The Four Wheel Drive Club of Southern Africa

The GPS Receiver

Loading Maps onto a Garmin GPS V

Some GPS receivers have the ability to have various maps downloaded into them. Garmin provide a product called City Select that contains highly-detailed maps and navigation for South Africa and Tracks 4 Africa provides maps covering most of Southern Africa that show major routes, minor roads, tracks and 4x4 trails.

The number of menu options in both the GPS receiver and the PC software can make it tricky to figure out the download procedure. You are advised to consult the manuals for your GPS and your software, because each is different. I have set out the procedure here for one of the more popular GPS receivers - the Garmin GPS V.

Requirements:

Mapping management software installed on your PC - in this case Garmin MapSource 5.2
Map data sets loaded on your PC - in this case Garmin South Africa City Select v5 and Tracks4Africa v3.2.
A GPS receiver capable of loading maps - in this case a Garmin GPS V
A data interface cable connecting the GPS to the serial port or USB port of the PC.

Setting up City Select maps on your GPS

If you are installing maps into your GPS V for the first time, launch MapSource on your PC and select the map set in the panel at the top of the window.
In the main display area, the maps will be displayed. Select the Map tool (it looks like a polygon) and move your mouse pointer over the maps. As you do so, map outlines will be highlighted in yellow. When you have selected the map/s you want, click in that area and the map will turn pink and its name will be appended to the list on the left. Note that, depending on the memory resources of your GPS, you may not be able to load all the available maps into it.
With your GPS switched on and connected via its data transfer cable to your PC, select the 'Save to Serial GPS' option (a little GPS with an arrow pointing to it) and the software will load the maps into your GPS receiver.
You are then ready to navigate.

Overwriting City Select Maps with Tracks 4 Africa Maps

Go to the Map page on your GPS and press Menu.
Select MapSource Info and press Menu.
Select Disable All and then Quit.
Launch MapSource on your PC.
Select the map set Tracks 4 Africa in the panel at the top of the window.
In the main display area, the maps will be displayed. Select the Map tool (it looks like a polygon) and move your mouse pointer over the maps. As you do so, map outlines will be highlighted in yellow. When you have selected the map/s you want, click in that area and the map will turn pink and its name will be appended to the list on the left. Note that, depending on the memory resources of your GPS, you may not be able to load all the available maps.
With your GPS switched on and connected via its data transfer cable to your PC, select the 'Save to Serial GPS' option (a little GPS with an arrow pointing to it) and the software will load the maps into your GPS receiver.
You will not be able to run the Auto-Routing feature on Tracks4Africa, but since those maps are intended for rural use anyway, this is not an issue.

Garmin, GPS V, MapSource, City Select and Tracks 4 Africa are registered trade marks.

This page last updated on 21 March 2005.