GPS - Living with a Garmin Etrex
GPS, pah what do I need one of those for our saying, and you would be right. Untill that is you buy one of the excellent mapping products such as Tracklogs and tie the two together to explore routes without dipping into your pocket for the paper map at every junction on a ride.
In fact I would recommend the Tracklogs products, or any of the others even if you don't have a GPS. It gives you the ability to print out your own maps, and show the profile and distances , even ride time, of the rides you are planning.
Armed with the mapping software you just make a route, point and click with the mouse along all the intended tracks, and then load it to your GPS.
Once out riding you can then follow a breadcrumb type trail on the screen (a blank screen for this cheap no map display option model) to an accuracy of 200ft. You soon see when you are going off track.
On fast downhills it can even be usefull to warn you of sharp corners approaching.
Where they really come into there own is when someone shows you a gem of a route in their home area, say Cannock chase. Pop the GPS in your camelback or on the bars and then download the route when you get home. really usefull for marking those must return great sections of singletrack.
After suffering with short run times, I found out the following.
Set the Internal Compass to off before you start every ride, set the unit to switch to the GPS compass at the slowest speed possible too, in case you forget.
Get the largest rechargeable batteries you can find. Uniross do a 2300mAh Ni-MH version which although still only 1.2 volt, lasted on a stationary test for 15hrs 25 mins.
Duracell are still the most reliable standby security alternative,
A good way to check the life and performance of your re-chargeable batteries try the following.
(Ensure internal compass is off as this kills battery life)
Set the compass page run trip timer to zero and leave on a window ledge or in full satellite receive mode. The unit will log the time it is receiving satellite signals and will then auto switch off when the battery is low. Then you just power it up and the battery run time is displayed for you on the compass page.
Now you probably noticed how usefull some of the waymarker symbols are, I mean who needs those ship ones, well help is here from a friendly geek who has junked all those and turned them into more MTB friendly ones like X roads, turn arrows etc. This info was found on the Etrex knowledge base site.
Follow the following directions below to modify yours.
- It is recommended that you disable screen savers or other programs running on your PC while you go through the update process. Disruptions to the update process may render your GPS inoperable. If the transfer is interrupted, turn off the GPS and then turn it back on. Re-boot your PC, and try again.
- First you must download the latest Garmin update files, even if yours is up to date, you need it to ensure you have the Garmin downloader tool so its worth following this next step anyway.
- I downloaded Version 2.50, this is a zipped up file so just put into a temporary folder for now.
- Locate the downloaded file and double-click on it. This will launch the Win-Zip Self Extractor. You want to unzip to the default folder on your PC - C:\Garmin. You can change this location if you like. Be sure to note where the un-zipped files are going to allow you to find them again!
- Click on the button labeled "Un-zip". to complete the process.
- Now go HERE and download the mountainbike symbols file to the same temporary folder as before.
- Again after the download is complete find the file in the temp folder and unzip it to the same C:\Garmin folder. It will ask you if you wish to replace a file, answer yes and you will now replace the official Garmin file with the new MTB specific one.
- Now the scary bit - to load the new file.
- Connect your GPS to your computer using a GARMIN PC Interface cable to an open serial port, the usual connection if you already use mapping software.
- Turn the GPS on, place it in Demo mode (on the system page menu) and verify that the Interface Mode (found under the Main Menu page), is set to GARMIN, GRMN, GRMN/GRMN, or Data Transfer/Host mode. If you have already been taking to your Garmin with tracklogs or similar, this will be set up already.
- Open the C:\Garmin (or other folder where you un-zipped the files), AND locate the file named "UPDATER" and double click on it.
- This will now run the download program. Select the COM port you are connected to and select OK. if you have Garmin 2.5 version loaded already it will warn you that have the revision already, just answer YES to replace with same software prompt.
- SWR Loading will appear very vaguely on your GPS screen while it is loading, dosen't take long. And that's it job done, now check out your new waypoint symbols.
If you use Ozzi explorer you can download the Symbols to the Ozi program too. There is an Excel file included to do this.
Hacking into the power supply of an Etrex info here (cheap chargers) from the Nomad