ok so I have just got a garmin 800 and I’m looking to load it with some maps. What’s the best to get or to avoid?

OSM, which are free, I’d say! Does depend a bit on your use case, and how detailed they are in your local area, but (having both) I think they’re more useful the OS maps myself.

You can’t put memory map maps on a Garmin.

What else is there then, apart from OSM (which I’m looking into)?

Ordnance Survey maps are available at great expense, or some less legitimate sources for significantly less expense…

Garmin do their own OS maps – Garmin Explorer.

I love OS maps, and use them on my 800. I’ve tried using OSM but just can’t get on with them yet.

I have seen garmin descover maps on eBay for about £30, can you use these on several devices? Has anybody bought one of these

I’ve got the whole of the UK Landranger scale OS mapping on my Garmin Oregon 450t. I got the microSD from a dealer on ebay for £29.99 and have no reason to believe it isn’t legit

Works perfect.

🙂

If you look in the right places you can download both Memory Map full UK OS Maps (25k and 50k scales) and Garmin Discoverer OS maps full UK 50k scale for nowt.

Memory Map OS maps are not compatible with Garmin OS maps and vice versa. If you buy the Garmin Maps officially they are locked to a single device, so upgrading/replacing a lost unit gets expensive.

Memory Map is great for planning and creating routes which you can save and load onto your Garmin to follow. The Garmin software not so great to do this.

If you buy the Garmin Maps officially they are locked to a single device,

there on a SSD card their not locked to a specific device

The Garmin software not so great to do this.

disagree its really easy and uses the mapping on your garmin SSD card so you have OS map to plan from. I’d say people havent actually used the software or OS map SSDs

If you look in the right places you can download both Memory Map full UK OS Maps (25k and 50k scales) and Garmin Discoverer OS maps full UK 50k scale for nowt.

theft

You can get the whole of England on a SSD card at 1:50k for about £30. Thats 100s of paper maps which normally cost @£12 each

IMHO the free Garmin software coupled with OS maps from SSD on your Garmin is very good. Garmin is the industry leader too. I use 800 and a Oregon 650

Who sells legitimate OS 1:50K maps for £30 !

OS vastly reduced the price of digital licences for their maps at some point early last year – so if you haven’t looked recently then worth looking again.

Legitimate 1:50k Landranger mapping is now pretty cheap.

1:25k Explorer is still relatively expensive although much less than before – I paid £230 for full UK (this was for a Satmap, not Garmin), but previously it would have cost over £2000!

there on a SSD card their not locked to a specific device

You can’t back this up, and if you lose your device you are fecked according to Garmin.

disagree its really easy

Disagree, Memory Map is much better.

theft

No, it’s copying.

You can get the whole of England on a SSD card at 1:50k for about £30

From where?

IMHO the free Garmin software coupled with OS maps from SSD on your Garmin is very good.

I assume you mean ‘Base camp’.

Possibly the worst piece of software on the entire planet. It never sees the OS maps on my etrex, so it just uploads the base map and then gets completely confused when it eventually finds the OS map on the device. This is then overlaid over the base map but nothing lines up.

If you want to plan/upload/download routes there are loads of options out there.

And as for that rucksac/knapsac icon . . .Who the **** designed that!

Hth
Marko

I agree with the above neg. criticism about Garmin software.

i’ve got Garmin Etrex Legend HCX GPS. I bought Garmin TOPO mapping for it. The mapping lives in garmin mapsource. i select which mapping tiles (ie Lake district) and upload to device. That’s all. There’s no point trying to plot routes or tracks. Mapsource & now basecamp is pretty useless software for plotting routes (I’m being pretty polite about the garmin software considering I paid for the full GB topo mapping). Mapping is too restricted and the its by no means full OS. It gives you an acceptable topo map on the device. I only really use the device to follow the route and if lost get out my paper map (printed from Memory-Map)

I use 1:50k maps in Memory-Map. Very nice piece of software (I share mmo routes with fellow riders). easy to plot routes, look at elevation and 3D fly through is very good.

I’ve just bought route buddy and Lake District 1:25k mapping to use on a desk top mac MM is windows only). Memory Maps is much better; Route Buddy disabled importing gamin routes and plotting routes is not as intuitive as memory map. So much so that I’ve partitioned my mac HD via bootcamp, installed Win7 and installed my memory map software & maps on the mac. Soooo much better.

For France I buy 1:25k IGN maps from memory-map digital shop in 5k parcels. I then activate the areas I want to look at (say a valley at a time). I still have plenty of credit left from my first 5k (Les Deux Alpes, Val d’Allos, Alpe D’Huez). I have then downloaded free open source TOPO map for the garmin.

