BaseCamp and tablets and GPS receivers

Former Member over 8 years ago

So this may have been addressed before, but I didn't have much luck finding it.

I am owner of a new Polaris General Deluxe side-by-side for my off roading activities.

I have my Zumo 660 mounted and carry a pair of Rino 665 units with me to take geotagged pics and be able to start and stop tracks as I please.

But it would be nice to have a larger display. So I'm wondering if I can install BaseCamp on something like a Samsung Tab S2?

And then....when I upgraded to Topo USA 10 they included a GPS receiver.

So if I have BaseCamp running on a tablet, and the USB GPS receiver plugged into the tablet...does BaseCamp have the capability of showing the track live?

I think...think...this would be very helpful in knowing where I am at any time. I have begun drawing "tracks" instead of "routes" as a track downloaded to my Zumo 660 never moves. Get off the track, you know it.
Knowing where I am and where my waypoints for POI would be very handy.

I'd appreciate any help...before I go buy a tablet.

Thanks,

Pirate88

0 Former Member over 8 years ago

You need a tablet that runs Windows 10 like the HP Envy or Microsoft Surface. Sorry, know nothing of Apple products.

0 Former Member over 8 years ago

I think it will work on a Win 8.1 tablet also, but only with a few GPSrs. See this: https://garminbasecamp.wikispaces.com/BaseStation

I don't think BC itself will do this.

0 mp_gps over 8 years ago

BaseCamp is for planning not for showing your location on a map. Old product nRoute from Garmin did this, and does still work on Windows 8.1, probably 10 as well, but i did not tried this. There is a youtube from me showing that it is working on a full Windows 8 tablet.

But honestly, please buy an Android tablet, GPS is includes and works very good, use programs like OSMAND, ORUXMAPS, Viewfinder, TwoNav, etc, with offline maps on the tablet and still you can use BaseCamp on a Mac/Wndows computer to plan trips and send the tracks to these programs using dropbox or e-mail. The most simple approach and you only need one cable for power.

If you choice is an apple tablet, be sure to buy a version with cellular (3G) otherwise there is no GPS available, also lots of programs available.

Interchange information like routes, tracks and waypoint between tablets, phones and Garmin equipment, is not designed very well by Garmin, will work using Garmin Connect website and there Apps, but Garmin is very conservative on this point.

0 Former Member over 8 years ago

If by Topo 10 USA with GPS you mean the Delorme Product, it can be used to follow on or off-road trail routing with or without automatic route recalculation enabled. However Topo 10 is not designed for small screen fat fingered precision data entry on the fly using a touch screen Windows Tablet. Nor is that app designed to record tracks of long duration in gpx format.

As to using an Android touch screen app on a small touch screen tablet, be sure that the tablet comes with built in satellite based gps circuitry, not just cell phone gps, or it won't be of much use off road and may not have enough power in a USB port to run an external gps for long duration. Good luck.