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Recommended Best GPS Maps for Garmin 78

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I purchased a Garmin 78 not long ago, and am starting to get it figured out. Just bought a 32G microSD card, and am now looking for the best background map to load for mostly off-road riding.

I've read some like the topo maps, some don't like the clutter on the small screen. Are they necessary?

Other Questions:

Is it worth buying a map, or are there plenty of good free maps?

How many maps do you normally want to have loaded?

Thanks in advance for any advice.

-BobĀ³

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Bob,

In order to route Offroad, you will need both City Navigator And the 25k Topo maps. And you thought the GPS was an investment!

:ohno02:

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You don't need City Nav in order to route off-road. The Garmin 24K Topo maps route by themselves. I would recommend the Topo maps, as they not only have all the trails, but also major roads. City Nav has tons of dirt and trails that would route, but the cost is pretty significant.

But I agree, you could just ride with the Kug!

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Yes you could, and most likely would be out $14. Once City Nav has been unlocked to a gps unit, it can only be used on that specific unit for the rest of time. I've wasted at least two versions of CN before I learned that lesson after moving from a 60CSX to a Montana. The listing kinda says, but not really, that it's been unlocked. If you are going this route, you might as well just download cracked versions on the web. Much easier, quicker, cheaper and simpler to do.

And another reason to get 24K Topo? It isn't locked to any gps. When you buy a new unit, the maps can transfer.

Now, I will say the for many, if your spend an equal amount of time using the gps on the road, I'd recommend CN over Topo. That being said, you need to realize the limitations of both.

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Not so. Don't ask me how i know:) Even though he claims it's legit I suspect there's some funny business going on but it works just fine. Copy the files onto as many sd cards as you want. Put them in all of your gps's. Spend the $14. You'll be happy.

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Not so. Don't ask me how i know:) Spend the $14. You'll be happy.

I agree that it may work, but why even spend $14 when you can just download a copy and be using it within 15 min? I don't see why you would want to pay for a hacked version as opposed to just downloading it in 10 min.

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What could be easier. Click on buy. Insert card in gps. Done! $14 hardly gets you out of McDonald's these days. Plus there's at least a little plauseable deniability in the ebay deal. You were told it was a legal copy by the seller. Not much deniability on Pirate Bay.

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What could be easier. Click on buy. Insert card in gps. Done! $14 hardly gets you out of McDonald's these days. Plus there's at least a little plauseable deniability in the ebay deal. You were told it was a legal copy by the seller. Not much deniability on Pirate Bay.

I checked out the EBay site. It looks like they are possibly re-selling Garmin licensed maps from decommissioned GPS units, or just passing around a good for now key code. You get what you pay for. If you want updates, you probably should pay for a current license. I would probably send the $14 once, just to try and get a good baseline to work with. If it's a dud, I was warned.

I've been studying up some, and it looks like you want to be careful how you load maps. It looks like their is a filename that is specific for it to be recognized by the unit. Loading a file manually can over-write the original file. But if you use BaseCamp to load maps, it will correctly name the files to be recognized individually by the unit, so that you can switch out or layer maps. I could be wrong, these things got more twists to figure out than a Telluride tour.

Going forward, it looks like a good idea to have City Maps for basic info, then find a topo map you like. From there, you just load the tracks you want and swap out as rides dictate.

.......Or just ride with the Kugs!

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I created a GPS trail map that covers San Diego and Imperial Counties. All of topo maps on the market use government data and the most of the off-road data hasn't been updated in decades. I started from scratch and did a lot of "field work" to verify it. The Trail Finder page on the website shows the coverage area but it doesn't show the detail that you get when zoom into the GPS map. The trails are also color coded to indicate paved, dirt or dirt-ohv.

Topo maps aren't of much use when you're riding. They're good for learning the terrain but the extra visual elements are a distraction when you're just glancing down. It's mostly hikers that like topo maps because they don't have a throttle. You can download a free topo map for Garmin from www.gpsfiledepot.com but the roads are based on the same old government data.

www.sandiegotrailmap.com

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00yz250, good work on that map.

Alright, I've now got MapInstall loaded for interfacing with the unit.

So BaseCamp allows you to pre-view a map prior to loading up with MapInstaller. Got it.

It's starting to make sense. Keep it coming....please

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Generally City Navigator is not going to change much for the places we ride so updates are really not a big concern. A current version should serve you for a good long time. Can't speak for this exact vendor on ebay but I purchased a "recovered" card on there about 6 months ago and it's been working just fine. I have no affillation with any of these folks. Just passing along my experience.

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Generally City Navigator is not going to change much for the places we ride so updates are really not a big concern. A current version should serve you for a good long time. Can't speak for this exact vendor on ebay but I purchased a "recovered" card on there about 6 months ago and it's been working just fine. I have no affillation with any of these folks. Just passing along my experience.

Thanks for the input, I tend to agree with you considering the cost difference.

So I've found that Garmin upgraded their OS (or firmware) around 2010 to allow for multiple maps to now be loaded with individual filenames. Previously, there was only one filename for a map recognized by the unit, and when you installed a new map, it would over-write the old map as it needed to be named that specific filename.

I also had a couple failed attempts at loading maps from GPSFileDepot.com until I updated the firmware on the GPS unit. After the update, it was able to complete. This may have only been a perceived failed attempt, as I read later MapInstall has a bug in the 'Progress Bar' where it appears to hang at 95 to 100% completion when it actually is still compiling data to the new map file. If you wait patiently, it will finally complete.

It seems to be a long process downloading maps to the unit through MapInstall. I'm wondering if it is possible to load an already compiled map file from one unit directly to another unit, and have it recognized properly and also in BaseCamp. I loaded GPSKevin's San Diego Adventure Map manually on the GPS unit, and was able to see it and use it, but it was not recognized by BaseCamp.

more to come........

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Yes you can copy the "gmaps" files across platforms as long as it's not licensed to a specific gps. I have a Montana 650T which comes with the 100k topo maps preloaded. I also have the entire US City Nav loaded on the aforementioned sd card as well as Topo 24K West and Southwest loaded into internal memory. Things have come a long ways from the early days of the 60Csx which as you mentioned only allowed one mapfile at a time.

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