Garmin Oregon 500 Series with digital Camera

Discussion about software such as GSAK, OziExplorer etc, as well as all things hardware, GPSrs, laptops, PDAs, paperless caching, cables etc
Dooghan
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Re: Garmin Oregon 500 Series with digital Camera

Post by Dooghan » 12 August 09 6:02 am

The difference is 300 V's 400T V's 550

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pirate 63
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Re: Garmin Oregon 500 Series with digital Camera

Post by pirate 63 » 12 August 09 10:56 pm

thanks dooghan

pjamesk
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Re: Garmin Oregon 500 Series with digital Camera

Post by pjamesk » 12 August 09 11:05 pm

I rang ja-gps today and they only have the 550 in QLD at the moment Vic should get it by the end of the week.
All of their QLD shops were closed due to a holiday :( doesn't look like I will have it to go away now

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pirate 63
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Re: Garmin Oregon 500 Series with digital Camera

Post by pirate 63 » 13 August 09 7:32 pm

picked up my 550 today at brisbane

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Re: Garmin Oregon 500 Series with digital Camera

Post by Dooghan » 13 August 09 7:49 pm

pirate 63 wrote:picked up my 550 today at Brisbane
and do we get a review???

pjamesk
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Re: Garmin Oregon 500 Series with digital Camera

Post by pjamesk » 13 August 09 7:58 pm

Mine should turn up tomorrow :) or at worst Monday :(

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pirate 63
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Re: Garmin Oregon 500 Series with digital Camera

Post by pirate 63 » 22 August 09 9:24 pm

the 550 is a great unit,but because i had the 60csx stuck in my hand for so long,it seems to be more diffucult to use?,i think the 60csx had more features unless i hav'nt worked how to acees the 550 ! for example i dont think you change the map colours to your prerfence and i cant seem to send a cache from groundspeak to the unit ,even though it says it has succesfully writen it,wtf!. tyhe new version of the screen works ok in the sun,and it takes good pictures!.i use it on my m/bike and still not convinced the usb cable will be as waterproof as the plug in on the 60 csx.

pjamesk
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Re: Garmin Oregon 500 Series with digital Camera

Post by pjamesk » 24 August 09 11:43 am

The 550 is great =D>
Its good to go paperless again and the camera quality is better than I expected.
It has taken a bit to work out the different profiles and navigate around the different menu’s but i’m starting to get the hang of it now and the more I use it the better it is. I did have some trouble transferring from gc straight to the unit. It said that it was complete but at first I could not find it but then found it on the map. I think more because I was looking for a cache 2460 km away.
The screen seems ok to read in the sun once the brightness is set to the right level.
I haven't had time to load the maps yet so that is another thing to work out 8-[
My only problem is to find the time to use it now I have sold my house and am meant to be packing. Hey its all about getting priorities right.

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Re: Garmin Oregon 500 Series with digital Camera

Post by rediguana » 24 August 09 12:02 pm

pjamesk wrote:I haven't had time to load the maps yet so that is another thing to work out.
If it is anything like the recent software updates to the OR300 et al, map management has got really easy if you have the img files. With recent versions of the software, you can name the map files now, and as long as they have the img extension the unit will recognise them as maps and make them available in Setup > Maps. E.g. this is what I do with maps on the 300. I've got:

* Shonky.img - for Shonky maps
* NZOGPS.img - for the NZ Open GPS Maps, etc.

Once you've got them like this, you don't have to create and upload maps any more, you just shuffle the img files around. E.g. say you are going to the US and have a 1.something GB img file for CN North America 2010. With the 550, and USB2, you just copy off the img files from \Garmin (on the SD card in this case as it won't fit in internal memory) and copy the CN img file in. Of course if you've got a large card, you can probably just have a pile of maps available at all times, and have different profiles set up and change map sets by switching profiles.

If you don't have the img files, then you'll have to go through the process of producing them. I'd recommend only one map set per img file, so that you have the flexibility of managing map files by drag-and-drop on the file system. You'll have less flexibility if you bundle multiple maps into a single img with Mapsource.

This is based on my experience of the OR300 over the past few months, soon to be upgrading to the 550 for the 5k cache capacity :D

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pirate 63
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Re: Garmin Oregon 500 Series with digital Camera

Post by pirate 63 » 31 August 09 8:43 pm

aaarrgh!

is there a way to delete caches,but not all my wpts?,the 60 csk was so easy for that!

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Re: Garmin Oregon 500 Series with digital Camera

Post by Map Monkey » 31 August 09 9:39 pm

pirate 63 wrote:aaarrgh!

is there a way to delete caches,but not all my wpts?,the 60 csk was so easy for that!
Nope [-(

Cache info is stored in GPX files like most other data on the Oregons, however at this stage they do not have a file management ability.....deleting the whole file is the only option.

mm

pjamesk
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Re: Garmin Oregon 500 Series with digital Camera

Post by pjamesk » 31 August 09 9:47 pm

Map Monkey wrote:
pirate 63 wrote:aaarrgh!

is there a way to delete caches,but not all my wpts?,the 60 csk was so easy for that!
Nope [-(

Cache info is stored in GPX files like most other data on the Oregons, however at this stage they do not have a file management ability.....deleting the whole file is the only option.

mm
I would say no :-k but it allows me to delete waypoints like parking and the start of tracks that are uploaded as part of the GPX file. using the waypoint manager
But I can't work out how to delete the cache that was also in the GPX file :shock:

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pirate 63
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Re: Garmin Oregon 500 Series with digital Camera

Post by pirate 63 » 31 August 09 9:57 pm

so the best way would be to store the wpts i want to keep in a file on map source and just keep up loading them, then i can just delete wpts on the oregon?

pjamesk
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Re: Garmin Oregon 500 Series with digital Camera

Post by pjamesk » 31 August 09 10:12 pm

If you use GSAK you could change, delete or add caches then upload the gpx file with the same name. That would over write the existing file and make the changes you want

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pirate 63
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Re: Garmin Oregon 500 Series with digital Camera

Post by pirate 63 » 01 September 09 7:55 pm

i want to keep other wpts that our not geo related,so might have to upload them from a file stored on mapsource every time i dump and reload the cache wpts from gsak,any other ideas guys?

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