But wherever I go I always have an analogue backup; a paper map and a compass.

there on a SSD card their not locked to a specific device

You used two variants of there/their, both were wrong, congratulations 😉

They are though – they come on a Micro SD card, and once you’ve stuck it in a device they won’t load in other devices.

there on a SSD card their not locked to a specific device
You can’t back this up, and if you lose your device you are fecked according to Garmin.

I swap the SSD card between my two devices without any issue. If you buy download maps your correct they are specific to the device.

Never had an issue with memory map finding the maps on 800 or 650

Tracks work anywhere, sort of bread crumb trail. Routes only work on road.i find routes really good, turn by turn.

If I take a wrong directoon when I’m off road the OS maps there so you pan, move or zoom out and use it like a normal map. 650 has a big enough screen for this.

Fair cop njee20, but as I said I have two devices and the SSD card which I bought with a old 450 Oregon works in new 800 and 650. So as it’s worked in three devices I think QED. I also have the Europe SSD card, works the same when I did some touring across France.

SSD cards aren’t locked, downloaded maps are.

You can get the whole of England on a SSD card at 1:50k for about £30.

I swap the SSD card between my two devices without any issue.

Are you sure you have a legit version? Not a counterfeit off Ebay? I am sure when I bought mine it cost a lot more and was only useable in the one device. I couldn’t make a backup or use anywhere else after it was registered to that device.

I lost my Garmin with Micro SD card in it. When I purchased a replacement unit, even though I had receipts Garmin wanted me to buy new maps as well due to the T&Cs. That’s when I went down the unofficial route as I wasn’t going to pay for the rights to something twice.

this

there on a SSD card their not locked to a specific device

doesn’t happen on Pukka Garmin supplied SD cards. As mentioned above, as soon as you put a pukka Garmin SD card into a device, the maps on the SD are locked to that device.

It is possible, using dubious software, to unlock Garmin maps to any device. Hence the availability of £30 SD cards with a copy of Garmin OS Explorer maps on. Even in sealed packaging which looks pukka.

There’s no point in buying non-legit SD cards for 30 quid. It’s the same act of copyright infringement as downloading them, except you’re giving 30 quid to a criminal.

According to Garmin, they should cost 200 quid
https://buy.garmin.com/en-GB/GB/maps/on-the-trail-maps/discoverer/garmin-gb-discoverer-full-coverage/prod71454.html

So if I’m reading this right, I can buy mapping software on an SD card (looking at the eBay £30 option) Which I can then view on a PC to plan routes & mark up a route on the map. Then stick the SD card in the Garmin and go play? But if I buy memory map I can only view and plot a route which can be saved onto the Garmin ( via cable I suppose), but then need mapping software on the Garmin in as well ( such as Garmin maps). And all these maps, except OSM are based on OS maps? I would like to point out my Garmin is still in the post.

So if I’m reading this right, I can buy mapping software on an SD card (looking at the eBay £30 option) Which I can then view on a PC to plan routes & mark up a route on the map. Then stick the SD card in the Garmin and go play? But if I buy memory map I can only view and plot a route which can be saved onto the Garmin ( via cable I suppose), but then need mapping software on the Garmin in as well ( such as Garmin maps). And all these maps, except OSM are based on OS maps? I would like to point out my Garmin is still in the post.

Yes pretty much except you don’t need to remove the SD card from the GPS to use the Garmin Software on the PC. there will be a USB cable. Its the actual map data you buy on the SD card not the mapping software – that you download to your PC from Garmin or a CD if it comes with your GPS.

craig5 – Member
So if I’m reading this right, I can buy mapping software on an SD card (looking at the eBay £30 option) Which I can then view on a PC to plan routes & mark up a route on the map. Then stick the SD card in the Garmin and go play? But if I buy memory map I can only view and plot a route which can be saved onto the Garmin ( via cable I suppose), but then need mapping software on the Garmin in as well ( such as Garmin maps). And all these maps, except OSM are based on OS maps? I would like to point out my Garmin is still in the post.

Essentially yes. I bought genuine TOPO maps for Garmin on a CD (I’ve put these maps on 3 PCs now without issue, but so far only tried them on one device). I then transfer the maps to my Garmin GPS. But, and its a big BUT, the Garmin TOPO mapping & map source are useless for planning/plotting routes. The level of detail is not good enough. Its also restricted, so you can only view and print (on the PC) a small detail of the TOPO map due to OS licensing restrictions. Anyone serious about plotting routes will need proper OS mapping software like Memory-Map, Routebuddy, Tracklogs etc.

