Messages

1

Routes / Re: USA Corner to Corner

« on: December 25, 2012, 07:23:56 pm »

No one ever says anything good about the Lewis & Clark.  I did a good bit of the US in '10 double-crossing the US -  @10,000 miles, 27 states in 207 days.  The many many roadside attractions and kiosks made the L&C the best of days.  I know more about L&C than anyone would ever need to know and I learned that we Americans are pretty soft. 

Weather?  Well, anyone can ride in the park - WEATHER brings adventure and that's what I leave home to find.  er... fire?  Now, that's to worry about.

2

GPS & Digital Data Discussion / Re: City Navigator come w/ full unlock code?

« on: December 25, 2012, 05:33:22 pm »

Probably a bit late with any info, but I'll confirm the 'NT' is New Technology and that a 60csx can use it - if you have the capacity on the sd card.  Capacity isn't going to an issue with newer/larger sd cards - not all large cards will work with the csx - and the unit will damage some card, rendering it dead.  Google knows about the problem

The NT makes use of a single really large file (>1gig) for all of the area covered; it is simple drag & drop to the gps'r.  A downside is the copying time but once loaded you seldom need to re-copy - and the file can be copied to the sd chip using a faster sd port (either on a laptop or camera/phone) and then the sd is inserted to the unit.  Garmin uses(used) a much slower than USB 1.0 protocol for the interface.

However, Mapsource seems to prefer its maps in smaller sections.  For me, that required, breaking the big map into smaller, CNNANT 2011 (1,317,437,440 bytes) breaks into about 118 maps using MapSetToolKit. 

I've loaded CNNANT and USTOPO100K and the Blue Charts onto a 4gig chip and had enough capacity to add a few other needed files.

3

General Discussion / Re: Bicycle Touring vs Backpacking

« on: December 13, 2012, 10:15:40 pm »

From my experience, which is just under 20,000 miles total, in its simplest form the answer is:

thru-Hiking - meet some people; can carry nothing extra, dream about sitting in a chair; camp most anywhere you want, any time you want, for as long as you want; breakfast not so good; cheap

thru-padding - meet nobody; carry everything you want including a chair, none of it on your back; camp IF you can reach land that's not guarded by soft mud or oyster beds; cold breakfast in da boat or you'll miss the morning's calm water; so much food = so much money

bike-touring - meets lots of people; carry most of what you want, no need for a chair, for every 20 minutes spent pushing your gear up a hill you get a 20 second free ride on the other side; camp at walmart  - if you are brave enough; AND breakfast at McD's - budget for it.

AL-Me '08 Hike
Me-AL '08 Bike
ASRT '09 Paddle
EDC '10 Bike
FCT '11-12 Paddle

4

GPS & Digital Data Discussion / Re: GPS Data Wish List

« on: December 13, 2012, 06:46:36 pm »

I am working on the route(s) for my next epic trip.  I used the files available in early 2010 for a 207 day, 10,000 mile, 27 state, double crossing of the US pretty much as it was downloaded (just stripping out side trails and alternates) - I found the routing to be very good; the only problem with the data was that my GPS was unable to figure out how to auto-route bike trails.  The waypoint data was used somewhat, but my gps unit knows where to find cheap food, Walmarts for tires and tubes, and ATM's.  I used routes from the ST, AC, TA, LC, NT, SC, WE, GC, ST-again, and Natchez Trace (which is part something).   


First, a suggestion/tip: Keeping waypoints along a route separate from the intermediate points within a route make it very easy to load them as POI's - for conversation, POI's do not consume memory resources like a waypoint.  Generally, the number POI's are unlimited, while newer gps's support >2000 waypoint, Garmin's newest is limited to 4,000.  The current version of my 2013 trip of about 8,000 miles has 9944 waypoints and 264 routes.  New units support only 200 routes so I will be grouping a few of those together.  [And yes, I know how to handle gps data for long trip on an old gps'r.  I paddled around Florida last summer - no routing there, just 1515 miles of waypoints.]

And second - find a decent way to handle trails.  I am planning to ride the GDMBR this spring and Garmin's Mapsource and my gps devices go crazy trying to auto-route the backwoods. Currently, where there is a big problem, I am striping the too few waypoints from routes and deleting the route itself,  This has led to some trust issues.  For example: Waypoint M01B90 at N46.16523 W112.37158 on Google Satellite and auto-routing of that section.  For the GDBMR trail I have the 20 4000-pt tracks from (topofusion) Scott Morris' trip and his related work and do not have any issue there, I will follow the tracks.  However, as I found while bicycling home from Maine in '08 and during my '10 trip, rails-to-trails and local bike paths are difficult to locate/determine when the gps unit finds a nearby road.

Warren
findingwarren.com

5

GPS & Digital Data Discussion / Re: Spot... in real time

« on: December 13, 2012, 05:06:41 pm »

First off, I'd use SpotWalla for tracking - you can have maps on all three, though; I do.

Second, Real Time mixing a pre-planned map with a active/current track or Spot message sounds good - and good luck with that!  Actually, while I've hear that the was site that made that happen, the site is no longer on the web; perhaps there is another.

Third, the good news; SpotWalla recently released a beta for its SpotWalla APi - SWAPI.  I've done some looking at it and think that it is just what everyone is waiting for.  I expect someone is already working on an Androd App for it.  Myself, I will look into this issue this January when the weather turns cold and I am forced indoors;  I wanted this tool last summer while paddling the FCT.

Fourth, be slightly leery of placing  Real-Time data where just anyone can see it.  Few think abut just how badly that can go.  The leap from an "innocuous newspaper article" to showing someone "where you are going to be" can turn out badly  Re: Jenn Gibbons, On Mission To Row Around Lake Michigan.

Warren

"To be nobody but yourself - in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you like everybody else - means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight; and never stop fighting."