garmin question

BurbanAZ

Explorer
I picked up a garmin etrex legendHCx from someone for 80 bucks. Its basically brand new and alot of the packaging wasnt even opened so it seemed like a good deal since i needed a better gps. I have an older garmin that we got from someone a while back and it has the city streets and stuff on it already, this one only seems to have the highways. Am i just missing how to get all the roads to show or is it a package i have to buy because i know their map packages are like 80 bucks.
 

UglyScout

Observer
It should have pretty good streets right out of the box -- in the menus you might need to increase the map 'detail' to show the stuff. I run mine on high detail all the time.

The add on maps and MapSource software are pretty good if you do go with it. You can even find legit free data to load if you have the MapSource program- but you have to buy the program to begin with.

I love my lil' bity Garmin for hiking, trails, exploring. Not so great for road navigation but it works.
 

broken1

Observer
I have the same one for my offroad navigation. The Legend's basemap sucks. I would suggest either the 24K topos (which are autoroutable) for your region https://buy.garmin.com/shop/shop.do?pID=35408 or the region you are going. Alternatively you could pick up the whole US in their 100k topos https://buy.garmin.com/shop/shop.do?pID=28229 which isn't drastically different from the 24k really though it can not be used for autorouting and then a CitySelect https://buy.garmin.com/shop/shop.do?pID=1456

I went with the later. It is pretty straight forward to switch back and forth between mapsets. You could also do 2 different SD cards, one for topo and one for road. I ended up getting a dedicated road GPS (Nuvi 765T) which does it's specialty awesome and then I let the Legend do it's thing, topos and offroad navigation. I keep road maps on the legend just in case my Nuvi craps out.
 

BurbanAZ

Explorer
yea i love the little garmins since i do alot of backpacking and stuff, I tried to turn up the detail and it still only sows the highways and no actual streets, ill have to try and download some of that stuff i just wish their maps were more affordable.
 

Hedge

Adventurer
For topos - gpsfiledepot.com for free non-route-able 24k topos; free mapsource software from garmin.com to load them on the GPS.

For roads - I don't know of a way to get a better, route-able road database without purchasing map software from Garmin.
 

dox

Member
A lot of the maps at GPSFileDepot.com have roads, and can be installed in BaseCamp and then transferred to a GPS unit using MapInstall (if you have a MicroSD installed with some space on it). Look at the Planimetric maps, they seem to be pretty detailed road maps.

You could always keep an eye on ebay for a year or two old MicroSD card with maps on it. Occasionally you'll come across someone selling their old one when they upgrade to a newer map version.

There are also other ways to acquire maps, but they are not so legal :costumed-smiley-007
 
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