Waypoint transfer?

[Random guy]

I can't find my unit! At least thats what keeps popping up when I try to transfer my waypoints from my Lake Master software to my new Lowrance H2O hand held. Of course my Lakemaster program does not list this model but I set the baud rate and any other options to the proper setting. Bad cable or not compatable? Come on you IT and techy guys, help the hillbilly!

[Paul Waldowski]

Well here's where I'm at so far:

Was able to copy my chip to the hard drive and the chip still works

Got the utility program and a card reader and with them was able transfer all of my waypoints from Lakemaster on my P.C. to the chip and then upload that into my GPS. Really sweet actually

[PerchJerker]

Next thing you can do with this setup is back up your GPS. Run the map chip while you're on the water, set waypoints as needed and save routes, etc. When you get off the water you can down download all that stuff to a blank chip and bring it into the LakeMaster software. You can see it on the maps on your PC, and make backup files. Very nice setup. I like keeping my GPS cleaned out and only loading waypoints for the waters I'm going to. Sure beats the old days of sitting in the boat in the garage and writing all the waypoints down on paper, then keying them into a spreadsheet

[walldoggie]

So let me get this staight(hopefully without sounding to stupid). If i have a card reader,(can i use the reader and program that my wife uses to download pictures off her digital camera?) I can stick my lakemaster chip in it download that to my computer, then put in a new card and copy the chip to my new card? Do i need any special programs for this? Or am i way off base here? And if this is the case "hey paul make me a copy of yours with all the way points marked so i can save some time"

[PerchJerker]

Walldoggie - you need a card reader that takes MMC/SD chips. If that's what your wife has for her camera it should work for your LM chip. If not, card readers are about $30 at CompUSA, Best Buy, etc.

I copied my LM chip file to the harddrive on my PC. Did it through Windows Explorer - drag and drop. The licensing agreement that came with the chip says you have the right to make one archival copy for use in the GPS you bought the LM chip for (but doesn't say how to make the copy, or how you can use the copy ). Makes sense that you can back it up though, any other software you buy lets you reload it if something happens to the software or the computer it's running on.

I have not tried copying the file from my hardrive to a new chip to try in my GPS. In theory it should work but I can't say for sure that it does. A buddy of mine using a Navoinics chip had problems with his chip after trying to back it up on his PC and had to get a new chip (I think the Navionics documentation warned to not put the chip in a reader connected to a PC ).

The waypoints you save in your GPS do not get written to your map chip. They are displayed on the screen over the map, but they are written to the GPS, not the map chip. You can use a blank chip to copy them from your GPS, then you can load that chip to your PC or another GPS. That's just waypoints and trails, not lake maps or depth contours. I would suggest that you don't try to write anything to your map chip. Good luck.

[ScottND]

Quote:

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I have not tried copying the file from my hardrive to a new chip to try in my GPS. In theory it should work but I can't say for sure that it does. A buddy of mine using a Navoinics chip had problems with his chip after trying to back it up on his PC and had to get a new chip

(I think the Navionics documentation warned to not put the chip in a reader connected to a PC

).

The waypoints you save in your GPS

do not get written to your map chip.

They are displayed on the screen over the map, but they are written to the GPS, not the map chip. You can use a blank chip to copy them from your GPS, then you can load that chip to your PC or another GPS. That's just waypoints and trails, not lake maps or depth contours. I would suggest that you

don't try to write anything to your map chip.

Good luck.

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With my H20 I copy my waypoints/routes from the GPS to the Navionics card then to the PC and visa/versa. I've copied the card to my PC and back to a blank card but it does not work. Obviously there is either a hidden file or a different format.

I'm sure Navionics put a lot of thought into protecting their software and I can't blame them. My son just started working for Navteq, which is a company in Fargo that produces the map data for places like Navionics and Google mapping amoung several others. To use pirated mapping software would be like taking the food out of his mouth. I also work in the computer industry and am reasonably sure I could figure out how to pirate the cards but who wants to do that after working with computers all day and besides it's illegal. I'd rather be out fishing or...wait, what the he!! am I doing now...off this PC and on to the hardwater in 35 mph winds....yeah....c-ya later.

[PerchJerker]

Okay Scott ND, looking for clarification again. Until recently the LM map chips were read-only, you could not write to them. They now are shipping chips that are read-write in case they go that route with their upgrade program (whenever they have one).

I am not very familiar with the Nav chips, but I thought they were read- only chips, not read-write chips. And there are plenty of horror stories from guys who tried to just read their Nav chip with a card reader on their PC, I know one of them personally and he is also a computer guy for a living. Are you sure you're writing to your Nav chip? Or is it only because Lowrance helped you get your Nav files on a larger chip -- maybe not something you can do with an off-the-shelf Nav chip??

[Giant_Jackpot]

PerchJerker,

I tend to agree with you that ND may have a unique situation given that they put his map data on a larger card. I will try backing up my chips and then writing them to a blank chip and see what happens.

[PerchJerker]

As far as I'm concerned, the man that can build that automatic jigging contraption you caught that pike with on Lake Minnetonka last winter can do just about anything -- and you're the man. As for me, I have not tried putting my back-up files on a blank card because my boat/gps is in storage so I wouldn't be able to tell if it worked anyway. So I'll be curious what you find out. I'll try to find out if my buddy has done anything like that with his Nav chip, I know he was REALLY MOTIVATED to get a back-up after he zapped his first chip

[Giant_Jackpot]

Ha! Considering I have had that contraption for about 8 years and that was the first fish I ever caught on it, I’m not going to accept the title of “the man” anytime soon.

I will try doing the Nav chip sometime in the next few days. I’m not worried about zapping that chip because I have to send it back anyway. Last August I wrote an e-mail to their cartography department and filed a discrepancy report on a problem I ran into on Vermilion. On parts of the lake if I zoomed in closer than ½ mile I would lose all of the contours. Kind of [PoorWordUsage]ed me off as I was trying to troll around some rock reefs! Anyway, they just sent me an e-mail that they have the problem fixed and the want me to send the chip back for a replacement. We’ll see what happens………….

[Giant_Jackpot]

I copied both my Navionics and Lakemaster to my PC this weekend. I then transferred the Navionics to a blank chip and it would not show any lake contours. I could see the different sections of the country when I tried to select the map data but no dice on getting contours. I then erased the Navionics from the blank card and did the same with the Lakemaster. No luck there either. Doesn’t look like having the backups are going to do me any good. I did not try writing anything to either the Navionics or Lakemaster.

[PerchJerker]

I was on the phone with LakeMaster on Friday so I asked them about the backup. He said you can copy the file to your PC, but the file is chip specific so it will only work if you reload it to the chip you bought it on. So it protects you if you accidentally format your chip or zap it somehow without frying the chip, but it doesn't do you any good if your chip is lost or stolen. I guess that makes sense, I'd hate to imagine how many pirated versions of the maps would be out there if you could just copy them.

[Giant_Jackpot]

Yup, they would not sell many chips if we could just pass them around just like Napster. They do however need to do something about how we get the data in the first place. I think they should have a subscription service and sell us only the maps we want for $xx.xx. We could just download from a web site and be done with it. Once they figure out how to do that, and make it so we can’t give a downloaded map to our friends I would think they could sell a lot of individual maps to guys that only fish one or two lakes.