Talk about GPS

[PaulW]

For starters. Which one to choose for race monitoring and chase --- Basic info

Lowrance Vs. Garmin: A Tutorial

NOTE

I DID NOT WRITE THIS.
I KNOW WHO DID AND THE CREDENTIALS ARE IMPECCABLE.


The gps trails on both the Lowrance and Garmin are actually made up of many points called track points. The trail then links them together with a straight line from track point to track point. These are the breadcrumbs of the trail. These are not the waypoints, so don't confuse the two. Similar in concept the pixels of a tv or computer screen, the more of them you have the finer the detail that can be displayed.

The Lowrance can support a theoretical maximum of 10 trails with 9999 track points each. In actuality some of the memory for these gets consumed by things like waypoints and events (the markers you drop down to warn of gotchas and turns). In a practical situation such as the baja 1000 to La Paz full of waypoints and events, you end up with about 50,000 to 60,000 usable track points for your trail. This is a limitation of how much can be loaded and displayed by the unit at a time.

Some teams like to make even more detailed tracks to give them even higher resolution, such as using up 50,000 track points in the first half of the race, then at the mid-point of the race the co-dog clears the gps memory and loads in the 50,000 track points from the SD card for the second half of the race.

Now these track points have nothing to do with the accuracy of the gps, they just define how much detail your track has. For example lets say you have a trail with a track point every 50 feet and another with a track point every 500 feet. Now imagine a road that is straight approaching something like a ravine then after the ravine the road continues on it's original course. If the track jogs to the side to go around this then jogs back the plot trail with points every 500 feet might miss it entirely and display this as a straight uninterrupted trail while the trail with points every 50 feet would show the trail jog off to the side then return. So the lower resolution trail misses this detail entirely.

The Garmin supports MUCH less track points than the Lowrance. Like 500 points per trail on some models, 1000 on others.

So if you were to convert a small trail with 500 points from the Lowrance to the Garmin, it would be the same on both. But when you convert a Lowrance trail with 9999 trails to Garmin, the conversion has to interpolate and reduce the amount if points to fit within the limitations of what the Garmin supports. The trails may look the same zoomed out. They may even look the same zoomed in, but the resolution is really not there and the interpolation to reduce the track points may miss detail or inaccurately reproduce it, changing the radius of turns and such.

BTW, have you noticed the BFG Lowrance trails for the 1000 typically consist of 4 trails each with 9999 points, plus often a 5th trail with either-or or access info? Where does this detail go on the Garmin version? It's gone.
Even on the SF250 either ors and parallel trails were left out of the Lowrance file because the Garmin conversion could not handle all the data. Thus the Lowrance file was dumbed down to accommodate Garmin users. And we all suffer.

So now you know why 99% of the racers put up with Lowrance for desert racing. The Lowrance is the far better tool for the job of navigating a desert race.

[tcm glx]

I only know two things about these things:
1) Bigger is better
2) I LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE my lowrance. It give me faith to travel through the desert, both in the US and in Mexico.

As for the BFG files, those also kick serious butt, give you all the access roads, trails etc tec

[BajaF250]

I personally don't have any experience with the Garmin, but I've gotta tell you, I have NO issues with the Lowrance and it's never, never let me down. I love my 540 and wouldn't give it up for anything.

So, how do you get access to the BFG files for each race? I can only get them through a race team and I feel like a mooch asking, so I usually don't. Do they post them for general access?

[tcm glx]

I personally don't have any experience with the Garmin, but I've gotta tell you, I have NO issues with the Lowrance and it's never, never let me down. I love my 540 and wouldn't give it up for anything.

So, how do you get access to the BFG files for each race? I can only get them through a race team and I feel like a mooch asking, so I usually don't. Do they post them for general access?

Chk your email

[shockseals.com]

Lowrance is great for desert racing/recreating...Garmin is good for everything else you would actually want a GPS for.

[300]

In the past, the Garmin units did not have the memory capacity for the file sizes required for a race like the Baja 1000. Even as it is, the Lowrance units need up to three files to fit all of the points required for the run to La Paz. (9999 point limit)

[PaulW]

More
I have 2 Garmin and 3 Lowrance. When in the states with a 6 year old Garmin background map and a Lowrance with an up to date Lowrance background map I find the Garmin more detailed.
One of these days I will discover how to make my own background maps from the latest trail paper maps published in the states. Looks like a formatable task.

