado, scouting can be difficult to find time for but having the ability to look at the same maps on paper, computer AND GPS just rock since you can do most of your scouting sitting down THEN fine tune it afield once you've laid out your approach routes, and blind waypoints. You can even print out hard copies for the putzes you're hunting with back in camp that don't have the same resources you do!!!!! You can even print out an overview of the area for your darling wife with camp locations, routes, etc. so she won't worry.

 

I have done most all of this from Mapsource with my Garmin units without issue and have really, really enjoyed using it as a tool. But being able to include the additional imagery to the "toolset" in the Delorme bundle has changed things quite a bit. And yes, you can just get the mapping software to do all but transferring of maps to your existing GPS, but that's between you and your pocket book to decide!

 

Best of luck.

 

Be safe!

 

N

Edited October 28, 2009 by Native20559

[rash_powder]

Would this be something that can be done with a Garmin Colorado 400t with the latest version of Mapsource?

 

I would like a larger screen than the PN40 offers if possible.

 

Thanx,

 

matt

[+Searching_ut]

Depending on how many areas you intend to map out, even using the unit you currently have, you could draw out the boundaries on mapping software that allows you to draw routes or tracks on a map which can be saved as "tracks" I'm not sure how the display works with the Magelan color units, but on the newer Garmins you can have the tracks display in different colors which allows you to easily overlay trail data taken from other maps, or do things like map out boundary lines without editing the maps themselves, or building custom maps.

[+fegan]

Would this be something that can be done with a Garmin Colorado 400t with the latest version of Mapsource?

You can do it with a Colorado/Oregon and a few free utilities available on the internet. I've made custom trail maps that lay over the other maps I have on my Colorado 400t...instead of making trails, you'll be marking the borders of property. In addition to the GPS, the programs I'm using are MapEdit and cGPSmapper. I remember posting a link to a tutorial here in the forums...I'll see if I can dig it up.

[+fegan]

Here's the thread showing what I have done:

http://forums.Groundspeak.com/GC/index.php...p;hl=cGPSmapper

 

Still looking for the link to the tutorials...

[+fegan]

Another thread on Groundspeak showing screenshots from my Colorado:

http://forums.Groundspeak.com/GC/index.php...p;hl=cGPSmapper

 

Here's one tutorial:

http://www.gpssledmaps.com/guide/

 

I'll keep looking for the other...it was a video that took you through all the utilities step by step, starting from your tracklog, loading it into MapEdit, doing a little cleanup and adjustment, running it through cGPSmapper, then uploading it to your GPS (I simply copy the IMG file I generate to the d:\Garmin folder of my GPS...since I don't need to have it loaded in MapSource there's no point going through the final steps of loading your custom map in MapSource to transfer it to a Colorado/Oregon since you can simply drag&drop in mass storage mode).

[+Native20559]

Another thread on Groundspeak showing screenshots from my Colorado:

http://forums.Groundspeak.com/GC/index.php...p;hl=cGPSmapper

 

Here's one tutorial:

http://www.gpssledmaps.com/guide/

 

I'll keep looking for the other...it was a video that took you through all the utilities step by step, starting from your tracklog, loading it into MapEdit, doing a little cleanup and adjustment, running it through cGPSmapper, then uploading it to your GPS (I simply copy the IMG file I generate to the d:\Garmin folder of my GPS...since I don't need to have it loaded in MapSource there's no point going through the final steps of loading your custom map in MapSource to transfer it to a Colorado/Oregon since you can simply drag&drop in mass storage mode).

 

Thanks Fegen for filling in the gaps with the other method. You are definitely very knowledgable.

 

The only real difference are the maps used and the flexibility of the methods. The important thing is that it works for you. I went the other route because of the higher quality of the maps and the ability to use imagery which hadn't been available yet for the Garmins. That imagery is very close to being easily available and useful for Garmins with the new rastorized imagery capability in the new beta version software available for the Colorado/Oregon series GPS. Hopefully they'll work the bugs out and make it as easy for the non-computer skilled user as it currently is now for the skilled computer user.

 

Anyway, you have options, lol.

 

Good luck.

 

Be safe.

 

N

Edited October 29, 2009 by Native20559

[Bob Morphew]

... Still looking for the link to the tutorials...

Hrer's the tutorials I used for making my maps - it's a video frpm "rws".

 

Bob

[+Team CowboyPapa]

Another consideration favoring the PN-40 might be the consolidation of the required information as one-stop shopping co-located at the DeLorme site:

Forums and Wikis – Getting Started

http://forum.delorme.com/

http://delormepn40.wikispaces.com/

http://pn-series.wiki.delorme.com/

http://pn-series.wiki.delorme.com/Getting+Started

Edited October 29, 2009 by Team CowboyPapa

[+Entropy512]

Another thread on Groundspeak showing screenshots from my Colorado:

http://forums.Groundspeak.com/GC/index.php...p;hl=cGPSmapper

 

Here's one tutorial:

http://www.gpssledmaps.com/guide/

 

I'll keep looking for the other...it was a video that took you through all the utilities step by step, starting from your tracklog, loading it into MapEdit, doing a little cleanup and adjustment, running it through cGPSmapper, then uploading it to your GPS (I simply copy the IMG file I generate to the d:\Garmin folder of my GPS...since I don't need to have it loaded in MapSource there's no point going through the final steps of loading your custom map in MapSource to transfer it to a Colorado/Oregon since you can simply drag&drop in mass storage mode).

 

Thanks Fegen for filling in the gaps with the other method. You are definitely very knowledgable.

 

The only real difference are the maps used and the flexibility of the methods. The important thing is that it works for you. I went the other route because of the higher quality of the maps and the ability to use imagery which hadn't been available yet for the Garmins. That imagery is very close to being easily available and useful for Garmins with the new rastorized imagery capability in the new beta version software available for the Colorado/Oregon series GPS. Hopefully they'll work the bugs out and make it as easy for the non-computer skilled user as it currently is now for the skilled computer user.

 

Anyway, you have options, lol.

 

Good luck.

 

Be safe.

 

N

I've been playing with the new raster map capability of the Oregons. Things that need improvement:

1) Georeferencing UI in GE is a bit difficult. You can't anchor an arbitrary point in the image to an arbitrary point on the map and then rotate/stretch around that, so if the center of your image doesn't have a good ref point for alignment things get to be a pain. This a Google Earth problem, not a Garmin problem.

2) The device only supports JPEG images right now. PNG support with transparency would be GREAT. Wouldn't be surprised if Garmin adds this.

 

Overall I love my Oregon. It uses standard cables, open standards for transfer of tracks/waypoints/geocaches (just drop a Pocket Query GPX in the right place on the MicroSD and it's loaded), and now even raster maps!