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530hcx Birdseye problems

Former Member over 13 years ago

Soooo.
Got this fancy and spendy two way radio here.
The rather wonderful person who sold me all this stuff preached how easy it was to set up and install satellite maps.
Ya right.... My 4 year old Magelan gps will run circles around this thing and not have you sit on the computer for 4 hours with a headache.... I can get an entire county pulled up, loaded and installed in under five minutes. Would have been cheaper and easier to buy another $30 radio and keep the Magelan. My 87 year old Dad installs maps even...............

So, got new radio, got Birdseye and a bunch of accesories. Have Basecamp installed on the computer and it even had me install Google earth and update Adobe. I entered the Birdseye subscription code and registered my Rhino. Whenever I hit the button for Birdseye from basecamp it sends me off to another screen to buy a subscription to Birdseye. I've re-entered the product code yet still can't seem to figure out how to get a map onto base camp.

How do I get a satellite image of an area I want and upload it into the radio/gps without spending an hour looking at a screen hitting buttons??

0 SARLABS over 13 years ago

The Garmin 530hcx will not display aerials. It was not made for that. Now I've heard of some more esoteric ways that some aerial photography might be shown on screen, but it was way to exotic for me to even think about trying. What you have is really a Garmin 60csx GPS unit married to an FRS radio and able to sent/receive positions from other Garmin Rino users.

In order to have aerials on your screen you would need a Colorado, Oregon or GPSMAP 62s or 78s. Some of these products are no longer in production, currently I believe only the OR 450 and 550 as well as 62S and 87s are the ones that are sold.

Your Birdseye subscription will not work with a GPS that is not capable to display aerial photography. I would suggest contacting Garmin's support and see whether you can get a refund as that subscription is linked to a specific unit and evidently it can't be linked to yours.

0 Former Member over 13 years ago

Thanks for the reply.
Lucky me, just shy of $600 into this with all the other stuff bought with it and really it's nothing more than a two way radio with capabilities to show a generic road map.
The only reason I got this because for the past twenty years I've used a radio and gps out hunting while upgrading every few years and since my radio got damaged I figured I'd bump up to carrying one unit.
I can see that unless I can find a way to get imagery onto this thing, this will be one more Garmin product I've been burned on...Already miss my Magelan
Seem to recall watching a demo with imagery on it??? Could be wrong

0 SARLABS over 13 years ago

Generic road map??? You probably mean the base map. Go to www.gpsfiledepot.com and download free 24K topo maps of your area, if you live in the US. You can also use this unit for road navigation, turn by turn (no voice but soft beeps and directional arrows/street names). Look up OSM maps. You will need Mapsource but the gpsfiledepot will tell you how to get that too.

There is a 60csx/62s Yahoo group with tons of knowledge on these units. Remember the 530 is a 60csx + radio and location sent. There is also a specific Yahoo grup for Rinos but it is less active than the one I mentioned.

You are giving up on a very good unit way too soon. But it will not do aerial photography. You must have watched the demo for newer units.

0 Former Member over 13 years ago

well lucky me....
Really wanted satellite imaging and radio capabilities. If I had known what I know now I would've just gotten a new radio and kept my ever faithful Megelan and saved $500.

So now that I'm sitting on a Birdseye subscription, why can't I at least get it loaded onto the base camp stuff?

And... Is there any kind of step by step instructions for BaseCamp that us older and less computer savy people could read and understand to help us build a map then load into a 530hcx?

Thanks

0 SARLABS over 13 years ago

You cannot use the aerials in BaseCamp as in order to download them, you need to have a unit that is able to receive them (and a subscription for that unit). This is one of the security features used by Garmin (or a requirement from the aerial imaging server).

BaseCamp is a relatively new software package that is still in its infancy. That is one reason not to expect much of a manual, other than maybe the help file. Actually, they came up with a new much improved beta version today... I'm not exactly a spring chicken either... Just learning step by step when I need to use it.

Here are the directions for sending maps to your device, as I got them from the BaseCamp help file:
Installing Maps onto Your GPS Device

You can install detailed maps that you have unlocked in BaseCamp onto your GPS device. You cannot install maps that BaseCamp is reading from a connected device or an SD card.
To install maps onto your GPS device:

Connect your GPS device to your computer. For more information, see the owner's manual for your device. The name of your device appears in the Library and Device area.
In the Library and Device area, right-click the All Data folder below the device.
Click Install Maps.
Follow the instructions in the MapInstall wizard to complete the installation.

NOTE: You may have to enable the map on your device before you can view it. For more information, see the owner's manual for your device.