problem loading map sets with Garmin handheld GPS

[mentalcrisis00]

Hey all

I'm beginning a thru hike from Georgia to Maine this monday and I just bought my first handheld GPS from garmin. It's the Etrex Legend HCx and it was the best one i could buy, it has the expandable memory and I installed a 4GB microsd card. I also bought the North American Topo Maps 2008 and City Navigator 2010. I wanted to load both map sets on the same GPS card so I put the SD card into my PC and loaded the topo maps in one big set and the city nav in another big set. I have 3/4 of the US in topo and all the US and canada in city nav. I turned map set name off auto and named them Topo US 08 and City Nav 2010, which from what I read out of the Garmin Manual would change the entire map sets name to those and I would have 2 check boxes in my garmin gps setup. It suggests I should only have one set checked at a time so they don't overlap on the GPS, I wanted to use the city nav for turn by turn directions and then I would switch to the topo maps for hiking or cycling.

WELL after 10 hours of map loading from Garmin MapSource I finally got to put the card in this morning and I go to menu/map setup/information tab to look at the TWO nice little map set names I loaded last night. Damned if there aren't 5000 entries in that list all with their own check boxes, the software DID NOT put them all under one umbrella name as I intended it to. I don't know what happened, I changed it from autoset map name and made my own name, saved the load out as a save file on my computer. But it still gives me every individual map in my GPS, so it's impossible to quick switch between them.

Now I could go and use my 2GB micro sd for the city nav maps (1.13GB) and use the 4GB micro sd for most of the topo maps (alittle over 4GB in all). However I would rather not have to do that cause i'd have to open the backplate on the GPS and switch the cards out anytime I want to go from my car to hiking the trail. From what I've seen the map loading is just about the same for all the Garmin GPS's both road and handheld, my mom has the nuvi in her car.

If theres anyone with experience loading map sets in the garmin gps that could help me out I would be eternally grateful!. Is there a setting that I'm missing either in the software or the GPS interface? In reality I only need the topo maps for the trail as I will be hiking 20 miles a day for 4 months and no access to a vehicle of my own but it would be nice to have everything sorted out before I go.

All the best

-Ray

 

[thecoolnessrune]

I started doing that this morning as well. Saw the same thing. Maps dont overlap properly so I looked at disabling but its a bunch of checkboxes. Im going ot keep working on it. Let me know too if you get it figured out

 

[mentalcrisis00]

That's SOOOO stupid i mean it might be ok if I had one of the junky handheld GPS's with only 24mb internal memory where I would only have 5 of the topo maps loaded for a small region. But you'd think they'd make it so the maps could be consolidated when you load thousands of them! I have a PDF that explains how to load the maps and the guy there did the same process I do and he has a screen shot of the map setup on his Garmin Nuvi and it only has 1 check box for the city nav maps. Perhaps the consolidated map sets only work with the car gps like the nuvi and not for the handhelds? I don't know why that would be the case other than the etrex works under an updated version of an older interface design. You'd think with the updates the software has had over the years since the etrex has been in service they would've made it easy to load and quick switch between more than a few maps.

Anyhow I loaded the City nav on my 2GB sd and the topo on my 4GB for now and it works fine. I need to switch the actual sd card which is annoying but at least I can have both map sets separate until I or someone else figures this problem out. I'll be in the bush for 3 months but I'll try loading the maps again when I get back, perhaps someone will come up with something in the meantime.