shmobile

I just got back from a 10-12 hour road trip. I used my Axim connected to an eTrex GPS. I used Mapopolis for the navigation software. I was thrilled with the routing and voice prompting of the software. The automatic re-routing worked well too.

I loaded the entire states of New Jersey and Maine, as well as the "major roads" between them in the states of PA, NY, MA, NH and CT. I did not have enough storage space (64MB SD + 32MB CF) to fit the details of all of the states, so I stuck with my starting state and destination state.

The eTrex worked fine execpt when I was under heavy tree cover and it would lose it's fix. The software would simply wait for it to re-aquire sats and go on it's way when it did. Battery life on the eTrex was decent. It was basically on for 12 hours, and I had to change my NiMH rechargables one time.

I had the eTrex on the dash on a "sticky pad" that I got at Radio Shack. I was so impressed with how well it held the GPS in place (as well as my cell phone) that I wanted to get some more. I paid $4.99US at Radio Shack for one, but found them at a convinience store/gas station in MA for $2.99. Go figure!

I had a cigarette lighter adapter to power the Axim, so battery life on that was not an issue.

The only problems that I encountered is if I was using the navigation function, and I turned the Axim off for an unkown period of time. I would get a error regarding reading from the storage card. I don't remember the exact error. My only recourse was to soft reset the Axim, and regenerate my route in Mapopolis. If I left the Axim on 100% of the time (I did this on my return trip) it never encountered this error. I'm not really sure how long it had to be off to cause the problem, but 5 minutes or so didn't seem to do it, but going to dinner for 1/2 to 1 hour did. It happend a couple of times, so maybe after a certain period of time, the Axim goes into a deeper sleep mode or something. Who knows.

Overall, I am quite pleased with this setup.

Sean

ivanhoe

Sean, I've been waiting for results like these posted. Glad to see your combination worked. I also own an e -trex and have been wondering if it would be worth matching it to a pda. What type of cable did you use and where did you find it? Thanks, Rod.

mialutz

That is what I wanted to hear....I am getting a geko this week. They have the same cable as the etrex.

I have destinator 2 I will let you know how it works.

shmobile

I got my etrex cable from http://www.pc-mobile.net/gps.htm

Sean

gixer

I am glad to see this. I was asking about this question on an Etrex web site and they said it could not be done. Is the program you used a Garmen program or another brand? I am new to both Axim and the GPS world but wanted to hook them up together. Any details would be great.
Thanks
Steven

shmobile

Steven

I used a program called Mapopolis, but there are others out there that do it as well. If you look through the GPS forum, or search it, you should be able to find the other ones. As mentioned, the only one that I had problems with was Pocket Streets, but it really doesn't provide navigation/routing functions, so it didn't matter to me much.

One thing that I have found, and heard from others as well, is that the order you do things makes all the difference with the Axim and an RS232 connected GPS.

With the GPS in it's "ready to navigate" mode, but NOT connected to the Axim:

1) Run your mapping software
2) Enable GPS in your mapping software and make sure it's waiting for GPS data.
3) Connect the GPS to the Axim.

This is the only way I have gotten it to work consistently.

Sean