When you get your Garmin, download Basecamp and see if you can find any open source mapping online;

I downloaded France for Garmin from here

Again good enough for the device, better than City Navigator but not close to French 1:25k IGN

Memory-Map pays for itself as not only can you plot GPS routes/tracks and upload them to your Garmin, you can print off full OS maps. I print small sections (A4) that cover my ride plus space (for escape routes) & stick in a document cover to make it waterproof. It folds in my shorts pocket so its handy. Memory-map do waterproof printing paper.

Wrong
Wrong

I have the genuine Garmin City Navigator maps on an SD card supplied with my Edge 705.
I have the genuine Garmin OS 1:50K UK maps on an SD card supplied with my Dakota 20.
I can put either card in either device and they all work.
I’ve since replaced the Dakota with an Oregon. I still use the maps supplied with my Dakota.

I’ve copied both maps to a USB stick that lives plugged into my PC so that I can use them in Basecamp without having to plug the GPS in. The software works really well, shows no memory constraints when dealing with multiple routes and is has a great folder-style library.

If you buy genuine Garmin maps on an SD card, then they are locked to that SD card. So they will work in any device. But they won’t work if you copy them onto another card, then put that in a device.
So make sure you don’t lose or break the card, because a backup won’t work.

I’m totally lost now. The unit I have bought has city navigator on it, which is no use for me. Is the Garmin software the best to run in the field? I have found some OSM on here which I’m going to look at one I get my 800. Can you load the memory maps on to more than one PC ( I only have a work laptop). The Garmin maps are viewed “through” the head unit with a cable on the PC, but can’t be saved onto a PC as a file & then onto backup SD cards for example?

[/url]basecamp by iancparker, on Flickr[/img]

[/url]route buddy by iancparker, on Flickr[/img]

Torihada – that must be the oldest version of Basecamp I’ve ever seen. Have you not considered installing a newer version?

OK, for me I only bought the Garmin maps so that I had maps on the device (it came bare).

I bought memory-,map for plotting. I also bought the memory maps on disc. I bought 1:50k a region at a time. Its about £50 for North of England. I have now put those maps from the CDs on 2 laptops and one desktop (the two laptops are still running).

here’s a good deal. memory Map outlet shop on eBay selling whole of UK @ 1:50k for £50

scotroutes – Member
Torihada – that must be the oldest version of Basecamp I’ve ever seen. Have you not considered installing a newer version?

Brand new version of basecamp; I think you’ll find its the old Garmin TOPO maps (bought on CD not bundled on a device) The ETREX’s aren’t compatible with new maps; but I now realise the OPs newer device will get better mapping if bundled or at a price. So as usual it appears I’ve been talking outdated b*ll*cks. But I still hold to memory-map being a great piece of software.

I only have a Garmin 705 so the screen isn’t as good a display!

Having tried a few maps the best ones for look I find are the OpenFietsMap from http://garmin.openstreetmap.nl/

I also have Memory Map with 1:50k and 1:25k of the whole of the UK and much better for plotting off road routes etc – tend to use http://www.bikehike.co.uk for plotting road routes online!

As for other Garmin maps – Talkytoaster does some good free OSM maps, and some paid for 1;50k “look n feel” maps which look good, but don’t work on my 705!

I also have the Garmin 1:50k Discovery map file (again doesn’t work on 705) but I didn’t give £30 to a criminal for it…….

Here’s Basecamp showing OS 1:50K

I have used Memory Map for ages and think it’s really good, I like it for plotting routes to follow. I don’t have a Garmin but copy it to my iPhone and use MM on my phone too, quite handy. I use this when I’m at rallies and wouldn’t be without it these days.

I bought full UK 2014 OS 1:50k HD maps for £60 last October (special offer before the new 2015 maps came out), HD makes a heck of a difference and was only £10 more.

Still think the 1:25k is very expensive so don’t that though any emails with info would be appreciated………

scotroutes – Member
Here’s Basecamp showing OS 1:50K

What Garmin device do you have those maps on? I’ve heard they don’t display well on the new ETREX devices (but may work well on the Dakota, Montana etc devices?) I’m thinking it may time to update my 8 yr old garmin & the maps.

They were on a Dakota, now in an Oregon. Both work well but I do prefer the larger screen on the latter.

scotroutes – Member
They were on a Dakota, now in an Oregon. Both work well but I do prefer the larger screen on the latter.

POSTED 37 MINUTES AGO # REPORT-POST

They’re both touch screen? How do you find using in wet/mud? How have the screens fared? Battery life?

Sorry for all the q’s