mufan

Does anybody who uses this software tell me what they think about it?

travisville

I have the garmin roads and recreations and I absolutely love it. It has very much detail and is easy to read even with a black and white screen. They are way to overpriced but I got it from a family member so it was an awesome deal try to find somebody who has it.

bigcountry

I got it on my etrex legend Cx. I think its pretty awesome, I just which it had more grandualarity. Only about 30ft contours. I would like it to have like 20ft or more you zoom in the better.

MinnFinn

I've used this on my Garmin etrex. I use it both for find our way through the back roads of the Dakotas so you can "see ahead" before you drive down 2-3 miles on a dirt road only to find it dead ends in a field or slough. Or to show wetlands size, to some extent access to.

I use it more so in Elk hunting out west to find our way in and out of mountaneous areas. Elevation shown are good. Pretty good representation of natural features, creeks, trails even. It can be a little challenging to get the right zoom ratio so you get perspective and still see enough detail. Also, I think there is a way to get updates from their website, which I haven't done. You can download them to your PC and that is in addition to what's already on the CDs.
Also, it lets you save your waypoints, tracks, etc. along with selected areas to groupings of maps you want to save upload/download pc to/from GPS. I always need to remind myself before going hunting to upload to my GPS the maps I for areas we're going to. Without some sort of topo map loaded in the back roads or back country a GPS is much less useful.

Branson

I have it but haven't played with it much. I wasn't impressed with the contours for the areas I use it, but it's all flatland around here. Not too much topography really.
-- B

USFWC

For hilly terrain, it is great, especially if you are doing forestry work or hiking...keeps you from having to go up and down steep terrain all of the time. I'd suggest getting it if you can use it.

MDYoungBuck

I have a Garmin eTrex Legend with the Topo Software.

I'll say the software sucks. I live about 5 miles from the Appalachian Trail, and I didn't even find the trails marked on the software.

You say you have trails and creeks from Topo Software. Is there something I am doing wrong? I didn't get crap.

Only thing I used the software for was to print out maps of my area and waypoints.

The software is way overpriced and looks like it was designed using old software and technology. Just isn't much too it for over $100...

But maybe I am doing something wrong...

-Sam

MinnFinn

MDYoungBuck, since I can't remote into your GPS to see what you're seeing I can't say with certanty. But if you bring up the East or West CD on you PC, set "change map scale" to 15-20 miles to start with to the general area you want to select.
Then select "map tool" option on the tool bar (the buttonlooks a little like the state of Minnesota" or "Tools" > "Map" on the menu at top. Then start selecting the areas (which turn pink). Then set "map detail" to the "highest". Click the "hand tool" that then take you out of "map tool" mode.
Now you can zoom in and look for details, set waypoint, routes, and save the map set as whatever name makes sense.
Finally, from "Transfer" > "send to device" option with your cable to your GPS already hooked up, upload the map set. Note that any other mapset is replaced. So, you'll only have detail that you can zoom into on your GPS in the areas you chose and sent to the GPS. You can alway create other map sets and upload those at other times.
It may also be that you need to play with the zoom in or out on the GPS to get the level of detail and perspective of the area. You have to get into less than 1 mile perspective on the zoom to see all the detail from the topo map.
I do agree the $100 cost may seem sort of high. But if you can get it to work for you and it gets you in and out of back country safely just once, it worth that to me. We did use this on my GPS this fall hunting 5 miles off the nearest dirt road over many ridges and draws when the sun started going down. We knew the general direction to follow by compass, but the "bread crumb" trail on my GPS kept us on the right tract after dark up the right ridge to get back to the truck. I definitely like having it then! Of course that trail feature is part of the GPS out of the box. But we've used it to find (approximate) BLM / private boundaries and such, too.

Rick C.

Do you mean Delorme topo USA? I have it, works great, plus you get free aerial and sattelite data blocks.