Handheld GPS ??

[rfoust]

I just bought a Garmin Vista GPS and the TOPO Mapsource maps. The Vista has 24 MB of dowloadable memory and I downloaded 19. 4 MB of maps to onto the crazy thing. Then, I checked to see how much of the system memory I had used up with the TOPO maps and the crazy thing said I had only filled 8% of the system memory. ???? 19. 4 MB out of 24 total comes out, in my mind, a bit higher than 8%. What am I not understanding here? I have downloaded most of Colorado, all of I-70 through Kansas and parts of Texas. All of the detail and maps are definitely on the GPS. When I started the download it told me that I would be erasing the base map that comes on the crazy thing to put in the Topos. Very confused. Someone that knows GPS's and the mapsource maps please help me here because there are a lot more maps I want to download but I also want to save room for the 4x4 routes, hiking trails and geocache routes that I am going to plug into the thing.



Thanks,

REF

 

[Cummins Pilot]

I can agree with it not knowing how much memory it has. Today (7/25) I flew 7 hours and I used the guys handheld GPS in the plane I rented. I was tracking inbound on a VOR (navigation aid). INBOUND!!! so the distance on the DME (Distastance Measuring Equipment) was dropping. The GPS indicated I was flying AWAY from the VOR. The guy with me is also a pilot, commercial rated. And we checked the lat/long and it was right for what te GPS knew as the waypoint but it thought it was flying away from it which was not true.



If we had to rely on the thing we'd have been screwed. They are good but do have flaws.

 

[Glen]

I own the Garmin GPSmap 60CS and the TOPO mapset. I doubt that you downloaded as much data as you think. How did you determine the amount? Don't be too concerned about running out of space. If you do, just delete what is least important to you and download the maps again.



You can change what is loaded into the GPS as often and as many time as you like.

 

[klenger]

Glen: How do you like the 60CS? I would like to get one to replace my 12XL. I use it mostly for hiking, but also as a nav aid when traveling.

 

[jponder]

I have the legend and it has 8 megs. When you build your mapset to load in the mapsource software just keep track of the size and you should be alright. It may be telling you how much memory you have left for track/waypoints which is different from the downloadeable memory.



When you download a mapsource mapset you will loose the previous mapset, the first time you do it you will loose whatever default mapset was there, american highways or whatever the name. You can get it back off the Garmin.com site. That vista is pretty cool but it eats batteries. Good luck