Thanks!

 

This may be a little off topic, but do the Topo maps work well?

I think the CitySelect is great, especially for hurricane-affected areas where many street signs are still down. If you fish or boat, I definitely recommend the BlueChart maps as well- I can't imagine ever getting lost with the BlueChart.

 

They work, how well is a matter of opinion. They are limited becuase they are only 1:100,000 scale and the damn GPS screen is so small. They are much better than the city select for remote area use.

In a number of areas things like washes are actually labled on the screen so that you can tell what wash you are in making it much easier to locate yourself on a detail map (real map).

In summary: Hard to use effectivly on the small screen, but OK for setting up routes on the PC, and great to have on the GPS incase you need them. I've used mine enough to say it was worth the $100.

I've got the National Geographic CA Topo and I have come to hate it.

Another off topic question - Anyone have a good method or software for inputing large quantities of way points manually ?

 

I love my topo maps, my Vista C screen is even a bit smaller, but it works great... And with the nroute program you can have a moving map on your laptop.


By mass quantites you mean import a excel worksheet, or just using Mapsource and cntrl-w??? its pretty quick doing the cntr-w method.. and if you have the coords in a differnt Lat/lon format it converts them for you.

 

I have always used the Mapsource software for my waypoints, and it works well.

That sounds like the topo maps are pretty good, but I dont know how much different they are from the BlueChart map detail of the coast in my area. The BlueChart maps show all buoys and channels. They also label details like "sandbar" and "marsh grass."

 

Exactly, I find it much easier to put the waypints into excel than Mapsource (control W) and making routes (control R) is even more of pain since you have to select each waypint individually.

If I put them into Excel I can get them into NG TOPO really fast and even import directly as routes. I have played with MapSource but have not been able to get something like this to work at all. NG Topo and Mapsource don't seem to be able to talk to each other at all.

I Guess I'm almost done so it's not that big a deal, I just find Mapsource painfully slow.

 

I havent used NG Topo much, and since they dont talk I havent bothered buying it and getting depressed at how much better the maps are.... Mapsource is plenty fast for me, but Garmin does have a suggestion box... I have sent several things in...try that, mabye a software update will have an import option.

 

Thanks, I will give that a try.

 

So it seems that the 60CS model can be had for around $250 now and the newer 60CSx is around $350.

Looking at the 60CSx so this thread was of interest.