Skyline on Nov 6

[zippetydude]

I'll need instructions on how to get it loaded onto my system. Assume I know NOTHING in any instructions provided.

Nick, I feel your pain. Walt refers to me as a Tech-know-nothing, which is dead on. It's a philosophical belief, actually: I believe the gadget is supposed to serve me, not the other way around.

Anyway, Walt and Hikin' Jim know how to do all sorts of cool tricks with those things. Maybe one of those fine gentlemen will assist you if you get stuck.

z

[magikwalt]

Hi Nick,

When you bought your Garmin (what mode??) did it come with the Map Source software? Load it on the computer, hook up the USB cable with your Garmin and go through the setup. Then see below:

Get the file that Norris is offering and save it to your computer. Open the file with your Map Source software. In the middle of the software menu bar you will see two gps icons with arrows. One is for sending to the Garmin and the other is to receive from it. With the trail file open click on the Send To Device icon. If your Garmin turned on, plugged into the USB and the USV into the computer the dialog box will update with the name of your Garmin and be ready to load the track.

One note on loading tracks. I don't know how many position points the track from Norris will have on it but when loading from the computer to the device you can only put 500 points in. As an alternative if the file has more points than 500 you can download the file to a flash storage card and that can be inserted into the Garmin if yours accepts them. Again I don't know which one you got.

[Norris]

Yes, Garmin has some ease-of-use issues with saved tracks as to the number of points you can download, but these can be circumvented by tricks like renaming the track as "Active Log". Really stupid. I'll spend a few minutes tonight to recreate the steps. Send me a pm with your email address if you want the .gdb file. An important note about Garmin 60CS (and possibly 60CSx also, not sure): You really do have to do the silly compass calibration step, every time you put new batteries in for sure, and possibly after every download of new maps/routes also. If you don't, you can be off by 180 degrees when looking at the map. You need to do a little practice, and possibly change some settings (for example, you probably want the top of the map to change as you move the GPS to always show the terrain in the direction you are headed, versus always North like a paper map, but its up to you). It takes a bit of practice to look at the map, showing the track, and the pointer showing your current location and know which way to walk. If you haven't calibrated the compass, this process will not work.

[Norris]

OK, I just did a dry run of the process, and there is no issue with the number of points in the saved track, because in the .gdb file it is the "ACTIVE LOG", so the limitation does not apply. The process to get this track into your GPS is:

Turn on GPS
wait till it displays "Acquiring satellites"
Press menu, select "Use with GPS off", press enter
Press menu, then press menu again for main menu
Select "Tracks" from main menu if not already selected
Press enter
Select "Clear"
Press enter
Select "Yes" when prompted "Do you really want to clear the track log"
Press menu twice to return to main menu
Connect the GPS to the computer with the USB cable
Open the jacinto c2c .gdb file with MapSource
Select "Transfer", then "Send to device"
The transfer dialog should be displaying your GPS unit id with the "Maps" and "Tracks" options selected
Click send and wait till the download is complete
Disconnect the GPS

Put in fresh batteries and then recalibrate the compass following this process:
Press the page button until you get to the compass page
Press menu
Select calibrate compass
Follow the on-screen prompts which have you literally slowly turn in circles holding the GPS level in front of you, until it tells you it is done

[magikwalt]

Great post Norris. Thanks for the new secret. I carry the 60Csx and have found the compas calibration issue is best solved by doing the calibration. I look pretty silly turning in the circle twice but its golden after that. The only way it works without the calibration is to have enough drink in you that being off course seems to make sense!

[Nick-SJM]

I really want to thank all of you for the great advice and suggestions regarding putting a skyline track on my Garmin (GPSmap60CSx). It has really helped. I'm impressed with the knowledge and desire to help shown by users of this site. I hope to say hello to many of you on Saturday. If you every see a 6'3'' guy, in his 60s, with a pack that looks way too heavy, in either a State Park volunteer or RMRU uniform in your travels, come up and say hello.

Thanks again,

Nick

[Norris]

Thanks MagicWalt! Yeah, the silly little Garmin compass calibration dance is something else. I carried the GPS for quite some time before ever doing it, believing it to be an optimization rather than an essential. Finally I realized that was the reason I was having so much trouble understanding my position relative to what was being displayed on the map. The funny thing is that when I would skip the calibration step, the compass always seemed to be off by exactly 180 degrees, which makes me think that if they just changed some default value, it would work OK without that step.

[magikwalt]

I'll be looking for you Nick. Right now I am going to do the early start and use the 6 hours to contemplate why a man my age should be involved in going up twice when there is a perfectly good bar with beer waiting after number one.

Norris - I was lucky enough to have a tech geek with me who noticed that my direction of travel and the direction of the gps were different. He quickly showed me how to calibrate and its been good since.

[Hikin_Jim]

Walt and Hikin' Jim know how to do all sorts of cool tricks with those [GPS] things.

Not me bro. I'm an old map and compass Luddite. I don't even own a GPS.

[zippetydude]

Oops! Sorry Jim. I somehow thought you were a gadget guy and that was one of the gadgets you'd know about. Me, I'm a basket case. I don't even know how to find the compass on my gps, nor the trackback, which I should learn. Since no gadget is completely user friendly, I guess it would be a better idea to buy a beer for a friend who understands it and have him explain it to you. Hmmm. Walt comes to mind!

z