Laptop GPS World

Just got this laptop for use in my car as a display for GPS mapping. I don't need or want a heavely oriented to city, shopping, get me somewhere mapping program. Most of the mapping software is too busy for my use. I will be using it for finding points that I don't know till I get there. This is electronic "hide & seek" THUNTING. I have a IQ3600 with it's great software, but the screen size of the Palm Pilot is too small. I have City Select V5 on my desktop computer, which the GPS doesn't seem to want to work with it), but I would like to import it to the eee. You might ask, why does he want such an old map? The answer is none of the current mapping software has the little roads & trails out in the boonies like my CS has! If you know of something more recent, let me know. I have Delorme TOPO 6, SA 2007 and some older versions of these. TOPO is much too busy. I need to know how do I go about using the eee with my CS, and what GPS must I use? I have a Delorme LT-20 and hope it works with that! Oh and I was thinking of getting the Garmin Mobile PC software for use with the eee,
Thanks for any help that you can give. Don

If you already have Mapsource and CSNA v5 all you need is Garmin's nroute program and either a Garmin GPS receiver or a generic NMEA-based receiver and Franson's GPSGate. So, you could use your LT-20 and Franson's GPSgate with Garmin's nroute for navigation and you will be quite familiar with the whole setup.

nroute has the same interface as Mapsource, with nav functions added and screens that are similar to what you have on the iQue.

You can download nroute for free from Garmin's site.

You can download Franson's GPSGate from their site. (nroute only understands Garmin's proprietary protocol and does not understand the NMEA protocol, so you need GPSGate to translate the NMEA data from the LT-20 into Garmin protocol for nroute to understand.)

You will need to install CSNA v5 and Mapsource on your eeePC before you install nroute. You will need to re-unlock CSNA v5 to your iQue on the eeePC. If you haven't already saved the unlock code to a file on your PC or saved it onto your MyGarmin account you should do so. Then you can use the unlock wizard in Mapsource on your eeePC to re-unlock CSNA v5.

I have CSNA v5, CSNA v6 and City Navigator North America v8. If you give me a couple examples of those little roads and trails you are interested in I can check them out on the newer versions to see if they're still there.

...ken...

Ken,
Thanks for the reply, It looks like I will have to do several things to get it up and running. I need to wait for my SD card to get here for me to load the map data on it, so it will be a couple of days before I get things going. OK, one spot that I know of, is not on any of the Delorme Maps, is at this location. N 34.82819, W116.33354. It's a little road that goes up to a microwave site. I had to get there and only my IQ 3600 showed the road. Let me know if it is on later CSNA. also do the newer maps display this area as a just a simple line, or do they do fancy stuff with it to make the map harder to read? I don't need 3D, I don't need voice anouncments, nor directions. Just a simple line map display. As long as the roads are really there, and do show them. By the way, all the roads except for the freeway in this area are two track dirt roads. No pavement anywhere!

Don

I've now loaded nRoute, MapSource, and FransonGPSGate2.6. I still can't get anythig up and working. My LT-20 doesn't connect to the mapping program.

Yes, it's there in City Navigator North America v8 on my iQue 3600. It's an unpaved road that starts at the end of the Pisgah Crater Road where it loops back west on the north side of I40.

I checked it in Mapsource and I don't see it in City Select v5. Just a portion of Hector road is shown in v5.

In Mapsource, your road is there in City Select v6 and in City Navigator v8.

I'll check to make sure it's there in City Navigator 2009.

EDIT: Yes, it's there in City Navigator 2009.

Whatever you load into your iQue will display just as the iQue has always displayed it. The data in the map products doesn't tell the nav device how to display stuff. Eg. it says there's a line that goes between these two points and it represents a road that is (dirt, gravel, paved, four-lane, divided, whatever). The nav device decides how it will display that line; whether it will be thin or thick, solid or dashed, red or black, whatever.

The iQue doesn't know anything about 3D display so it won't do anything different even if you load a new mapset that has 3D info available. The iQue will just ignore it.

I'll check Mobile PC to see how it displays those backroads around Pisgah in City Navigator 2009.

EDIT: Mobile PC displays those roads as nice clean lines. No clutter. You need to be zoomed in to 500 metres to see those backroads. If you zoom out any further they disappear. That's exactly the same as on the iQue.

...ken...

Okay, I just checked MS Streets&Trips and it also has those same roads showing and they are pretty cleanly displayed. Nothing junked up.

I also checked DeLorme Street Atlas 2008 and some of those roads are there but they are pretty messed up compared to the Navteq-based maps (Garmin's City Select and City Navigator, and MS Streets&Trips). But the ones that are there display cleanly.

I think one of your problems is with topographical maps. They are intended to show lines of elevation and stuff like that, so they can look pretty cluttered. Especially on a really small display like our iQues. I have the Canadian Topos from Garmin for my iQue and I rarely use them for that reason. When I do use them I set the iQue to only display the elevation lines when I'm zoomed in really really tight.

Normal road maps don't display all that stuff and most of the newer programs and nav devices that have 3D display capability allow you to turn it off if you don't like it.

...ken...

