GPS Units

[MagicMtnDan]

I've been playing with the Lowrance Elite 5M Baja now for a couple weeks. With only the basemaps, its pretty useless on the pavement without a course loaded. Its just not an on road worthy unit; its never claimed to be, just sayin. I'd also say its pretty useless as an "adventurer" GPS; again the basemaps just don't show you anything except a ton of tan and the occasional river.

I bought the 50 state version of MapCreate 7.1 and now that I've played with it for a few days, consider it a requirement if you're going with the Baja. Its a little clunky to use, but once you get the hang of it route creation, editing laying out etc is a snap. And the maps take the thing from worthless on road to almost usable. Again, that's not the point, just sayin. And as for adventuring, it gets a whole lot more usable with pretty good topo maps that sometimes even includes trails.

OK, so I admit to longing for a much better GPS solution than I currently have (SYNC which is passable for some of the CA desert as it actually has some trails on it and my little Garmin with topo feature).

I also admit to having spent time looking at the various Lowrance units. Given that I don't pay enough attention to details when I'm ******* over hardware, I don't know what the deal is with regard to software for the Lowrances but I recall hearing about it not being available anymore from Lowrance.

Now I see that MapCreate is a Lowrance product. Huh?

Can someone give me the abbreviated explanation of the software for the Lowrance units?

Also, thanks to everyone who's provided input on the GPS hardware / software quest

 

[BigJ]

Once upon a time (aka about 15 years ago), Lowrance was making a big push at the off road GPS market. They came out with GPS hardware dedicated to the task, and software designed to support it. Fast forward to somewhere around 2007 and Lowrance releases MapCreate 7, its latest and greatest land based software designed to compliment its professional grade land based GPSs. Then in 2010 they release their best land GPS yet, the Elite 5m Baja. Right around that time (I think) Lowrance was sold and bought by a company who refocused their efforts into the marine market. One of the first things they did to that end was to axe (the now outdated) MapCreate project. However they continued to sell the Baja, and they still do. So on one hand you have a kickass platform to build from in the Baja, and on the other you have a company that has said it has no plans to do so. You and I are caught in the middle.

As for the software on the units: the Baja out of the box comes with a "basemap" of the US. This means major bodies of water, state lines and major interstate roads. That's it. MapCreate is PC based software that has detailed maps (as of 2007) that include everything a good Tom Tom would have plus sufficient topo maps for everything else. You use MapCreate to "create a map" that gets transferred to a MicroSD card, that then plugs into your Baja which in turn reads that map, and shows it rather than the basemaps. You now have a fully capable (by 2007 standards) GPS that does rudimentary navigation on road, and flat kicks ass off road.

 

[pat'sRAPTOR]

hey J what site do you use now to create your maps and download maps. i wanna download some simple topo maps and some highway maps but dont really feel like paying for the program.. any way around that?? thanks

 

[BigJ]

Pat IMHO for "adventure" planning I don't think Google Earth can be beat for the price (free). You've got the world's most up to date maps and satelite imagry, a seemingly unlimited POI database, actual pictures taken by people who've been there before so you can see with your own eyes what you're getting into, and on and on.

Then once you've got your route planned, export it from GE and into whatever GPS solution you decide on. For me, the next thing I'm gonna try is a 7" Android tablet (that will double as a blackbox/dashcam by the way). If my experience in using a phone for the job translates to something bigger and better on the tablet, I'm thinking things are going to work out pretty well.

 

[pat'sRAPTOR]

Sweet ill check it out. Would I be able to transfer that over to my elit-5m gps unit??

 

[BigJ]

You bet!

Here's the Google Earth download link: Google Earth

Use it to create waypoints and paths as "Places". Think about it like how you use Windows explorer; its a tree structure where you add "Folders" which can contain a bunch of stuff including waypoints and paths. My Folders are names by trip, for example. When I'm happy with a trip, I right click on its folder and click "Save Place As" and select the file type kml.

Now once you have a kml file, head over to GPSBabel and covert it to a Lowrance usr file. Here's that link: GPS Visualizer: Web interface to GPSBabel

Take the resulting usr file, put it on a MicroSD card, pop that card into your Baja and load it up!

There are about a dozen different ways to do this. The above is just one. Don't be afraid to experiment and see what works for you.

 

[treypal]

Sweet ill check it out. Would I be able to transfer that over to my elit-5m gps unit??

Yes. You use gps bable to covert the google file to .usr

 

[KeithS]

Pat IMHO for "adventure" planning I don't think Google Earth can be beat for the price (free).

I agree. I've been using a combination of Google Earth on my PC and MotionX on my iPhone, translating waypoints and tracks/routes through GPS Visualizer: Web interface to GPSBabel. It's working great, although I do pretty much need to pull over in order to mark a new point or start/stop a track on the iPhone. The iPhone is plenty big for following a marked track, but to navigate a trail on a satellite image at speed I would want a bigger screen. Now that the new iPad is coming out, I'll probably take the plunge and see how it works.

I've been using Bing satellite imagery with MotionX because it is more current for my area, but so far everthing has lined up more than close enough to make the correct turns, and I could download the Google data if I ever needed it. MotionX works without a data connection so long as you download whatever maps you want ahead of time (satellite, topo, road, etc.), and most importantly for me, it has Mexican data in all of these categories.

 

[pat'sRAPTOR]

Sweet guys thanks a lot for the info I also have motionX on my iPhone I'll use that and google maps to see what I can come up with


With the data from motionX on the iPhone how would I get that to a file onto the computer to convert it to a usr for my lowrance?

 

[BigJ]

Great call Keith. I loved MotionX when I had an iPhone. There's nothing quite so complete for Android yet.

And it sounds like we're on the same page with the tablet. I've used my phone a dozen times, and I'm finding I don't really like constantly picking it up, peering at it, and putting it back down. I'd rather have something I can glance at in a sort of 'heads up display' sort of way. That ability is one of the really great things of the Lowrance.

How do you plan to mount it, by the way? I'm going to give one of these a try: RAM X-Grip II™ Tablet Mount although I have serious doubts about it actually staying stuck when hammering 'er off road. I might have to end up hard mounting it via one of their flat mounts.

Here's the (not yet released) iPad version, by the way: RAM X-Grip III™ Universal Spring Loaded Tablet Holder & Mounts for Large Tablets

---------- Post added at 08:38 PM ---------- Previous post was at 08:36 PM ----------

Sweet guys thanks a lot for the info I also have motionX on my iPhone I'll use that and google maps to see what I can come up with


With the data from motionX on the iPhone how would I get that to a file onto the computer to convert it to a usr for my lowrance?

Check this out Pat: http://www.motionx.com/faq/support/gps/load.php?FAQLOAD=10#s8q1