Re: Garmin Etrex Legend USA/UK

From: Keith Sheppard (keith.sheppard_at_tesco.net)
Date: 01/26/05 

Date: Wed, 26 Jan 2005 10:38:41 GMT

>>I read in aspidshop.com:
>>>> If you think you will save some money, that is not true! Read this:
>>When you buy a GPS receiver in the U.S.A., in fact its price is, in most
>>cases, cheaper compared to Europe. However, the GPS will bring U.S.A.
>>basemaps only, that can not be changed to European basemaps. The only
option
>>would be to buy the detailed cartography for Europe, but that would make
the
>>total cost much more expensive, rather than buying everything in Europe.
So
>>be smart, if you are a US citizen buy in US, if you are European buy in
>>Europe! <<
>>
>>I don't understand what they mean when they write: >> the GPS will bring
>>U.S.A. basemaps only, <<

The eTrex legend has inside it a very coarse map, called the base map. This
map is indellibly burned into the unit. You cannot change it, update it
etc.

The base map actually covers the entire globe but the level of detail varies
considerably by region. If you buy a unit in the USA it will have a "USA
base map". What that means is that the level of detail for the USA includes
main roads and towns but if you use the unit in Europe you will discover
that all it includes is national borders and, if you are lucky, a few really
big cities - London, Paris etc. probably.

If you buy a European Legend it will be the other way about. You will have
the European base map which will give main roads and principal towns in
Europe but only state boundaries and major cities in the US.

However, for planning walking trips, which is what you say you want to do,
this is largely irrelevant. Even if you are in the principal area of
coverage, the base map in a Legend is darned near useless for walking trips.
I live in the UK and have a European Legend. Take a look at the built-in
map of a walking area like, say, Snowdonia in North Wales. I just focussed
in on the area on my Legend base map. I can see main towns and some tourist
resorts like Beddgelert, even Rhyd-Ddu. The A roads are there and some of
the principal lakes. Don't expect to see footpaths or even minor roads,
though. Even quite major landmarks are missing. I mean, Snowdon itself is
a pretty big as landmarks go and I could have sworn it was just a bit North
of Beddgellert...

In short, to really plan your walks you need to upload detailed maps of the
specific areas you will be visiting. There are two ways to obtain these and
one is to buy them. Unfortunately there's only one supplier and that's
Garmin. As in any monopoly this means the price is high - too high in my
view. You also need to be wary as to whether the map you are buying really
contains the level of detail you need for the area you are about to visit.

I therefore always go for option 2 which is to make your own. This has the
advantage of being free and you can ensure you get precisely the level of
detail you want for the area you are going to, no more no less. For
example, my home-made map for a holiday walking the Cornish coastal path was
a bit like a Polo mint. It contained practically every boulder round the
coast but with a completely empty centre.

The map making process consists of obtaining a graphical image of a map of
the area and then painstakingly tracing over all the roads, paths etc. with
your mouse.

The down side is that it is very labour intensive and time consuming.
However I quite enjoy the process anyway and it helps me to really feel I
know an area before I visit (I tend to suffer from mouse clicker's finger,
though, if I've been doing a lot of map tracing).

There are several software products around to "roll your own" maps but I
actually wrote my own. I'm much too fussy to be satisfied with other
people's software and I quite enjoy the development process too.

You can download my map-making program, MapMan, from
http://homepages.tesco.net/~Keith.Sheppard/MapMan.htm. For UK maps, the
Ordnance Survey run an excellent Get-a-Map web page
(http://www.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/oswebsite/getamap/). MapMan is fully
integrated with this so you can use OS maps for your tracings.

I am a keen walker myself so if you let me know what areas of the UK are of
interest, I may already have MapMan maps of that area.

Regards
Keith

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