Birdseye Map Imagery Management-Oregon 300

Former Member over 14 years ago

Just subscribed to the Birdseye service. I'm using the imagery with my Oregon 300 and managing the data with the latest version of BaseCamp.

I have many small parks in my area which I will usually pick and do a day for geocaching in, thus I never really need more than one park's imagery on my unit at a time. Would there be any speed increase in display time or anything like that if I only load 1 map at a time?

Next question, rather than manage my maps and moving them on and off my device via basecamp, could I simply buy a few inexpensive 1gb SD cards and keep 1 or 2 maps per card, then bring the cards out into the field and swap them into my Oregon depending on whatever park I'm in? thus resulting in always having the map data handy in case I decide to explore multiple parks I wont have to come back home to reload the map data..

Thanks for any help!

0 Former Member over 14 years ago

Having fewer maps should make the device start up a little bit faster. I don't have any hard numbers, you'll have to try yourself to see if the difference is worth it to you.

Storing BirdsEye on SD cards and swap them should work as well.

0 FrensicPic over 14 years ago

ART2010...what I describe below will NOT allow you to "field-swap" BirdsEye images as you mention. I can, however use any computer whether or not it has Basecamp.

On the MicroSD card in my GPSMAP 62s, I created a folder called "backup" (I believe it can be anything EXCEPT "garmin") which the device does not "see". I also have a folder called "garmin". Anyway, I use the backup folder to hold Birdseye images and topos, custom maps, gpx files, etc which I do not want to be loaded for the current use of the GPS. For a particular trip, I copy the desired items to the garmin folder on the SD card, and move the un-needed items into the backup folder.

I have the same sub-folder structure in these folders as the main memory of the GPS.

0 Former Member over 14 years ago

Thanks for the tip. Very good idea. I'm going to do the same. One question, what is the purpose of having the same structure as the main memory of the GPS? I can see how the SD card would work for this but I don't see why you need the backup folder in main memory?

0 FrensicPic over 14 years ago

No particular reason for reproducing the folder structure except to keep things organized. If I want to set aside some Birdseye, it goes into a folder by that name just like where it came from. With the folder "backup", or whatever you want to call it, it does not appear in the GPS so, its not "loaded in memory" although it still takes space on the SD card..

If you create a folder "garmin" on your SD card, the GPS can use what is in there - the GPS will use the SD card just like its own memory. Birdseye images and custom maps I use I put on the on the SD card, not the GPS memory. When I want to use something, I put the image or custom map in the SD card\ garmin\birdseye or SD card\garmin\custom maps. Like I mentioned in my previous post, you can't swap things around in the field (unless you have a laptop) like your thought of physically swapping SD cards.