Topic: Waypoints and tracks organization

[cbergm7210]

Hi guys!

Just finished my first tournament with my new 1198, my first SI unit.

I did search for topics about this to no avail, so...

How do all of you tournament fisherman organize your waypoints and tracks for all of your tournaments? Do you simply download the whole weekend's worth of waypoints and tracks to the PC and then erase the SD card and also the 1198 unit so you can start fresh for the next tournament? Your methodology is appreciated.

Also, I see no mention in the user's guide of how much a typical 2 Gig SD card can hold as far as number of waypoints, tracks, or even how much time it can hold when recording down imaging and so forth. Any info on this?

Thanks for everything,

Chris

[mendota]

While not a tourney fisherman, I do a fair bit of mapping, which generates a lot of waypoints and other data.  Yes, you will probably want to organize your waypoints, routes, and tracks by body of water.  Use HBPC to get the data out of your unit, but I would recommend using EasyGPS to actually do the management - it is much more versatile.

Basically, you will probably want to store each body of water in a single .gpx file, which contains all of your waypoints, tracks, and routes.  You will re-load this gpx file, using HBPC onto your SD card, before re-visiting each body of water, then save it again when you get done fishing it.  So, your gpx file name should include the water body name, and a date code or revision level.

Don't forget to delete all the data off your SD card and 1198 (after use) at each step, or you will run into duplicating waypoints and other unpleasantries.  (i.e., as soon as you finish uploading the new waypoints to your 1198, take the SD card out, go back to your PC, and delete the "matrix" folder.  Also after you export all Nav data from your 1198, you need to delete all nav data in your 1198)

Your 1198 is probably the same specs as the 1197 as far as # of waypoints, etc.  From page 93 and 94 of the 1197 manual (online at HB website) you can store 3000 waypoints, 50 routes of up to 50 waypoints each, and 50 tracks with up to 20,000 waypoints each.

Navigation data takes up almost zero space on the SD card when you transfer data to the 1198 - less than 1% of a 2Gb card.  The nav data is stored internal to the unit, not on the SD card - it only checks the SD at startup for new data.

If you are recording all the beams, you can get roughly 4-6 hours recording on a 2GB card.  Keep your recordings under 1 hour or you will likely run into several inconveniences due to the large file size.  Snapshots take up very little SD card space; you could probably get 1000+ on a 2GB card.

Note that snapshots (and recordings) are not  handled by HBPC, etc.  You will have to manage them separately - they are not stored on your 1198, just on the SD card, and you CANNOT re-name them if you want the unit to recognize them when re-loaded.  So, all your snapshots and recordings for a body of water need to be stored in a folder (on your PC) with the appropriate name to identify when and where they were taken, so you can re-load them on the SD card when you re-visit the lake, if desired.

Hope this helps and gets you started......

[cbergm7210]

Thanks for all the great info!

You mentioned EasyGPS, but looking at their info page, they state that it will not work with HB untis. I assume it does for you, however?

Check out their info page about HB:

http://www.easygps.com/gps-receivers/

[mendota]

EasyGPS will directly talk to many common GPS's, like my Garmin.  But not to HB.

EasyGPS is used to edit waypoints (re-name), tracks, and routes.  It has a graphical interface so you can see the spatial relationship between your points and tracks.  It also allows you to combine gpx files, which is a very handy feature.

HBPC only talks to your HB and SD card, and creates gpx files from the proprietary data in the HB.  You need a program like EasyGPS to do the organizing and editing of the gpx files themselves.  HBPC is used solely to get the data in and out of the 1198.

[cbergm7210]

So you are saying that Easy GPS will indeed read GPX files from HB 1198's? I am only asking because on the Garmin page I referenced they say that the HB GPX files make Easy GPS crash and do not work with the program.

[mendota]

I use EasyGPS routinely exactly as I mentioned. 

The website appears to be referring to HBPC crashing with GPX files, not EasyGPS.  That has not been my experience - perhaps they had an older version of HBPC at the time.

It's all free to download - so the risk is only your time!