Converting GPS info

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Can anyone tell me if its possible to convert a land/city map gps to an
aviation gps?
Are there downloads available?
Has it ever been done?
Lou

[Jim Macklin]

Garmin has done it from air to land, the issue is the
database.



> wrote in message
ups.com...
| Can anyone tell me if its possible to convert a land/city
map gps to an
| aviation gps?
| Are there downloads available?
| Has it ever been done?
| Lou
|

[Doug]

You can enter the airports into the unit as user waypoints. Same with
VORs and so forth. There is usually a limit on how many of these you
can have. Not the greatest unit, but it will work.

[Grumman-581]

"Doug" wrote in message
oups.com...
> You can enter the airports into the unit as user waypoints. Same with
> VORs and so forth. There is usually a limit on how many of these you
> can have. Not the greatest unit, but it will work.

If you have software that allows you to build your waypoint list on your PC
and can then upload it to your GPS, it's better...

Myself, I use Street Atlas on my laptop and connect a non-aviation GPS to
it... Works great... It seems to have even the smaller private strips... Of
course, you have no runway or frequency information, but that's not too
inconvenient...

[Stubby]

Grumman-581 wrote:
> "Doug" wrote in message
> oups.com...
>> You can enter the airports into the unit as user waypoints. Same with
>> VORs and so forth. There is usually a limit on how many of these you
>> can have. Not the greatest unit, but it will work.
>
> If you have software that allows you to build your waypoint list on your PC
> and can then upload it to your GPS, it's better...
>
> Myself, I use Street Atlas on my laptop and connect a non-aviation GPS to
> it... Works great... It seems to have even the smaller private strips... Of
> course, you have no runway or frequency information, but that's not too
> inconvenient...

My old Garmin-12 has room for 500 waypoints. I use it for geocaching
but it should work fine for flying. But manually entering waypoints can
introduce errors! The program EasyGPS takes standard input files from
geocaching.com and I'll bet there is a place that spits out .loc files
for navaids, airports, and the like but you'll have to look for it.

[Casey Wilson]

> wrote in message
ups.com...
> Can anyone tell me if its possible to convert a land/city map gps to an
> aviation gps?
> Are there downloads available?
> Has it ever been done?
> Lou
>

I have a Magellan 315 handheld GPS loaded with an aviation database created
by "Brian Wade." I don't know what Wade's status is today, but the database
works great. It is easy to install. The original Data Send software from
Magellan works fine for creating routes -- if you install Wade's database
correctly and follow his simple instructions.

You might do a Goodle search to see if he's still around.

[Grumman-581]

"Stubby" > wrote in message
...
> My old Garmin-12 has room for 500 waypoints. I use it for geocaching
> but it should work fine for flying.

I've found that 12-channel parallel units work well in the cockpit of
aircraft that I've flown, but the older ones that could not track as many
satelites or did not track them in parallel tended to have problems during
high bank angles... The Garmin 12 is a 12-channel parallel unit, so I'm not
surprised that it works quite well... Originally, some of the manufacturers
put a speed limit on their units which I assume was to prevent their use in
an aircraft... I have a Magellan 4000 which I still use... At the time, it
was one of few that came with the NEMA output / DC power input connector in
addition to being a 12 channel parallel unit... It still works great as an
input into my laptop, but in standalone mode, it is stuck on a single
screen...

> But manually entering waypoints can introduce errors!

Yep... Using the keys on most GPSs to enter waypoints definitely sucks...
Especially if you are trying to do it inflight without an autopilot / wing
leveler... More than once, I've had to take out the trusty AOPA airport
guide and have to enter in lat/long coordinates into the GPS for some some
airport that wasn't in my LORAN database, the identifier had changed, or I
just needed a 3rd reference point as I was skirting the edges of some
airspace... All in all, while flying the plane is not really the time that
you want to have to be looking up stuff on your computer... The least
keystrokes to find a particular piece of information, the better... At one
time, I wrote my own interface to my GPS... It was strictly text based and
as such, could run on a minimal (i.e. *old*) laptop... It had a text file of
all the identifiers of VORs and airports in areas where I normally flew and
it would constantly update the list on screen of the distance and bearing
to/from the nearest 30 or so along with the distance and bearing to my
intended destination, current course, speed, and such... I found it rather
useful when coming back into a Class B airspace in that I could just contact
ATC and say that I was "xxx miles out from the yyy VOR on the zzz radial"...
Unfortunately, like most laptops back then, visibility during bright
sunlight was minimal at best... It was mostly useful for flying at night
since the laptop that I was using also had a dimmer switch on the screen so
that it wouldn't be too bright... Even though I use Street Atlas these days
and tend to draw onto it any airspace with which I might be concerned, I
kind of miss not having that list of VORs and airports nearby...

[Stubby]

Grumman-581 wrote:
> "Stubby" > wrote in message
>
Originally, some of the manufacturers
> put a speed limit on their units which I assume was to prevent their use in
> an aircraft...
I believe that non-feature post dates the Garmin-12. I tried the G-12
briefly on an airline flight about 10 years ago. It worked as long as I
held it up to a south facing window. As I recall our speed at that
point was well over 300 kts. The G-12 is great for use in a balloon to
find how fast the wind is moving us along.

Does anyone have a version of MapPoint (or MapQuest, etc) that can
accept lat-long directly from a GPS? It doesn't have to be realtime but
I would like to save up waypoints and plot them later on.

[John Clonts]

>The program EasyGPS takes standard input files from
>geocaching.com and I'll bet there is a place that spits out .loc files
>for navaids, airports, and the like but you'll have to look for it.

navaid.com/gpx

[Stubby]

John Clonts wrote:
>> The program EasyGPS takes standard input files from
>> geocaching.com and I'll bet there is a place that spits out .loc files
>> for navaids, airports, and the like but you'll have to look for it.
>
> navaid.com/gpx
>
YES!