Necessary chores were completed...

yesterday in preparation for the field season that commences in late March when I am on leave from the university. I spent much of the morning updating the unit software on my handheld GPS receiver as well as transferring map sets from DVDs to micro-SD cards. Here are some of the details:

1.) I use a Garmin GPSMAP 60CSx for my field work. Garmin makes it easy to keep your unit software updated to the latest version by using their on-line WebUpdater. In my personal opinion this is the best and most versatile GPS device available.

2.) Map sets are available at various scales that can be uploaded to micro-SD cards from DVD (or you can buy the pre-loaded cards) and then inserted into the GPSMAP 60CSx. I don't like the pre-loaded cards as they contain gobs of megabytes of map data for areas that are irrelevant to my projects, and consequently the GPS unit boots much more slowly because of the gargantuan map files. Hence I like to use the Garmin MapSource software to specifically select the maps from the DVD that correspond to my particular area of interest.

I have the following Garmin map sets:

a.) WorldMap v4 is used for my voyages with Zegrahm Expeditions.
b.) TOPO U.S. 100K includes coverage for the entire US at 1:100,000 scale.
c.) TOPO U.S. 24K includes all 1:24,000 topographic maps for various regions in the western US.
d.) US TOPO 24K National Parks, West v3 includes all of the National Parks in the western US (really not necessary if you have 'c' above).

I have ten micro-SD cards onto which I've loaded subsets of map files from the DVDs listed above. So when I'm engaged in a project, or travel, in a particular place I can pop the appropriate card into the GPS unit and, voila, all of the relevant cartographic information is available.

UPDATE: Previous related post and a couple of pics.