[ale] OT: GPS/nav units?

[Jim Lynch]

Paul Cartwright wrote:
> On Mon February 25 2008, Charles Shapiro wrote:
>   
>> Since I got it I've used it occasionally to find my way. It's pretty fun,
>> although it won't work inside an automobile. You have to hang the gadget
>> out the window for its antenna to pick up the magic sky birds. I used it on
>> last year's BRAG ( http://brag.org ) to chart my progress though.
>>     
>
> not true. I took mine on car trips a few times, with my wife holding it, 
> telling me how fast I was going, and the routes we were about to cross..
> granted, my C-340 is MUCH better for road trips:)
> but I got me Etrex to map out my property. It failed miserably. the problem 
> is, the part of my property I want to map out is 4 acres of woods, 100+ foot 
> tall oak trees all over the place. Up by the house, it says accurate to 
> within 18 feet. Down in the woods, 100 feet away, it says accurate to within 
> 118 feet.. just about worthless.
> and I bought a silly serial-to-USB cable to try to hook up the etrex to my PC, 
> but also no joy. My laptop doesn't come with a serial port, I am REALLY sorry 
> I didn't get one. 
>
>   
The standard usb to serial cables are notoriously bad for connecting GPS 
units to laptops.  It's so bad that some dealers have constructed cables 
that work.  The problem is that they are more expensive than a pcmcia 
serial card.  I bought a pcmcia card on ebay and it works great with my 
laptop, Etrex and GPS 76.

Another option is here: 
http://www.pfranc.com/cgi-bin/P/pUSB32/garmin-GPS-cables.

I don't know if this cable works, but pfranc has a pretty good 
reputation.  I purchased a 4 pin connector for the GPS 48 from them a 
while back and, in  spite of my lousy soldering, it worked OK.

Jim.