Home of the OLD Garmin GPS FAQ

No matter where I go, here I am!

In 1997 (after 2 years) I quit maintaining the Garmin FAQ because of all of the time that was required and I haven't updated it since!

GPS 1024 End of Week (EOW) rollover problem (Aug 21 - Aug 22, 1999)

Although several years ago Garmin formally stated that all of their GPS units were fully compliant with the Y2K and EOW events, if you look at their website, it turns out that is only partially true.

Garmin's Official Site (which has a prominent link for EOW/Y2K issues) http://www.garmin.com

US Coast Guard EOW/Y2K web page http://www.navcen.uscg.mil/gps/geninfo/y2k/default.htm

The US Air Force's Y2K/EOW web page http://www.laafb.af.mil/SMC/CZ/homepage/y2000/index.html

Some news since the last (1997) revision of the FAQ:

In about May 1998, Garmin announced the new GPS 48. This appears to be basically a GPS III WITH A MARINE NAVIGATION DATABASE (instead of the III's land database) in a GPS 45 case (with swivel antenna). It sounds very interesting!

In about September 1997 Garmin started shipping the GPS III. This GPS receiver has the GPS II+ case but with a map database for about $370 in the US. It has a fair level of detail considering its large coverage area. In the U.S., it has the Interstate and State Highways and many other significant roads.

In about July 1997 Garmin introduced the GPS 12 (no this is NOT the GPS 12XL). This is somewhat like a GPS 12XL but without an external antenna connector and it is limited to 8V maximum input (like the GPS 38/40). It has a discounted price of around $150.

Garmin started shipping the new 12 channel GPS II+ in May 1997. It is similar to the GPS II in appearance (described below) but has 12 parallel channels! It also has an excellent battery life of 20 - 24 hours. It has a discounted price of about $240.

I had been looking for a cheap source of MCX connectors that mate with the the GPS 12XL and GPSMAP 175. Garmin now offers a nice accessory MCX/BNC adapter cable for about $25. I also recently found out that you can buy a MCX connector alone from Digi-Key for less than $6 each. They are a very reputable electronic parts company. You probably should have some experience putting connectors on coaxial cables before using these. You are supposed to use a special expensive crimping tool. The address is for Digi-Key is http://www.digi-key.com and search for "mcx". The "Right Angle Cable Plugs" (made by Johnson Components) look appropriate. There are 2 different sizes depending on the coaxial cable you are using.

Look at the latest version (currently V1.101 dated Mar 29, 1997, ~250KB) of the Garmin GPS FAQ at http://www.eskimo.com/~klah/garfaq.txt . This version fixes some minor errors and many section heading inconsistencies that can make it hard to navigate V1.10 (posted to the newsgroup Mar 25, 1997). Unfortunately the 12 channel GPS II+ and III have not yet been added.

Garmin GPS 38/40 wallpaper compliments of Tim Hogard (thogard@abnormal.com)

The best sites for Garmin GPS users:

Garmin's Official Site http://www.garmin.com

Peter Bennett's excellent GPS ftp site which has lots of Garmin software.
http://vancouver-webpages.com/peter/index.html
http://vancouver-webpages.com/pub/peter/index.html

Joe Mehaffey's GPS site http://joe.mehaffey.com

Karen Nakamura's GPS site (she has a Mac mapping program and many links) http://www.gpsy.com/gpsinfo/

Larry James's Garmin site (he maintains MacGPS_45 and sells Garmin stuff) http://www.csn.net/~lwjames

The simplest Garmin upload and download (MS-DOS) program is GARDOWN. By M.J.Montgomery (28K): gardown6.zip
This isn't the latest version of the program and lacks several features of the newer version (such as a map datum other than WGS84), but it is easier to use. Apparently some people aren't aware that you can redirect the output to a file, for example "gardown6 w > FILENAME". Also note that the download garmin time option "c" does not work on this old version.

A link to lots of information on the GPS 12XL http://www.bridge.de/~tom/garmin.htm

Here is a very thorough accuracy comparison the between a Garmin GPS 12XL, 45, 35, Eagle Explorer and DeLorme Tripmate by David Wilson. The gist of it is that occasionally the accuracy of the non-Garmins is very poor. http://www.erols.com/dlwilson/gps.html

Historically, Garmin has had a 90 knot speed limit on all of their marine GPS units to prevent them from competing with the aeronautical GPS units. Many people were unhappy that the otherwise excellent GPS 45/40/38 units would not work on airplanes when ALL of the competing products did. Therefore a group of people figured out how to modify the GPS 45 to "fix" the speed limit problem. Shortly after that the GPS 89 was introduced which was a cheaper version of the GPS 90. The more recently introduced GPS 12XL, 12, II, II+, III, and 175 do NOT have the 90 knot limit.

