Looking for GPS/Laptop combination for off road/TOPO

[Old Ranger]

I have some Natl Geographic Mapping software and a laptop. Want to set up the laptop where it will give me "Real Time" navigation in an off road (topo) situation. Pretty sure it can be done, but not sure of the details, and what equipment I'll need to accomplish. The only GPS I have is an inexpensive Garmin ETrex Venture HC, and I'm not sure the Garmin will recognize the Nat Geo software .. (Only Magellan?) ...

anyway, if someone has a setup like this, can you provide a little help?

I've developed a little vision issues, and the handheld GPS's are a little small for me - If I can use my laptop as a GPS screen while driving in the backroads, it'll make it just a little easier..

Thanks,

Rick

[jman]

It's actually fairly easy to do. I have a laptop connected to my Garmin GPSMap60 via the included USB dongle and I load up Topo on the laptop and once it's loaded, the GPS will automatically connect and show exactly where on the map I'm at. Its what we do when we go mine-hunting.

I'm not sure on your GPS model, but I'm pretty confident that it can be done with yours.

You could try this at home - connect your GPS to your laptop via the USB cable and load up Nantional Geographic and zoom in where you think you are and you should have a black or red or blue dot of some kind and that's your current GPS location. That's it, all done.

Btw - I don't think there is a " find my current location" feature but I could be wrong.

[Old Jeeper]

Btw - I don't think there is a " find my current location" feature but I could be wrong.

Close.
Under 'Handhelds' select 'Show Current GPS Position'.

[Old Ranger]

It's actually fairly easy to do. I have a laptop connected to my Garmin GPSMap60 via the included USB dongle and I load up Topo on the laptop and once it's loaded, the GPS will automatically connect and show exactly where on the map I'm at. Its what we do when we go mine-hunting.

I'm not sure on your GPS model, but I'm pretty confident that it can be done with yours.

You could try this at home - connect your GPS to your laptop via the USB cable and load up Nantional Geographic and zoom in where you think you are and you should have a black or red or blue dot of some kind and that's your current GPS location. That's it, all done.

Btw - I don't think there is a " find my current location" feature but I could be wrong.

Attempted this without any luck ..... Opened Nat Geo maps and chose the Garmin Venture as a handheld - connected the cable frm the Garmin to the usb input on laptop. On the "Test connection" tab, I get the error message that it couldn't make a USB connection with the handheld. Looked in the manual for the GPS and couldn't find any specific settings that I needed to address on the GPS, and the hardware is hooked up properly to the laptop - chose the correct GPS from the software menu - don't know what else to try, and don't really want to purchase an older GPS... Any idea if one of those "stand alone" gps units would work if just plugged in?

thanks,

r

[kiwi_outdoors]

I went thru this

my OLD Garmin had a serial cable, and could talk to my PC in NMEA (?) mode so I could get live positioning on my computer screen - this was neat.

My new Etrx 20 only has USB and no NMEA data stream - so I have lost that functionality - grrrr. But - its a hiking GPS so I shoudl not expect live streaming of data to an external device.

[kiwi_outdoors]

BTW - since the Topo! audience is reading this, when I loaded Topo! Utah on my new Windows 8 PC I used its menu to import data discs for Calif (old), Nevada (somewhat recent) and Arizona (ancient, Mac).

Note - Topo! Utah read the data files from the "Mac" CD-ROm set just fine (I did not need the Mac executable).

My OOLLDD Yosemtie and National Parks CD-ROMS (four corners area) are too old to import (and irrelevant now that I have these four states.

[Old Jeeper]

Attempted this without any luck ..... Opened Nat Geo maps and chose the Garmin Venture as a handheld - connected the cable frm the Garmin to the usb input on laptop. On the "Test connection" tab, I get the error message that it couldn't make a USB connection with the handheld. Looked in the manual for the GPS and couldn't find any specific settings that I needed to address on the GPS, and the hardware is hooked up properly to the laptop - chose the correct GPS from the software menu - don't know what else to try, and don't really want to purchase an older GPS... Any idea if one of those "stand alone" gps units would work if just plugged in?

thanks,

r


Is 'USB Port' selected under 'Connection Settings'?

[Colton]

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[oldno7]

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