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How to copy a track from Basecamp to Google Earth with a GPSmap 60CSx

 
camerabob's picture
Submitted by camerabob on Tue, 12/03/2013 - 11:04am.

I tried to do this for days, but Basecamp will only export to the memory card or the GPS unit in GPX format, while Google Earth likes the KML or KMZ style better. On a lark I happened to press the right buttons and viola, it worked. Not very hard, but not extremely intuitive either. Read on:

What you need here is:

  • A Garmin unit with an additional memory card with the correct USB cable.
    (For this exercise, I used a Garmin GPSmap 60CSx hand held receiver. The instructions to enter USB mode may differ for a different unit. More than likely, you'll just have to skip steps 3-6 in the Basecamp section.)
    or
    any USB attached memory device.

  • Garmin Basecamp
  • Google Earth

Items in BOLD denote physical or electronic buttons
Items Italicized denote menu items or text labels

The steps in Basecamp:

  1. Start Basecamp.

  2. Start the GPSmap 60CSx.
  3. On the GPSmap 60CSx, hit the Menu button twice.
  4. Browse down to Setup and hit Enter.
  5. Browse right 2 stops (or left once) to Interface and hit Enter.
  6. Making sure the option for Serial Data Format is Garmin, browse down to USB Mass Storage and hit Enter.
  7. Plug the unit into the computer.

    At this point, Basecamp should detect the unit and show you it's drive on the upper left hand pane under Devices.

  8. Assuming you already have a track selected for Google Earth, select that track, right click on it, select Send To... and go to the bottom. It should read something similar to Devices, Memory Card (D:), User Data. Click on the User Data line and then click OK.

    The track has been transferred to the memory card in the GPSmap 60CSx or the selected USB memory device.

Close or minimize Basecamp. We're done there for now.

The steps in Google Earth:

  1. Open Google Earth.

  2. From the menu, select Tools, GPS, Import.
  3. Click the Import from file radio button.
  4. Under the Output section, select KML Linestrings.
  5. Click Import.
  6. Browse to Removable Disk (D:), the Garmin folder, the GPX folder, then double click the last track that was created by date.
  7. The track will be imported under Temporary Places. You can now move it to any other folder you wish.

That's it. Enjoy.

-Bob

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Change History

  • camerabob - Jan 21, 2014
    Updated to show USB memory modules work alone witout a GPS unit