Jack Erbes wrote:
Richard Lane wrote:
Jack Erbes wrote:


This has now changed a little. Now, with the latest 5xx series
marine chart plotters, you have to give up on uploading waypoints
and routes from a PC and forget about wanting or needing RS-232 (or
any other kind) of NMEA outputs.



Jack

Jack,
You can indeed upload way-points and routes (sequential
way-points)from a pc to a Garmin 5xx by setting "communications" to
Garmin i/o NMEA. If a named route then the 5xx display waits for you
to select "forward" or "reverse" before joining the way-points with a
colored line. I think I mentioned this in an earlier posting.

I think I remember that now. My apologies to Garmin.

I just looked at the manual for that again. I see it also has two
RS-232 serial NMEA outputs and that means it will also support a DSC VHF
radiotelephone and things like AIS too. So I was pretty much wrong
about all of it.

In my defense, I noticed that I am seeing a Rev C manual dated August
2007. I remember the manual I looked at previously be a *lot* more
vague on some of the technical details and assumed that if it was not
mentioned it did not have it.

I notice it also says that the user data on the 545 (waypoints, routes,
and tracks) can be saved to, merged from, or replaced with data from the
SD card. It says nothing about the format, I'm wondering if that would
be from a *.gpx file from MapSource?

As always, figuring out the details is a little painful. But between
the product page and the manual I've get a better picture of this now
and it is not as dumbed down as it appeared to be when it was new.

It will do 10,000 trackpoints, save an unstated number of tracks, store
1,500 waypoints, and 20 routes with up to 250 waypoints per route.

Another thing I notice is that, while all the 4xx and 5xx models are
described as having the "Ability to add maps", none of them have any
free main unit memory for adding user maps. And none of them are listed
as compatible with the BlueChart charting that comes on CD-ROM. So the
only method for adding charting to any of these is by buying the
BlueChart G2 SD cards.

Many of us find the pre-loaded SD cards to be a grossly more expensive
method for adding charting in comparison with the load you own from a
CD-ROM method used some for earlier models (and that is still in use for
some handhelds and other models).

For many boaters, the G2 SD cards come with a lot of features (3D bottom
views, marine photo views, etc.) that are simply not wanted. So Garmin
has once again, shut the door on previous generations of marine GPS
users by not giving users of older systems any upgrade path but the one
that Garmin has chosen for them.

Why in the hell Garmin does not include all the essential details of
waypoint, route, and track capacities both on the product page and in
the user's guide is just beyond my understanding. Many people, myself
included, decided it was apparently quite dumbed down from previous
models and that is not the case.

But, thanks for keeping me honest. :)

Jack
Jack,
I bought a 1Gb SD chip from Fry's that inserts under a little flap on
the front of the 540. I hope to up-load all my routes generated over the
years via the serial port from my pc to the 540 whence they become part
of "user data" then write them to the 1Gb SD chip for safe keeping. I
can then delete all the routes from the 540 that are not needed for a
particular trip to avoid having to page through the 540 route list. My
user manual is August 2007 and only 1/4 the size it would have been had
it described all the details. Incidentally I don't think the "mariner's
eye" view is as nice as the old highway view available on the 45xl hand
held.
Regards, Dick