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GPS Cable FAQs and Software Links.

There is lots of excellent information, software and FAQs for Satellite navigation receivers (and quite a bit of Garmin specific information) held on Peter Bennett's Web site. One of the biggest GPS information sites is Joe Mehaffey and Jack Yeazels's , and in Germany Thomas Born has a Garmin specific site with lots of information. For Psion 3 users here is a site with software and connection information.

There is quite a lot of PC software available, check the above Web sites, or try a Google search, but we have successfully used (or tried) the following software programs to manage the information on our GPSes:-

As we mentioned, there is other software that you can find using Google including applications for Palm, Psion, Windows CE and Pocket PC. For Windows PCs, GPSS and OziExplorer are worth looking at for very feature rich (but not free) software.

We are happy to receive cheques in Euros or Sterling from you when you have received your cable. A self-addressed envelope is enclosed with the cable to make this even easier. Older Garmin GPSes cannot 'talk' to a USB port directly (you would need one of our USB to Serial converters to enable this) so a nine-pin serial port is best. Newer ones have USB connectors, but only Garmin's own software seems to be able to use this. There are lots of possible reasons for this, but one of the most common is that another program is already using the serial port (for example a Palm or Psion or Handheld PC). The syncronisation software for these devices often grabs the serial port when the PC starts up, and doesn't let it go again. Try stopping the software (or even uninstalling it to test).

To check if it is a problem with the connection (rather than your GPS communicating software) you can use a terminal emulation program (such as HyperTerminal included in Windows). Set your GPS to produce NMEA output (check your user manual) as this produces continuous text output. Open the terminal emulator application and connect it to "direct to COM" for the COM port you have plugged the GPS into (this is usually COM1 or COM2). You should then see a stream of characters with lots of lines starting $GP If the text instead looks like a lot of strange hieroglyphic characters, the connecting Baud rate is probably wrong (it needs to be 4800 Baud for NMEA).

If this basic test works, then the problem probably lies with the software you are using, if it doesn't work then you may have some conflicting communications software, not have configured HyperTerminal quite right, or you might have a faulty cable. Let us know what you have tried and we'll be happy to try and help.

No, unfortunately it doesn't, but later versions of these Microsoft's programs do work. YES! We have (signed) XP drivers on CD-ROM that comes with all of our USB cables. If you have a GPS that uses 12V or more, we can supply a power cable that has bare wires, with no connector. This will be suitable for you to adapt as you wish!

If you have a Garmin that uses less than 12V (3v-5V) you should then use the voltage reducer from our eP3 Cigarette to GPs power cable. you can dissassemble the power reducer on the end to either make a plug to plug into your bike, or to wire the cable straight into the battery on your bike.

No, you won't lose the USB port if you install drivers and yes, you can change over. We can supply 1.8 m long 9-pin female to 9-pin female null-modem gender changing cables. They cost £6.00 including p&p (£5.00 if ordered with another cable). The standard eTrex cannot display maps: so no you cannot download them. Collections of Waypoints have been published on the Internet. Just use the Google search engine to look for them. Examples can be found at http://www.waypoint.org/default.html . You will need software to run on the PC and this is available for downloading as well (see the first question above). Please send us an email at or call Lynks on 0141-561 8289 ( +44 141 561 8289 from outside the UK). Please DO leave a message on the answering machine if there is nobody there, we promise to return your call (let us us know when would be convenient).


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Revised: January 31, 2007.