wahoowad

I recently purchased an eTrex Venture HC and have figured out how to transfer maps and waypoints to/from my handheld to my PC. I think it is going to be great to be able to manage/share my data via PC.

I used my PC (Mapsource) to edit recent waypoints and given them more meaningful names, then downloaded back to my eTrex. It created duplicates right on top of the original waypoints. How do I deal with this if I am going to be moving waypoints back and forth? I don't want to have to go in and manually delete select waypoints one by one on my eTrex.

HumVee

Congratulations on the purchase of yoru Garmin eTrex Venture HC, wahoowad. Yes, managing your waypoints on your PC has got to be better than doing it straight in your GPS unit...if you can get it to behave correctly!

Just to clarify your question...are you using Garmin's Trip & Waypoint Manager - or are you using MapSource? TWM should allow you to do what you want straight from it's interface - it's a subset of the full MapSource software solution designed strictly for Garmin GPS devices that don't have built in maps. I haven't looked into that product yet, but will look through the manual when I get some time.

HumVee

Well, drat! Even though no unlock code is needed for Trip & Waypoint Manager, Garmin doesn't offer it for free download! They actually have the temerity to charge $30 for it, even though it appears to be a truncated subset of the full MapSource software! I have no interest in torrenting an unofficial copy of it - but all is not lost!

After discussing handheld GPS units on this forum with Andy and others, I've decided I need to get one. It will come with Trip & Waypoint manager, and I should receive it from Amazon early next week. So if you haven't figured out the issue by then, I'll be happy to research the problem further. BTW...I'm getting a GPSMAP 76CSx. It's about the same dimensions as the eTrex line, but is about 2" longer. I don't mind the larger size, and I like how the button layout is right under thumb.

wahoowad

I am using MapSource. And oddly it did not create duplicates when I tried it again last night. I'm not sure what is going on.

A bigger problem is that the eTrex is truncating my waypoint/route names after I rename them on my PC. Mapsource lets me use longer names (like Appamatox River Approach for a route) but then that name is truncated to something shorter when I send it to the eTrex. I didn't notice it until I transferred it back to my Mapsource software to get the data into another gdb file I was creating. So that sucks.

HumVee

So the GPS device is actually truncating the file names during the import - not just displaying less of the file name than you would like? That does suck! I'll have to try that with my 76CSx when it arrives next week. I don't know how many characters your eTrex allows, but one (less than optimal) work-around would be to use an abbrevated name first in your naming convention followed by a more descriptive name, something like:

• AppmtxRvr Apprch - Appamatox River Approach

Is it possible to save your waypoints on your hard drive, rather than re-importing them from your device each time? That way even though the device truncates the names, you'd still have the full file name available to you when looking through MapSource....

wahoowad

Garmin support said my eTrax Venture only supported 13 characters. This is quite annoying that MapSource supports more than the what the device will store.

Andy

Sound similar to the truncated log issue found in the 76CSx. That may also be in the Venture as well.

Viewing complete track on 76CSX