RE: [Paddlewise] Garmin 12XL & Topo!GPS

As a follow on, I have been using Fugawi, Delorme and Waypoint for many of
those tasks. Fugawi allows you to load any scanned map. I recently used it
on a commercial airline trip from Miami to Puerto Rico using a marine chart
of the area and had a fascinating time identifying all the nameless islands
I've seen so many times.

Will Topo work with any DGS?

cya

		-----Original Message-----
		From:	owner-paddlewise_at_lists.intelenet.net
[mailto:owner-paddlewise_at_lists.intelenet.net] On Behalf Of Chuck Holst
		Sent:	Tuesday, May 25, 1999 11:25 AM
		To:	'Paddlewise'
		Cc:	'Norton Johnson'
		Subject:	[Paddlewise] Garmin 12XL & Topo!GPS


		I acquired a lot of waypoints on my Garmin GPS 12XL in the
		last year, including trips in Nipigon Bay and the Apostle
		Islands, and I acquired not one but four programs for
		downloading the data from the 12XL to my computer, but until
		last night I had not found the time to put them together.
		What prompted me to finally do so was losing all the data in
		my 12XL last weekend. I had plugged the 12V power cable into
		the 12XL but not into the cigarette lighter of my car and
		left it that way for several hours. Apparently, when you do
		that, it disconnects the internal backup battery. The next
		time I turned it on, the 12XL gave me a message that all my
		data had been lost. This included not just my waypoints, but
		the time offset and other configuration elements. :-(

		So, with another trip to the Apostles coming up, I decided
to
		reenter the waypoints for prominent geographic features in
the
		islands. For this I chose the Topo!GPS program, which has a
CD
		of USGS topographic maps of the Apostles. With the older
version
		of Topo!, I had found the waypoint coordinates by placing
the
		cursor at a waypoint location and writing down the
coordinates,
		which appeared at the bottom of the screen. I then manually
		entered these coordinates and descriptions in the 12XL
during
		the drive to the Apostles -- a very tedious process.

		The new GPS version makes it much easier. To create a
waypoint
		list, you just click on the map where you want to place a
		waypoint. Next you type the name and a short description of
the
		waypoint in a dialog box. When the dialog box closes, the
		waypoint is added to a list at the bottom of the screen.
When
		the list is finished, you connect your GPS unit to your
		computer's serial port, turn it on, select "Interface" on
the
		Garmin, and then follow the instructions in the Upload
Wizard
		to copy the data to the GPS unit.

		The waypoints are saved in files that are separate from the
map
		data files, so you can create a waypoint file for each trip
if
		you like. You can also merge files, and, of course, you can
also
		download waypoints, routes, and tracks from your GPS unit to
		Topo!GPS and save them. You can do this whether or not they
are
		in the geographic area covered by the map.

		The Apostle Islands are included in a CD set that covers
Isle
		Royale National Park, Voyageurs National Park, the Boundary
		Waters Canoe Area Wilderness, the entire Minnesota shore of
		Lake Superior, and the Twin Cities metro area. A waypoint
file
		that includes over 2000 BWCAW campsites can be downloaded
from
		the Topo! Web site at http://www.topo.com/boundary.shtml

		Now to acquire maps and GPS programs for areas not covered
by
		Topo!...

		Chuck Holst


	
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