In the US
One must buy Lowrance MapCreate and make back ground maps for the specific area of interest. MapCreate is no longer supported so one must buy off ebay. For Garmin they sell new maps every year and you get more detail each year. Of course the Garmin excels in locating places with driving instructions (works in Baja in the big cities). Lowrance supposedly also does it but I have never had the need for that feature.
In Baja
Baja background maps are required to see roads & topo lines. These extra cost maps are available for both GPS types. Tip: Put your bicimapa background maps on a stand alone sd card for the fastest refresh. This is because the gps does not have to search thru a bunch of trails to do the refresh.
Buying:
No issue for Garmin just get the biggest screen as possible. Remember the largest screen Garmin is smaller than the Lowrance 500 series. For Lowrance all the traditional GPSs we use are out of production. "TigerGPS" says they have them in stock and I see them on Ebay at times. The gold standard based on price and screen size for Lowrance is the GM7200C.
Now days you can buy an APP for an IPhone that makes it a GPS.
Anyway, find a Lowrance with 2 sd cards for maximum flexability. I have a hand held Lowrance IFinder Expedition and it only has one card. This requires swaping cards and after I load a trail then I remove that sd card and put in the background map card. Works but is not handy. Then swaping again to save the file. Lowrance still supports the IFinder hand helds.
The latest Lowrance HDS units have had a troubling startup, but I hear less complaints lately. Too soon to recommend??? Their cost is much higher due to all the fishfinding SW built in and the built in antenna. Available is a high speed external antenna which allows a 1Hz refresh,not the traditional 5Hz refresh. A good deal if you have deep pockets for the pricy antenna. Works as advertized on the HDS. That fixes our biggest complaint about Lowrance. It is roomered that antenna will do its thing on a 7200C? Anybody tried it?
All the GPSs are mountable using Ram mounts from "GPS City". They work good. Some guys build them into the panel, but that complicates future upgrades. Mounting should allow reaching by the driver when belted up.
PaulW

[PaulW]

In the past, the Garmin units did not have the memory capacity for the file sizes required for a race like the Baja 1000. Even as it is, the Lowrance units need up to three files to fit all of the points required for the run to La Paz. (9999 point limit)

====
In fact for the last run to Cabo we had to do a hard reset on our Lowrance's to have enough memory for the many files. I suspect the Garmin guys missed a bunch of data. Or they had to stop and load new data frequently?
PaulW

[ChaseTruck754]

I did what Paul suggested (or at least said he does/did) in another thread - that is have a Lowrance for race maps etc. then get a small, turn by turn type garmin for street stuff.

The lowrance is good for reasons posted above. The garmin is small enougth to go from car to car easily, comes with a cigarette lighter plug and sucktion cup dash mount which aid in the ease of moving car to car. This stupid little thing cost me $40 off craigslist and makes street driving/location finding a snap.

Therefore my thoughts are: "a combo of 1 of each works best"!

[Nick]

I did what Paul suggested (or at least said he does/did) in another thread - that is have a Lowrance for race maps etc. then get a small, turn by turn type garmin for street stuff.

The lowrance is good for reasons posted above. The garmin is small enougth to go from car to car easily, comes with a cigarette lighter plug and sucktion cup dash mount which aid in the ease of moving car to car. This stupid little thing cost me $40 off craigslist and makes street driving/location finding a snap.

Therefore my thoughts are: "a combo of 1 of each works best"!

That's what i'm doing. 540 for offroad, and a xog for street use. The nice thing about the xog, i can still use it for offroad if need be. I can load maps on it, and it does all the things the big gps's do.

[baja-chris]

Subject: Lowrance Baja overlay shootout


I put the ORW Baja lcm files on one chip and the Bicimapas on another chip and tested them in the bronco with a Lowrance HDS-8m.

In some areas one is clearly superior and in other areas the other is clearly superior. Interesting.

When I put them both in at once they added and I got a superset of both maps. This was really good most of the time.

A major disadvantage to this (and a reason why you would not want both maps on the same chip) is that the two maps do not both exactly align with each other for example city streets in Mexicali you get a second set of streets that are about 1/4 block off. Only way to know which map is more accurately aligned is to go there and try it. And it would not surprise me if the more accurate map changed from city to city.

In the area around the pine forest, Santa Veronica to El Rayo, as well as the area of the San Felipe race, the ORW map has quite a few more trails. But the Bicimapas has more rancho names which do come in handy at times. BTW, I had my HDS 8m set to maximum map detail and all POI's enabled for this shootout.

In the area down around the East Cape, both maps were disappointing, with neither showing dirt roads and jeep trails that I know exist.

In the area west of the 3 virgins volcanoes, the Bicimapas had quite a bit more trails in the area around Rancho San Antonio. But neither map showed the road to El Gato and out to the coast at Trinidad. This is a well used bike trail and we have driven the broncos out to Trinidad and the road to El Gato was a real trail that has been there a long time so it was disappointing not to find it on either map. The Bicimapas was a lot better in this area though.

Except in cities, running both maps at once looked like a real winner, however I don't know how this would work in a non-HDS. I'll go pop them into the 4-seater where I have a 7200c and let you know if it works the same with both map chips installed at the same time. OK just tried it and the maps do not add when both are installed in the 7200c, you only see the detail from the ORW map, even in areas where Bicimapas has a lot more detail. Another example of the superior hardware of the HDS.

