Blue Chart Cartridge or Mapsource CD..for the money??
To get back to your real question, the answer is no. The data portrayed on the straight Map Source CDs is no where hear as good as it is on the Blue Chart series.
Keep in mind that when I say that I am excluding the Blue Chart subset of the Map Source group.
For those that don't know the difference it works like this: Garmin put together a bunch of different cartography sets, put them on CD, and called the product line Map Source. It has lots of different versions, like "Roads and Recreation" and City streets, and Camping Stuff (sorry about those made-up names for the last two but I don't know their actually titles). These are Ok but very blocky and no one says that they are great. Then about a year and a half ago Garmin came out with their Blue Chart set of electronic charts. The Blue Chart information is available in two different formats - but the Chart information held in those formats is exactly the same no matter which way you buy it. You can get it on CD or you can get in on data cartridge. All of the Blue Chart information is taken directly from NOAA and other paper charts - it is identical in appearance to what you would get if you bought paper.
The CD version of Blue Chart is marketed as a part of the family of Map Source, its just another one of the subsets. It is far and away the most detailed of the subsets and is of much better quality than something like US Rodads and Recreation. This seems to confuse some folks, that the CD Blue Charts are part of the Map Source lineup, but its really an unimportant bit of marketing trivia. Its sort of like the fact that Pepsi owns Pizza hut. That doesn't for a moment mean that pizzas comming from Pizza Hut are carbonated.
When You buy a Blue Chart on CD you get the CD itself and what is called an "Unlock Code". The unlock code gives you, the owner, access to some of the data on the disk. It does not give you access to all the data on the disk (which is all of the posible chart sets), only the part you paid for. You see, each disk holds all the data for all the areas of coverage of all Blue Charts. But when you laid down your hundred bucks or whatever it is you only bought access to a small portion of what that disk contains. So you get your access code and it gives you the ability to down load a specific section of your disk to up to two differenct GPS units that you provide the serial numbers for. This works well for most users.
By contrast to the CDs there re also the data cartridges. There are a bunch of different data cartridges, each of them covering a specific and limited area. Data cartridges only hold information for the area designated on their fronts. When you buy the cartridge you can stick it into any Garmin machine that takes cartridges of that format (which is not the same physical size cartridge as the old Garmin G-Chart, so they are not interchangable). When you stick the cartridge into a suitable machine it will display exactly the same maps that you would have seen had you been using the CD version for that same area of chart coverage - there is no difference in the data supplied no matter which way you buy it. To go back to Pepsi, its like buying Pepsi in a bottle or buying it in a can, same stuff, different delivery method.
Now there is one quirk to all this. Garmin also sells blank data cartriges. So, it is possible to buy your Blue Chart on CD and also buy a blank data cartridge and then you can down load charts from the CD onto the blank cartridge. From there you can use the blank cartridge in any Garmin machine that accepts the cartridges. This is ver useful for folks who have more than 2 Garmin GPS units and its also very good for folks who live right on the border line where once of the chart sets ends and the next begins - with the blank cartridge you can load up data from adjoining charts if you need to (assuming you buy a blank cartridge of sufficient size - they come in several sizes and as I recall they are something like 8, 16, 32, 64, or 128 MB capacity).
And now for this - is anyone from Garmin reading this?
When you buy the CD version of the Blue Chart you will recall that it is part of the Map Source data set. Well, the Map Source stuff comes with a nice little bit of a program that you install on your computer of course, its what you will be using for moving data from the CD onto your GPS. But what also comes with it is a nifty bit of software that allows you to manipulate your waypoints, store them as files, move them onto or off of your GPs and so on. Why in the blazing bowls of hell Garmin doesn't make this software available for free on its website is beyond me.
As it is you have to down load something like Easy GPS or a similar aftermarket software program to manipulate your waypoints, routes, or tracks.
Let me give you all a clue that you probably are not aware of. I do this because its something that Garmin should be looking giving a lot of thought to.
I'd be willing to bet that a good number of you all have Palm Pilots. I'd also bet that a lot more of you don't have them than do have them. If you go to the Palm Pilot web page you can download the basic software ( http://www.palm.com/software/desktop/ ) for storing phone numbers, notes, and addresses on one of their machines. This software works just fine on your computer if you have a Pal Pilot or not and its one of the simplest and best home address software packages I have found. Even if you don't have a Palm Pilot you should go to their site and download this software just to store your personal phone list - its simple but that good. Now, if Garmin had a single bit of sense they would make their waypoint manipulation software available as a stand alone freeby on their website. They would get it into the most user friendly format possible and just give it away. That would get a lot of users of other brands of GPS in the hapbit of seeing the word Garmin on their home computer screen and get those same off-brand users to be visiting the Garmin site from time to time. Go figure out what the likely result of doing that might be.
Enough of my Bull, on to other things .....
Thom
"I command thee, O fish of the ocean, rise to my bait"
[This message was edited by Thom on 09-30-02 at 12:02 PM.]
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