GPS Receiver and Software Quandary

[Hath]

Greetings all :wavey:-

First time long time. This august I'll be taking an expedition down the Continental Divide with a fellow Portal member Hanley Noel and am researching software/GPS unit compatibility for a PC. I'm looking to use my laptop in conjunction with a GPS receiver; most notably seen so far:

Garmin GPS 18 OEM
Garmin GPS 18 5Hz
Garmin GPS 17 HVS
http://www.garmin.com/oem/

DeLorme Earthmate GPS LT-20
https://shop.delorme.com/OA_HTML/DELibeCCtpSctDspRte.jsp?section=10043&minisite=10020

US Global Sat BR-353
http://www.usglobalsat.com/item.asp?itemid=60

US Global Sat MR-350
http://www.usglobalsat.com/item.asp?itemid=2


And GPS Mapping Software:

National Geographic Back Roads Explorer 3D
http://maps.nationalgeographic.com/topo/backroads.cfm

National Geographic TOPO! State Series
http://maps.nationalgeographic.com/topo/state.cfm

Des Newman's Ozi Explorer
http://www.oziexplorer.com/

I was curious if anyone had used any combination of these products or could suggest one over another as far as quality and compatibility. Feelings seem to be strong for NG's TOPO! products but I'm concerned with their compatibility page
http://maps.nationalgeographic.com/topo/support/gps_compat_no.htm
as they seem to give the impression that they don't work with Garmin's GPS 18 products but maybe I'm just misunderstanding the page. In looking at Garmin's GPS 17 HVS, it seems possible to mount on the exterior of the truck but I'm hesitant in interpreting thier definition of "harshest environments" in considering branches, dust, etc. In speaking with NG it sounds like whatever GPS receiver you do decide to go with it must be NMEA compatible. So if anyone has any suggestions or past experience good or bad it'd be much appreciated, thanks!

 

[asteffes]

One of the Garmin GPS 18 units speaks only a proprietary Garmin protocol. I do not remember which one, but I believe it's a USB model. The serial port model should speak NMEA and Garminese.

 

[BajaXplorer]

What about using the Garmin U.S.Topo software. According to their site it is compatible with the GPS 18 units. It also comes with City Select mapping software.
After looking at the NG map store site in your post and the compatibility page (confusing) maybe they have the NG topo setup to work with garmin???. Might be worth a phone call to them to clear it up.
I believe Adam is correct about the USB version vs the PC version, see this.
http://www.gpsinformation.org/penrod/gps18/gps18review.html
BX

 

[Coachgeo]

Here is a site where a bunch of FREE GPS softwared is listed

http://www.maps-gps-info.com/fgpfw.html

 

[whitethaiger]

There are so many choices and combinations and a lot of them work well. You may just have to pick a setup and try it. Here are some thoughts/comments from my experince that might help:

I have used Magellan GPS units with TopoUSA, older versions of Topo! (3-4 years ago) and have now settled on OziExplorer.

I still use TopoUSA for travel on paved roads since it has all the route planning etc. I also still hate the awful user interface and limited options (version 5 is the newest I have used). For dirt road travel I've found that this software is just missing too many roads in the areas we explore.

Topo! has the full USGS maps. Their user interface and options are also limited. Another con is (last time I checked) that you have to buy maps, i.e state sets

Ozi has lots of options that let you view maps, navigate with them, plan trips, work with tracks/waypoints/routes and if it all is not enough you can write your own extensions. I've written one that interfaces with the USGS mines data base. You can just click on a mine and it'll show you info about the mine (dates, commodities, etc.) I'm thinking of some way of distributing this utility, but did not get around setting up my website yet. I could make it available to forum members. A couple of guys on www.4wdtrips.net are beta testing it already.

Ozi doesn't come with maps, but in the US they are free for download. It's not difficult to get the maps, but it takes some time. I have complete sets setup for Ozi for Utah, AZ, southern CA, some already on DVD's. I am working on NV and northern CA. These sets include topos and DOQ's (those high altitude pictures with 1m/pixel resolution). Again, if there is interest I could make DVD/CD sets available.

There are also some related discussions on www.4wdtrips.net that might help you with this GPS and software choice.

 

[Mike S]

Free solution

Google USAphotomaps. This allows Terraserver sat photo downloads, NOAA map overlays, GPS waypoints and tracking. It's free. If your like it, send a contribution to Doug Cox, the author.

M

 

[PCRover]

Thanks for the link Mike, that is a very cool program.

 

[HenryJ]

I have been using a DeLorme Earthmate receiver and Street Atlas USA for my on road navagation. For offroad I usually switch to Mapsend Topo on the Magellan SporTrac Pro handheld.
I just downloaded DeLorme Serial Emulation Driver for USB Earthmate® GPS

This allows it to be used with third party software. It seems to work just fine. I tried it in Mapsend topo

Now I can try it out with OZI , when time permits.