Ken,
Thanks for spending all the time trying to help. The map I have in my IQ3600 is City Select V6. It's display is good. It has some of the back roads that don't show on my SA or TOPO USA 6. What I want to do is to import that map CS v6 to my new eee pc. I have Mapsource with those maps already on my home desk top computer, which I use to hot sync to the IQ3600. What I have been trying to do, is get them working with my Delorme LT-20 GPS receiver. I have loaded nRoute (I'm not sure why), GPSGATE v2.6, and have tried all the things to get the map to see the GPS! I want to do this before attempting to put it on my eeePC. I guess I don’t understand all the in and outs of using the tools I have at hand. I can’t even get the simulator to show on the map! The LT-20 works well with both SA & TOPO, so I know it’s working. Originally, I wanted to run Garmin Mobil PC on the eee, but I’m afraid I will lose the aspects of CS that I want. Maybe I just won’t be able to use the LT-20, and maybe will have to get the Garmin GPX 10x wireless GPS. Thanks to you or anybody else that might have a clue of what I should be doing. Oh! By the way I’ve received my 8GB SD Card, so I’m raring to go, anywhere a working map will take me.

Don

Hi Don,

I'm going to suggest that we keep this really simple. That means I have to ask you to just trust me that City Navigator North America NT2009 that comes in Mobile PC is just an up-to-date version of your City Select v6.

City Select North America line of products was replaced by the City Navigator North America at v8. The maps in both product lines are created by a company called "Navteq". They supply the underlying map and POI data for a number of companies including Garmin and Microsoft and Google.

I know this because I have been following those products since I bought my iQue 3600 with City Select v5 a long time ago. I updated to City Select v6, skipped v7 and updated to City Navigator v8.

None of the basics change from update to update. The POIs and maps get updated to correct old problems and add new roads and subdivisions and such. I compared the roads you are interested in between City Select v6, City Navigator v8, City Navigator 2009 and Microsoft Streets&Trips. They are identical in all cases. That's exactly what I expected to see because the map data is supplied by Navteq on all of those products.

So please drop your concerns about losing something in the move from City Select v6 to City Navigator 2009 and just go ahead with MobilePC if it interests you. You won't lose a thing. You will gain a nicer display but not one that will be cluttery.

I discovered something else useful when looking at those roads on Mobile PC. When I had it showing the map at full screen I was able to still see the roads when zoomed out to 1.2km instead of only 500m on the iQue.

Just jump into Mobile PC and have fun with it and quit worrying about trying to hack together something with nroute. If you feel there's something in nroute that you want, we can help you with that as a seperate issue later.

Cheers,

..ken...

Ken,

Okay, sounds good to me I will go tomorrow and make the plunge. Hope the LT-20 will drive it. I'll let you know what happens.
Thanks, Don

I'm using the GPS receiver that came with MS Streets&Trips 2008 for my Mobile PC use. The first time I ran Mobile PC (software-only version) after installing it it asked me if I was using a Garmin GPS device. I answered "No". So it asked me for the Product Key (found on a large green sticky inside the DVD case), activated the product and fired up.

I already had the GPS plugged into the USB port. Mobile PC found it and started using it right away without any action on my part at all. That's the way it has been ever since. I don't have to anything at all, except have the GPS plugged in.

The only issues I've run into are:

1. Don't have Franson GPSGate running or Mobile PC won't find the GPS receiver.

2. Don't have the Palm Hotsync Manager running or Mobile PC might not find the GPS. This is inconsistent, but Hotsync seems to mess up the USB-to-com port drivers. It affects Streets&Trips and Street Atlas, too.

If you have the Palm Desktop installed you might have to go into the startup files and remove the Hotsync Manager so it won't run at startup. You can still launch it from the START/Programs menu any time you want to sync the iQue.

...ken...

Ken,
Okay for the info. I'm installing this on my eee, presently it doesn't have any other software than SA and TOPO. I will load everything on a SD card and run from there. As I found out today, none of the local software stores have Mobile PC on their shelves yet, so I've ordered from the internet. Earliest date to get it, thurs of next week.

Don

Okay, I've now got my Garmin Mobile PC software and GPS. Overall I'm quite satisfied with it's display and clearness. I do have a question with the setting of the Lat/Lon on the location format. Settings, System, Location Format. When I change it to: hddd.ddddd, from hdddmm.mmm, It shows locations as such, but when I do a Where To Coordinates, it still is stuck on hdddmm.mmm. Is this a softhware problem, or is it something I'm not doing correctly? If it is a softhware problem, does this bother anybody else, so that maybe we can get Garmin to update the software to include the change. I hate minutes and seconds!

Don

Could anybody that is using Garmin Mobile PC software on an Asus EEE 900 please tell me whether it provides an option to install fully onto the SD card disk drive or whether it forces an install onto one of the solid state disks?

I am very short of space on C: and D: but have oodles of space on my 16GB SDHC card. (E. What are the fully loaded space requirements after install? I see the (comperssed .msi is over 1gb). I will not be using a Garmin GPS, but rather an ITrek Bluetooth GPS, are there any issues with loading the software with such a configuration.

I have also heard that once its been installed on one laptop you cannot uninstall and install onto another, is this the case? Anyone any experience of this?

I'm soon to head out on a 2000 mile trip and have just received the software so ANY information would be appreciated.

TIA :-)