Gps Software Help

[Smitty1]

Hey Guys

 

 

I received a Lowrance H20 for Christmas - along with the MAPCREATE Canada Topo 6.3 SOFTWARE - I loaded the software on my computer and created a few maps of my area - I have been saving waypoints like the house and stuff on it - now I am trying to get the waypoints from my GPS to my computer. I have read both manuals for the GPS and the software and I have followed the steps - but I still can't seem to get it to show the waypoints on my computer - I have saved the map to the memory card and I try to load it to the computer - but the card does not seem to show anything on it.

 

Any ideas or tips on how to do this?

 

thanks

Smitty

[Rich Clemens]

Interesting, you're a little ahead of me. I just bought the H2O Mono unit and MapCreate Canadian Topo series. I too have been able to create maps and load them on to the hand-held. Have not tried going from the unit back to the PC.

 

Assuming I understand how it is 'supposed' to work, I gave it a try. That is, I manually entered a way point on my hand-held - just to see if I could do it. These are the steps I went through. Please forgive me if you have already done this. Writing this helps me to understand the process as well.

 

When you enter the way-points, ICONS, etc. on the hand-held, you have to SAVE them onto the SD card. MENU + MENU + SYSTEM SET-UP + TRANSFER MY DATA ... then SAVE. This will take you to a screen that has FILE NAME highlighted - with a default data file name called DATA. If you hit ENTER, it will highlight the default file name and you can change it. Then, use the arrows and go down to SAVE - and hit ENTER. This should save your data onto the SD card and you should also get a confirmation message. This worked for me.

 

Now, I removed the SD card from the unit and placed it into the card reader. Just to see if my file was there, I went into EXPLORER. I am running windows XP

 

Right click on the START button at the bottom left of your PC screen.

Click on EXPLORE

This should give you a list of the directories on your PC.

Find the one for the card reader - mine is SD(E).

Click on that and the files on the card should then show on the right-hand side of the screen. The test data file I created is shown. So, I did get a file saved onto the SD.

 

The next step is to copy the file from the SD onto your computer and there are a couple ways of doing this.

 

Open MapCreate on your computer.

Click on FILE - then OPEN GPS DATA FILE.

It should come up and default to the GPS DATA file of MAPCREATE. (on your hard-drive).

Use the drop down menu and click on the card reader drive.

This will show you the GPS data files on the SD. My Test file is there.

Click on the file name and click on open.

This opened up my map, the data file, and my waypoint shows.

Now, you are still looking at the GPS data file from the SD card.

 

Click on FILE.

Click on SAVE - then select GPS DATA FILE AS

Use the drop-down to locate the proper file into which to save the file on your computer.

 

For me it was .

 

C:\PROGRAM FILES\LEI\MAPCREATECANADATOPO6.3\MY GPS DATA

 

Then hit SAVE. It should save the file to your PC.

 

Just to see if it worked, I got clear out of MapCreate and started it up again. With my map displayed, I clicked on OPEN GPS DATA FILE, opened my data file, and my waypoint showed up.

 

I hope this helps as I'm sure there are other ways of doing this.

Edited January 4, 2007 by Rich Clemens