articles/Review/gps-page16
by Mike McNamee Published 01/02/2017
The final (and fundamental) question is – should a landscape photographer indulge in what is going to be an estimated cost of between £200 and £400 on maps? Given that you can pick up a 1:25,000 map for under £20 (and by-the-by upload it to your mobile phone) then that might serve many. However, given that mobiles have poor, to nonexistent, coverage in many remote parts we really might need some GPS help to get us to where Gallagher told us to go! There is also something smugly satisfying about having the whole collection to hand regardless of where you pitch up in the UK. A paper version of a map and route is always a must from a safety point of view if you are off the beaten track – GPS devices can be dropped, batteries can run out, you should always know where you are and what your safe escape options are when in the hills.
After more than a month of goofing around we conclude the following:
If you need Auto Route 'snap to path' then start the process in Plotaroute and then export your route as a GPX file. This can download to the Garmin – not directly, that would be too easy! You save the download to your Desktop, open your Garmin as a USB 'device' (where it sometimes becomes available as a storage device, but not always!) then drag your GPX file in the 'New Files' folder of the Garmin and then disconnect the Garmin. When the Garmin fires up, the route appears in your 'Courses'.
If you need OS functionality then you have to open your GPX file in either MTBTrails or Anquet to get access to the OS map sets. Despite all our trials, tribulations and bitching about Garmin, by the end of the period we had it working with reasonable ease for just making a cycle route (which is, after all, its primary function).
There, that was easy wasn't it!
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