??? gps maps????

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darmaduke

darmaduke

10 Year 15 Year
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Oct 15, 2007
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north vancouver
Ok, So I bought a garmin, The colorado 300. got the canada topo maps... and they suck..... whats up.. thy are missing all sorts of roads?? big roads, not just small out of the way ones, but major roads that are high speed gravel roads....... Did i buy the wrong stuff????


scott
:bang:
 
If your talking about the Canadian Topographic's, 1:50,000 scale, some of those maps haven't been updated in 30 years. The map that should show the Coquihala... doesn't. When I'm driving it shows me in the river. I'd complain, but mapping is expensive. If the Government decided to start updating maps all at once it would be costly, then the taxpayers would bitch that the Government is wasting money. Not sure what it takes to get the maps updated, some are only 10 years old.
 
I just use the most recent (of the old) topo maps and set my GPS to the Military grid system. I plot the new roads on my old maps. I find the MGS much easier than lat/long and with the right roamer on your compass it takes a few seconds to plot your weigh points. I like to have a topo map incase my GPS takes a dive anyway.
 
darmaduke said:
Ok, So I bought a garmin, The colorado 300. got the canada topo maps... and they suck..... whats up.. thy are missing all sorts of roads?? big roads, not just small out of the way ones, but major roads that are high speed gravel roads....... Did i buy the wrong stuff????


scott
:bang:
Click to expand...

Bought the same unit from costco, looked at the canadian TOPO map (included free) and returned it the same day. The topo map was useless, it was missing all logging roads, even the mainlines. The backroad map book maps are great but they won't work on any commercial GPS which all use a proprietary format (there may be some way to hack/convert the maps over to another format but that seems to require a lot of research). Best bet I think is to get a small laptop (one of the netbooks for instance), load the backroad map books on it and use an external gps antenna. The screen size is way more usable as well.
 
That's what many of us are running right now and it works 85% of the time, add to that memory-map software or Auzzie (spelling?) software along with backroads digital and you're good for about 95%, the other 5% is for when the logging guys do new roads in the past 3-5 years and maps have not caught up.
 
Either way we get burned in Canada. In the US most mapping (topo and marine) is provided free by the Feds. That's why most GPS include USA topo/marine but not Canadian, and we have to pay through the nose for the Canadian stuff.
 
so I returned the garmin, and the topo maps. The last stray was that I went for a long hike to lynn lake, abot 9 hrs return, and the stupid thing froze up twice and then ran out of batteries... and they were new ones to....Guess i will just keep getting lost for now.


Scott
 
GPSmap 76CSX... love it.

I found that you need to turn off the metroguide maps for the topos to work properly. In the areas of Vancouver Island that I have used it on, the maps were decently accurate and all of the little roads were shown.

~John
 
For some of you guys that use Magellan(Triton) series get ahold of Jungle Ghost ( the best) just about every secondary, thirdary and friggin footpath
 
Last edited:
At least you understood him this time;)
 
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