I'm looking into replacing my GPS that I have conveniently stored away in Davey Jones Locker. This time around, I am needing one that I can download international street and country maps.

The coverage area I'm looking for is central and south america. I'm having a hard time finding any info on that.

Any ideas?

Thanks,

Doug M.

 

my etrex vista has basemaps for a lot of that area. i have really only used it for costa rica and mexico. the problam there is that a lot of central and south america aren't quite up to the level that we are with technology, so their map data hasn't really been converted to be used with personal gps systems. i did have a garmin worldmap program that i downloaded off the internet. i opened it up and loked at it but i never used it, so i don't know how reliable it is. i know it had the major highways on it.

 

Thanks for the info. I think I've seen the one you've mentioned, it's called World Map and does offer decent coverage of the major roads. Seems pretty good.

Do you have any idea of how the reception is with the ETrex?

I've also been looking into Satellite Phones and have decided on going with the iridium over any of the others. I've heard that Globalstar and the rest of them have had complaints. They be be only minor complaints, but when I spoke with a few different dealers, they all said they've never had a complaint on the Iridium.

I'm guessing thats because of signal strength more than internal software issues.

When you were in C.R. did you find many dead areas? And where did you use it? Did you try it nar the Carribean, like the Limon area?

Thanks again,

Doug M.

 

reception with my etrex is great. takes a minute to warm up and then the only thing that seems to stop it is being inside a building, althouugh i hear that thick clouds or trees can interfere with the signal.

i didn't use it a whole lot in costa rica. i didn't have the world map program yet, so i was using the pre-programed software. because it was a very basic map, it said the accuracy was about 100 feet sometimes, i think because it didn't know how accurate the map was. but i did get a signal in limon, and all the way down the carribean almost to panama. also got a signal on the pacific side. i think the accuracy would be better if you had the worldmap software. i'll see if i still have it.