Garmin 12, Natmap and Oziexplorer Software

AndrewI dont know about the laptop side of things as this something in the future for me . When I am planning a trip using the Natmap raster 250k I take the bearings off the map .
1..once start location map is showing put the Blue cross over that point, on the left of the screen you can choose lat / long or grid ,I use Grid (UTM Grid referance ) as I find it easy and simlpe to put into my GPS.
2.. Drag the map across to you next referance point and record the readings again
3.. once you have a list of referances and put them into your GPS as way points you can set them up as a route .
4..the other alternative is to simply press GO TO on you GPS and let it take you from one point to the next. Hope this is clear I am sure others will have details on laptops for you .Born to drive a 4x4 , not a keyboard
Peter York 4x4

Andrew,

Once you have the Natmap maps loaded and calibrated correctly in OziExplorer, here's a way of doing things:

1. Click on 4th icon from left in toolbar of Ozi ("Position and set waypoints on map"). Then with your mouse and the left button, click over the map on everything / anything you want to make a waypoint - this will initially just label all waypoints in numerical order (leave it that way for now). When you have finished,

2. Go to the menu across the top and click on view / lists / waypoint list. this opens up the list of all the waypoints you have just clicked on in step 1. You can now double-click each waypoint if you want to and change the name, symbol etc and add a description. When you have your finished list you can,

3. Within the waypoint list box, click on second from the right icon ('select all") follwed by the sixth from the right icon ("send selected waypoints to GPS") and, provided you have your GPS correctly connected to your computer, there you go.

All of the above can be done in other slightly different ways depending on whether you are a mouse or menu person, but it all achieves the same thing.

Go to menu, view / route editor to follow the same procedure to add your already saved waypoints into a route. Again, if you want you can send this route to your GPS also.

Lastly, two small bits of advice. Always save your work, ie waypoint lists and routes etc, in Ozi periodically in case you have a bad case of brain fade and press the wrong buttons after all your careful work; and connect up Ozi, the maps, and your GPS and PC and just play with all the menus and icons etc and see what they all do.

Hope some of this helps,

Jim

Andrew, yes the GPS plugs into the laptop. The Oziexplorer software enables the laptop to communicate with the GPS, and displays position, routes, waypoints etc on your Natmap maps as you drive along. It's brilliant. For support go to www.oziexplorer.com There is a Yahoo group that also provides helpful support. You will need to buy a Garmin cable to plug the GPS into your serial port (plus a USB to serial adaptor if you don't have a serial port).

Thanks to al of you all good advice indeed.

I have had a bit of a play and got some waypoints in the GPS(wow!!). There is a feature that makes a track when I download this to the GPS 12 it is not easily traceable. I suppose that the route system is better to use than then track system, would this be true to say ?

Thanks also for the advice on the support group

Cheers
Andrew

Andrew I have a Garmin GPS 12 (not the XL) and will soon be adding it to a lop top as you have done can you please tell me the model etc of the data cable you use .Also at Oziexplorer what area did you go into to do the down load? thanks for any info Im new at this laptop stuffBorn to drive a 4x4 , not a keyboard

Peter York 4x4