GPX files etc. for GPS - help!

[Orion]

After mucking around with a Garmin Vista for a while I put it back on eBlag, (and turned a profit!), and took the plunge on the Oregon 550t as I could wang it as a business expense.

Loads of interesting features and the camera geotagging of deer taken looks to be a really workable feature to make integrated cull records- thanks whoever mentioned that on another thread. Also, I can see a use when laying out tracking trails for dogs and tracking 'in anger' etc. etc.

Anyhow, we're off to the northern Spain and the Picos de Europa for a couple of weeks, so I'm trying to load up some waypointed routes but have problems in downloading walks in an acceptable format from the web. Everything I get seems to be in HTML which means nothing to the Garmin BaseCamp program. Is it as simple as changing the suffiz to .gpx?

Any other hints and tips, thanks.

 

[jcampbellsmith]

I googled a bit and found this: http://www.gpsvisualizer.com/ any help?

 

[Paul 600]

After mucking around with a Garmin Vista for a while I put it back on eBlag, (and turned a profit!), and took the plunge on the Oregon 550t as I could wang it as a business expense.

Loads of interesting features and the camera geotagging of deer taken looks to be a really workable feature to make integrated cull records- thanks whoever mentioned that on another thread. Also, I can see a use when laying out tracking trails for dogs and tracking 'in anger' etc. etc.

Anyhow, we're off to the northern Spain and the Picos de Europa for a couple of weeks, so I'm trying to load up some waypointed routes but have problems in downloading walks in an acceptable format from the web. Everything I get seems to be in HTML which means nothing to the Garmin BaseCamp program. Is it as simple as changing the suffiz to .gpx?

Any other hints and tips, thanks.

Glad you like the 550, I still can't afford one although I suppose I could throw it through the books and say I use it for reports! Where did you get it and how much was it? What maps are you using with it? When I buy one I think my entire UK map will be redundant! Not sure how you would upload the maps.

 

[Orion]

Thanks for the info guys.

After intensive investigation - a.k.a. pratting around and see what happens - I've discovered that by simply changing any downloaded routes/waypoints to 'Any File' from 'HTML' and giving them the .GPX suffix, they are recognised by Garmin Basecamp and can thence be modified and/or uploaded to the Oregon. Pretty cool as there are a gazillion resources out in WWWland for routes.

I bought the Oregon from an outfit called MyNewCheap (I know, I know! ), but they are local to me so I could go round there and visit some wrath on them if they didn't come through. Price was £287 'ish plus vat and I put it through the books as a 'business other' expense and I'll argue the toss if or when the day comes. It's got complete European Topo and basic road maps already installed and has several hundred Mb of internal memory available plus will take a micro SD card up to 4Gb - plenty enough for extra maps, photos etc. etc. Garmin also have the entire UK on the Discoverer series OS linked maps - either as micro SD or downloadable - eBlag is already showing some bargains! Uploads (and downloads) are a breeze - just like plugging in a digi camera.

I'll maybe invest in the complete UK national Parks SD if one comes up cheap, otherwise there seem to be some very friendly people on the Geocaching forums willing to spread some info around. No doubt lots of features I've yet to discover and appreciate but I think for the use I'm already likely to get from it it's a thumbs up.

 

[Paul 600]

Do you use it on a Mac or PC? Memory Map is brilliant but not compatible with my Mac! I have a full OS map of UK and I can't use it!!!

 

[Orion]

I'm running a PC with Vista at the moment - the Mac is at work running our accounts, (the revenue/vat can't decipher anything off of it which suits us!).

The Oregon is compatible with Windows other than 95, 98, Me or NT and Mac other than OS 10.3 and earlier. The BaseCamp program is a freebie download direct from Garmin http://www.garmin.com/garmin/cms/us/onthetrail/basecamp and there are Windows and Mac versions. The manual for the 550t is a bit light on some of the shortcuts I'm finding but it's here http://www8.garmin.com/support/userManual.jsp?market=3&subcategory=38&product=010-00697-11

I've just download a shed load of walks in northern Spain from this website http://www.topwalks.net/en/index.htm which should keep us busy for a couple of weeks and just need to tidy up the waypoint names to keep them together as individual routes.