Garmin Basecamp Tutorials

[Madison Rapelyea]

Anold geocacher with a new gps is going mad... having spent 15 hours or so this weekend trying to get a small OSM map onto his gps. I've downloaded the latest Java, and also mkgmap-r2664 and splitter-r307 both of which I've unzipped. I've learnt lots about navigating in command prompts but keep hitting snags, taking me back to the days of DOS some 30 years ago!

I may miss something, but this question seems to be identical with that other one: basic-guide-to-download-osm-to-garmin-gps (see answers there). Does it need to be "small" or was that not really a requirement? Is there anything special with the eTrex20?

Many thanks for all the advice; I'm going to sit down this morning and try again. Seems like I've been trying to re-invent the wheel with all this splitting and conversion using mkgmap when other helpful people have already been there and done it. Will post how I get on.....now down to work!Thanks againSlowfox

Well, big progress today! Living in a rural part of France I'm waiting for a micro SD card to arrive in the post but following all the advice, I've now got Freizeitkarte FRA from one of the recommended sites up and running in Basecamp. Freizeitkarte recommend not installing it directly to the memory of the gps so I'm going to wait until my micro SD arrives. On basecamp though I can now see all the local caches with plenty of Topo detail sadly lacking on the eTrex20 map as supplied. As soon as the card arrives it should be a breeze....can't believe I was messing about in DOS trying to split and make make maps..I'll leave that to the professionals!Thanks for all the help...once I'm a super sleuth cache hunter with OSM maps I'll let you know.

If you don't explicitly want to build your very own map, you can download pre-made maps for your Garmin device.Here _Map_On_Garmin/Download you'll find a list of many people who build such maps so you don't have to. These are all kind of maps tailored for motorists, cyclists, hikers etc.

Those maps differ in what they display (small footpaths, huts) how they look on your device (colors, icons) and if and how they enable you to use the routing feature of your Garmin (car-only, cars+bikes+on foot, bikes only).Some come sorted by country or region, some let you combine predefined tiles, some even let your draw an arbitrary area on a map to select what you want.

Unfortunately, not all of these details can be found on the linked site. You have to take a look at the websites of the people offering the maps. Even there, you might not always get an example or detailed information. Then only trying them out on your own device will help.

A big thank you to everyone for their help. After the thunderstorms I'm back online and have cracked it. I can't believe I made such a pig's ear of it; I followed Chaos99's advice and went to _Map_On_Garmin/DownloadThen used Freizeitkarte for France and Spain.....now we're up and running.Thanks againSlowfox

I've found this site to be the easiest way to do it: You get a set of files that work with any of the Garmin loaders, and if you select the tiles, those are small enough that they even work on my old eTrex with a 2M memory.

I've downloaded the file, with name gmapsupp.img. I've copied it to SD card under /Garmin/, it didn't work. Now I've tried /Garmin/CustomMaps/, my map is still not available. What else should be done?

The website recommended by neuhausr, and probably most other websites, will allow you to download a zip file from which you can extract a '.img' file. Copy the extracted '.img' file to the \Garmin directory on the GPS, either on the device itself or on its SD card if you have fitted one. The map will then be available, and probably enabled by default, on the Map page of the GPS. The Etrex 20 has plenty of internal memory, which can be further expanded by fitting a micro-SD card, so you don't need to keep the downloaded map small unless you are concerned about download times. I have the whole of the British Isles (from ) on my Etrex 30, and there is still plenty of memory left. However, a map of that size takes about 20 minutes to download to my PC, and a further 20 minutes or so to copy to the SD card in the GPS. The map could be copied to the SD card much more quickly by taking it out of the GPS and using a separate SD card writer, but it hardly seems worth the effort.

As previous answers have said, if you just want to "install some maps" then a site such as is the way to go. If however in the future you do want to create your own maps (and modify the map style) then this previous answer may help.

Here are instructions for downloading maps from the web onto a Garmin GPS. In principal, these should work for other hiking GPS systems. Essentially, the process is a Kafkaeqque nightmare with many disconnects. Below are detailed instructions.

Since I have two Garmin eTrex 20 units, I must have masochistic tendencies. I have one for myself, and I recently bought my daughter one. The eTrex 20 is a reasonable selection given the range of horrible choices of hiking GPS systems.

For the Garmin eTrex 20, the user experience sucks. I suggest you play with the device at home with the manual to get used to it. Also, I suggest you print an extra copy of the quick-start instructions and bring them with you when you hike.

To do this successfully several things need to converge, and unfortunately there are gaps along the path. Maps are downloaded from the internet to a PC (or Mac). You then transfer the maps from the PC via a USB cable onto the GPS device.

The conduit on your PC is an application from Garmin called BaseCamp. BaseCamp looks like it was designed by the Department of Agriculture in 1956. It is horrible. Here is the link to can download Basecamp to your PC:

When you download BaseCamp to your PC and run it for the first time, the installer may say you need to install Microsoft .NET. This is legitimate and will not harm your PC. Thankfully this happens automatically after you give the loader permission.

With multiple maps overlayed on the devices, it is possible that you will have a cluttered display. You can selectively turn off the maps loaded onto your GPS device per instructions at link below. (Instructions vary based on the GPS model.) The first set of instructions at this link pertains to the eTrex 20.

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