If I were to recommend one over the other I would give the nod to the ORW map. In most cases, it's better than the one PCI sells (Bicimapas).

[baja-chris]

The Lowrance HDS is very expensive and you need the 4000 series external antenna to get maximum refresh rates and 16 channel performance but it's really superior to the previous models. The latest firmware 3.5 fixes the last of the major issues and now the HDS is a good tool for baja racing or chasing.

For starters it's got a lot more memory. I'm able to load up several Baja 1000 tracks at once along with a big package of chase roads and some other race courses before it runs out of memory.

It's faster too, it does a good job tracking your position on a "course up" mode with a detailed background map with maximum map detail and all POI and topo lines displayed.

The menus are still difficult to navigate and some things still are messed up like the color of trails is not preserved when you load them but I'm wondering if this is a limitation of the file format for usr files. And there does not appear to be a way to bring one trail to the foreground over another which never used to be an issue because there was never enough memory for too many trials. But now with 20 or 30 big trails loaded it can be hard to tell which is which as the cross or converge for a few miles.

[PaulW]

FYI
HDS 8 (8.4") prices off the Internet $1699 - $1956 + ~$200 for the 5Hz LGC 4000 puck (antenna)
The discontinued 7200c occasionaly shows up in the Internet (pretty rare), but I have noticed price creep above $700 when they are discovered. I noticed one for $850 a week ago. 7200c works with the LGC 4000 like the HDS with the improved speed, but with better reliability compared to the 3000 version. The 4000 puck also works with many of the other discontinued Lowrance units.

My early take on the ORW files:
I have the ORW LCM files on my 7200c (7") and Agree with Chris regarding many more roads around San Felipe. I still notice some missing roads that I have driven near San Felipe. My guess is 99% of the roads I know of are included. It will be my choice most of the time, but I will keep my Bicimapa LCM SD card handy in case I need places to find.
One other comment about the ORW LCMs is that I found many place names that were way mis-located. Hard if you are looking for an unfamiliar place. Then The Bicimapa files can be installed and find your way. ORW describes on their web site that the files were created by a bunch of racers. This means some interesting tourist places are missing just like the place names. I was impressed with the inclusion of some of several hard core bike & truck trails on the ORW files.
PaulW

[PaulW]

More research on Garmin. I thot it would be nice to have one of the large screen units. I mentioned it to a buddy and he discovered the hard way that anything but the hiker models will not allow transfer of track to it. Bumer. He sent it back. To bad, but it confirmes that Garmin is NG of making tracks and sharing. Lots of Garmin tracks out there on the Internet, but the large screen units have no provision to load them. By large screen I mean their 4.3 & 5" units.
It would be good if someone had some conflicting input?
PaulW

[PaulW]

Lowrance -- MapCreate -- Buying software disk/s
MapCreate SW is a discontinued product so the SW will have to be purchased off the Internet. What you should get is disk/s SD reader and instructions, but instructions are really not necessary since its pretty simple.
Conclusions:
v7.1 that is new only in the box for the most updated map data.
v6.3 is the second choice and can be new or used.
The label for the card reader must be “2.0 MMC/SD Card Reader”. Any other labeled reader will not work.
- - - -
V7.1 is a single computer use. If one buys a used one, be sure you get the 5 registered used SD cards so you can erase and make your own custom maps.
V6.3 can be used or new and will work on your PC and will allow 5 new registered SD cards to create your own custom maps.
Neither version will work for Win7 (read the details below).
2Gig SD cards are the biggest that will work. Buy on the Internet.
= = = = =
Below are the details of my individual exercise for 3 different computers.

Desktop, Win XP, Installed v7.1 on computer 1
Works fine using the SD reader for 7.1
I now have used 4 out of the 5 SD cards
SD card reader that came with v6.3 works for v7.1. They are the same.
Reader will read camera pic sd cards

Old Laptop, Win XP, Installed v7.1 on computer 2
Will not allow new SD cards to be created. Will not register a blank card.
Will read existing registered cards and probably write to them.
Will display detailed map data
Reader will read camera picture sd cards

New Laptop, Win 7, Installed v7.1 on computer 3
Will not allow new SD cards to be created. Will not register a blank card.
Will read existing registered cards and probably write to them.
Will display detailed map data
Reader will read camera pic sd cards


Desktop, Win XP, Reinstalled v6.3 on computer 1 after removing it when I bought v7.1
Result is 5 new SD cards can be created.

New Laptop, Win7, Installed v6.3 on computer 3 for the first time after installing on computer 1.
Will not allow new SD cards to be created. Will not register a blank card.
Will read existing registered cards and probably write to them.
Will display detailed map data
Reader will read camera pic sd cards

Old Laptop, Win XP, Installed v6.3 on computer 2
Result is 5 new SD cards can be created.

Regards, PaulW

[baja-chris]

Lowrance HDS models will not read Mapcreate 6 maps. Have to use Mapcreate 7 or third party maps.