Subject: etrex Venture, Mariner, 1MB memory, and Marine databases Newsgroups: sci.geo.satellite-nav,alt.satellite.gps Date: Mon, 02 Dec 2002 00:25:55 -0800 The information below is current as of December 1, 2002, and is an update of a sci.geo.satellite-nav newsgroup posting I made on November 13, 2001 titled "eTrex Venture/Mariner and Marine database info". Section I - Background ====================== A) The Garmin etrex Venture and Mariner are "the same", except for being different colors. They both use the same firmware. The Mariner was manufactured by Garmin for a separate company, WestMarine. Westmarine's Mariner information page is at(URL may wrap): http://www.westmarine.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ProductDisplay? catalogId=10001&storeId=10001&memberId=-2000&partNumber=2044147 &prrfnbr=104240&class_num=158&subdept_name=GPS&class_name=Handheld%20GPS &store_num=3&store_name=Electronics&prmenbr=201&subdept_num=157 B) From Garmin's webpage about the Venture, http://www.garmin.com/products/etrexVenture/index.html "The eTrex Venture offers a worldwide database of cities and increased internal memory." "The memory capacity of one megabyte allows the eTrex Venture to accept downloaded information from GARMIN's new MapSource® Points of Interests CD-ROM." C) From Garmin's Mapsource POI webpage, http://www.garmin.com/cartography/mapSource/poi.html "Specifically, the map download features of this product are intended for use with the eTrex Venture, GPS 76, and GPS 152." D) From Garmin's Venture/Mariner Updates & Downloads webpage, http://www.garmin.com/products/etrexVenture/download.html "If MapSource data is loaded to this unit, this unit's preloaded Marine POI database will be erased. Please download the file below to recover this Marine POI database. If you currently have MapSource data loaded into your GPS unit, it will be erased and replaced with this POI database." E) For the Venture/Mariner, if you download data from the Mapsource POI CD-ROM, it will erase the database data that was originally loaded in the GPS - worldwide cities for the Venture, marine navaids for the Mariner. These can be recovered by using the appropriate link (see below) to download either WWCity.exe or Mariner.exe. F) According to Garmin(Nov 2001), the Venture comes with the Worldwide City Database, and if you want Marine navaids, you either buy a Mariner, or buy the Mapsource POI CD-ROM. G) Whenever you are looking at the GPS's 'Map' screen, what you see, including possibly information from a database you have loaded (see below), may depend on how you have configured your Map screen options, and/or the current Map screen zoom level. H) I do not have an etrex Mariner. I do have an etrex Venture, and for verifying any of the following information, it was loaded with firmware version 2.30. Also, the firmware had not been "personalised" via programs such as MeMap. Section II - Worldwide City Database ==================================== I) My Venture came with the Worldwide City Database installed. On some webpages, including Garmin's, this is also referred to as the "City Point Database". To see the version, go to the Venture's Map screen, select the 'Setup Map' option, then select the 'i' button. Mine shows the 'Map Name' as "Worldwide City Database, , Dec 2000". Selecting the 'Map Name' and using the Click-Stick allows you to toggle the display of the WorldWide City Database on/off. J) You can use the "Download(1.90MB) - Venture" link on the Venture/Mariner Updates & Downloads webpage(see (D) above) to download WWCity.exe, which is a self-extracting exe that will start up an InstallShield installation, and, if you follow through with it, will create a Start Menu item(World-Wide City Database Recovery), with three sub-menu choices - Load, Uninstall, and Help. It also creates three files, in the directory of your choice - a help file, updater.exe, and a ".rgn" file. The updater.exe file is the program which loads the database(D005800A.rgn) into the GPS. In other words, you can load/reload the WorldWide City Database into the Venture by using the WWCity.exe package. Section III - Mariner POI Database ================================== K) The etrex Mariner comes with a 'marine navaid point basemap' installed. To see the version, go to the Mariner's Map screen, select the 'Setup Map' option, then select the 'i' button. The version included in the Mariner.exe file(see (L) below) is "Mariner Point Basemap, , Feb 2001". Selecting the 'Map Name' and using the Click-Stick allows you to toggle the display of the Mariner Point Basemap on/off. L) You can use the "Download(1.79MB) - Mariner" link on the Venture/Mariner Updates & Downloads webpage(see (D) above) to download Mariner.exe, which is a self-extracting exe that will start up an InstallShield installation, and, if you follow through with it, will create a Start Menu item(eTrex Mariner POI Database Recovery), with three sub-menu choices - Load, Uninstall, and Help. It also creates three files, in the directory of your choice - a help file, updater.exe, and a ".rgn" file. The updater.exe file is the program which loads the database(D006200A.rgn) into the GPS. In other words, you can load/reload the Mariner Point Basemap into the Mariner by using the Mariner.exe package. M) If you attempt to use the "eTrex Mariner POI Database Recovery" to load the Mariner Point Basemap into a Venture, it will fail with the message "No updates are available for your product", however, it can be done. If you examine the "Load" shortcut created when you installed Mariner.exe, you will see it includes the string '/u "Mariner"'. If you either change this to '/u "Venture"' or just remove the /u string, the update will work. Another alternative is to run updater.exe(e.g. from the command line) and specify the rgn file name on the command line. Section III - Marine Point Databases ==================================== N) Some Garmin GPS receivers come with a factory installed "Marine Point Database". This includes the Rino 120, GPS 72, GPS 76, GPS 152, eTrex Legend and eTrex Vista. Some of these units have a link on their Updates & Downloads webpage for "Download Preloaded POI database", which points to: http://www.garmin.com/software/Marine.exe Note the spelling - this is not the same as the Mariner's exe file, and is a 2.22MB file(although some of the download pages mis-label their link with the wrong file size). O) You can use this link to download Marine.exe, which is a self-extracting exe that will start up an InstallShield installation, and, if you follow through with it, will create a Start Menu item (Marine POI Database Recovery), with four sub-menu choices - Load Americas, Load International, Uninstall, and Help. It also creates four files, in the directory of your choice - a help file, updater.exe, and two ".rgn" files. The updater.exe file is the program which loads the database(D005900A.rgn or D005901A.rgn) into the GPS. P) Once installed, you have a choice of loading the "Americas Marine POI database" or the "International Marine POI database". Both of these can be loaded into the Venture. On the Map Setup screen they show as: Americas Marine Point Basemap, , Jan 2001 International Marine Point Basemap, , Jan 2001 Q) The Americas Marine POI database file is D005900A.rgn. According to the Garmin website, http://www.garmin.com/include/basemaps/marine_database.html The standard map coverage includes: - Cities with population 200K and above worldwide - Nautical navaids for North and South America - Tide stations for the US only R) The International Marine POI database file is D005901A.rgn. That's all folks - maybe some other people can fill in a bit more detail on the differences between the above three versions of the marine databases.