Look at Tim Hogard's Garmin hardware / Garmin protocol site http://www.abnormal.com

Info from Tim on breaking the Garmin GPS 45/40 speed limits:
90 knot speed limit posting
90 knot speed limit report 6

US Government GPS Sites:

US Government tiger database info http://tiger.census.gov

National Geodetic Survey benchmark Lat/Lon search (very useful!) http://WWW.ngs.noaa.gov/FORMS/ds_area.html

NGS National Geodetic Survey site http://WWW.ngs.noaa.gov

US Coast Guard has LOTS OF GPS DOCUMENTS http://www.navcen.uscg.mil/

GPS Signal Specification (heavily graphical) http://www.navcen.uscg.mil/gps/reports/sigspec/sigspec.htm

Good general GPS sites:

Peter Bennett's excellent GPS ftp site which has lots of Garmin software and NMEA 183 info. (Mentioned above) ftp://sundae.triumf.ca/pub/peter/index.html http://vancouver-webpages.com/pub/peter/index.html
Excellent general GPS FAQ ftp://sundae.triumf.ca/pub/peter/gpsfaq.txt
Excellent NMEA 183 FAQ ftp://sundae.triumf.ca/pub/peter/nmeafaq.txt

EXCELLENT index of GPS sites by NavTech Seminars http://www.navtechgps.com/weblink.htm

Good general GPS info at http://www.utexas.edu/depts/grg/gcraft/notes/gps/gps.html

Introduction to GPS Applications http://galaxy.einet.net/editors/john-beadles/introgps.htm

Basic GPS information links http://www.inmet.com/~pwt/gps_gen.htm

Scatter plots of GPS SA & GLONASS http://satnav.atc.ll.mit.edu/

Other GPS Sites:

The magazine GPS World is an excellent source of GPS information: http://www.gpsworld.com/

Look at an extract of the Rinex 2 file format specification which is used for post-processing of data (but unfortunately the inexpensive Garmin's are not well suited to post-processing)

Here are some vendors of Garmin GPS products. I don't know much about some of them, but they have great Garmin web pages including pictures of the units and accessories!:

http://www.csn.net/~lwjames
http://www.mvangel.com/gps.html
http://www.navtechgps.com
http://www.imaginegps.com
http://www.commsysin.om
http://www.lowe.co.uk

Mapping Info:

DeLorme Mapping's home page http://www.delorme.com

APRS (Automatic Packet Reporting System) GPS mapping Software (shareware) with both the PC and Macintosh versions (link needs updating) ftp://ftp.tapr.org/tapr/SIG/aprssig/upload/

For links on GPS, Mapping, Linux, Amateur Radio, and Packet Radio take a look at WE7U's Home Page
His links to GPS Info
His links to Digital Maps

Stereoscopic Viewing (3-Dimensional):

Index of 3-D Stereo sites (http://www.3D-Web.com/)

More 3-D stuff (http://www.dddesign.com/3dbydan.com)

List of 3-D Movies

Humor:

I'm also a big fan of David Letterman and his Top 10 Lists

and Jay Leno's Tonight Show (particularly his opening monolog)

The Capital Steps do an excellent job of parodying American politics with their music

I am a huge fan of Berkely Breathed's Bloom County cartoon strip. It is sad that he isn't doing it any more. There are some really good books though.

BLOOM COUNTY web site #1
BLOOM COUNTY web site #2

I first became a fan of the Tintin series of cartoon books when I was a youth. The first Tintin book was written in about 1930 by "Herge" (a Belgium) but they are still popular today. They were originally written in French and were later translated into English. Therefore most of the Tintin pages are bilingual or are in French. Tintin books are somewhat obscure in the US but very well known in Europe. Link to Herge's Tintin site index.

I recently became a fan of the British comedy "Mr. Bean" with Rowan Atkinson.
Mr. Bean site 1
Mr. Bean site 2
Mr. Bean site 3