(originally posted in the wrong forum 😳 )

Garmin Connect & Base Camp are driving me up the bloody wall and I would appreciate any suggestions for good alternative software or a GPS web site to plot trails on to help me with this:

I have an Edge 800 with the 1:50,000 OS maps and I use some software to create custom maps/tiles using the 1:20,000 OS, all of which I can see in Garmin Base Camp when the Edge is plugged in to the computer so it’s great for plotting a trail along the true OS BW’s etc
The problem is that you can’t toggle between Google Earth and the maps and use them both to plot the trail, you can only view your trail in Google Earth. For obvious reasons I like to make sure I am following what’s real on the ground as well as the OS because as you know the real trail often bares no resemblance to the BW etc.
Garmin Connect allows you to plot your trail on a Google Earth map (albeit I think they’ve deliberately faded the image to encourage you to buy their satellite images) but the problem is you can’t use your OS maps to check you’re following the OS BW’s etc, and you can’t export/import the trail/course you’ve created between the two programmes.
I end up plotting the trail in Base Camp using the OS, then switching the view to Google Earth then opening Garmin Connect at the same time to plot the same trail all over again toggling back and forth between the view only Google Earth to compare them. Complete PIA

There must be something out there that allows you to use your OS maps & custom maps/tiles to plot your trail and toggle between that and a Google or Bing Earth image as you’re plotting it out and then allow you to export it to your Garmin.

Complicated I know for a Friday morning but any help would be appreciated.

Thanks

A) look for wheresthepath. That shows two windows of the same area – one OS and one Google satellite – with a shared cursor.

B) if you have the OS area as an image then you can – with a little patience – add it to Google earth as an image overlay. Set transparency to around 50% and you can see the satellite image through it.

Thanks.

Had a quick look at Wheresthepath and looks ideal. Does it allow you to use the 1:20,000 OS maps ?

I can do the transparency thing with Google Earth but can you plot the route and export it to the Garmin with that ? I can’t see that function in any of the drop down menus.

wheresthepath only does 1:50k OS..
To export from Earth to garmin you’ll have to convert the kml file using GPSBabel or similar.

Programs such as Anquet allow you to have all scales of OS and satellite imagery and also export to garmin, but expect to pay for that level of functionality.

…another thing. When you plot a course on Garmin Connect it shows the profile and elevation at the bottom of the screen (very nice)but when you save the course and/or send it to your device the elevation is gone.

Garmin is bank and gets on my bits… oops there I go getting my B’s mixed up with my W’s & T’s again !