Roger Long wrote:
I feel a little better. My adventure into Garmin world left me with
two GPS units registered. One was a ghost with a unit ID matching
the serial number of the real one and a serial number that came from
God knows where. Since you can only get the charts to unlock with
two units, this meant that I wouldn't be able to load them into a
back up GPS when I purchase one.

I wrote and email to technical support asking them to please kill the
ghost GPS. Immediately after, I went back to the Garmin site and my
account to look around some more. The ghost GPS had already
disappeared! It clearly wasn't a case of the fastest technical
support response on the plant becaust it was less than a minute since
hitting the sent button. The Garmin system must have automatically
checked, figured out that something was bogus, and killed the record.

Cool.

(I'd still buy something else though)

It's easy to confuse the Unit ID with the serial number of the unit.
However, connecting the unit to a laptop or PC with Mapsource installed
searches for and displays the Unit ID, since without this, no connection is
established to enable data, map or chart transfers between.the unit and the
PC,

Unlock codes require the unit ID, area code, and software code (type), for
Garmin to generate the unlock codes. Unlock codes that will often work with
the PC will not unlock maps/charts for the instrument, although unlock codes
for the specific instrument will unlock maps/charts on your laptop or PC.

The reference codes that are supplied with the software you buy, eg
Bluecharts, have to be supplied to Garmin, together with your unit ID,
before they can supply you with an unlock code for that instrument, and ONLY
that instrument. True, Garmin allow you 2 sets of codes with your software,
and it would seem that you would have to re-register your 2nd instrument
(when you buy it) and explain to Garmin that you have mistakenly supplied
them with the wrong unit id the first time you sent the info to them,
otherwise they will assume that you already have 2 instruments and have
used up your allocation of unlock codes.

I don't see the point of buying a second unit, since you will already have
the charts on your laptop and some of these on your handheld GPS. Garmin
however do recognise that some people will own 2 GPS mapping units, hence
their software allows 2 such installations.

One tip Roger. When selecting charts to upload to the unit, you may overlook
the fact that some larger area charts contain smaller area charts, ie the
same area is covered on 2 or more charts, but be aware that the detail
contained in the small area chart can be substantially greater than that
contained in the large area chart, so that zooming in to a large area chart
does not give you the same amount of detail as using the smaller area chart.
I therefore tend to ignore large area charts when uploading and instead use
more small area charts in my instrument (a GPSMAP60CS).

I have also found that road maps, (City Select and City Navigator) over-ride
the BlueCharts when loaded to the same unit, and you have to untick such
maps in the Map Page before you can use the BlueCharts. This can be a
nuisance in coastal areas when you may have used the road map to drive down
to the marina and want to use the BlueChart to navigate out of the marina
and along the coast. This may be specific to my particular instrument, but
it's worth checking if you are faced with a chart with no detail!


Dennis.