Looking for software for my Garmin GPS20X

Hello Everyone! Im new here :P

My wife picked me up a Garmin GPS20X for my birthday. My main goal is to use this on my netbook for Geocaching. I'm not sure if Garmin Mobile PC is what I really want. The only problem is that I have only successfully gotten the receiver to work with Google Earth. Is anyone else out there using the same receiver for geocaching? Is Mobile PC any good for off-road usage?

Thanks in advance!

If your netbook is running Windows XP, Garmin Spanner (free download) can make your 20x available to other navigation programs.

Garmin: Spanner Updates & Downloads

Also, Garmin and others offer Topo maps for the US and Canada which may have more complete maps of your area. You would require Garmin MapSource to convert them for use with Mobile PC.

Terry

Awesome! That's great news. I had downloaded EasyGPS, and it seems like a good start for me. Unfortunately the GPS20X is unsupported by the software. Maybe this will do the trick!

Sorry for the double post but:

I had been tooling around with the use of EasyGPS with my receiver and failed to realize that, even with the spanner, it wont work. Kind of sucks as it seems like a great little application.

Is anyone else using Mobile PC for Geocaching? Anyone have some other suggestions for an app that might be better suited for geocaching?

What are you expecting EasyGPS to do? It should see the Data from the 20x via a COM port created by Spanner and create a moving map display.Any more functionality from EasyGPS requires a standalone GPS.

Terry

Hi Terry,

The problem is that the Garmin GPS20X isnt available as a compatible device from the driver list. Its as if it isnt support by easyGPS at all. I tried a few alternate Garmin devices from the list, but none seem to do the trick.

I read the blurb more carefully. It seems you would need the non-free version, ExpertGPS, to work with unlisted GPS receivers which don't actually provide waypoint data.

Terry

I wouldn't personally use a laptop or netbook for geocaching. But if I wanted the ability to just occasionally do it in really good weather on dry terrain where I wouldn't be likely to slip and drop the computer, I wouldn't use a normal nav program like Mobile PC, etc. These really are not very helpful if you are trying to find something off the road. I tried it with my laptop and Mobile PC once, just for grins, and it was quite frustrating.

I would look closely at GeoBuddy because it's designed for geocaching. It has a thirty-day trial. But, of course, you would need to get your GPS to work with it. So you would need to check with them whether it would work with GeoBuddy.

...ken...

Forget that last comment about GeoBuddy for geocaching.

EasyGPS and GeoBuddy will not read GPS location data from a GPS receiver and do navigation on a map. They are what I think of as "administrative" programs. They will load data (geocaches, waypoints, routes, tracks) from a supported GPS into their database on the PC. Then you can do stuff like geocode pictures (EasyGPS) and manage geocache information (GeoBuddy).

With GeoBuddy you can bulk load geocaches into the supported GPS.

The key to all this is that the receiver must either be a standalone personal navigation device, like Garmin Nuvi or eTrex or Colorado, etc. Or they must have data logging capabilities (for EasyGPS to get the track data for geocoding pictures).

At least that's what I've figured out so far from looking through the documentation online.

For whatever it's worth, it doesn't work very well, either. I tried getting EasyGPS to load the geocaches, waypoints, tracks and routes from my eTrex Legend HCx. It tells me there is no GPS connected to the USB port. When I acknowledge that error message it tells me there is none of that data on my GPS.

Truth is that it was connected to the GPS port and it has geocaches, tracks, waypoints and routes stored on it.

I was not impressed so far.

...ken...