Garmin GPS

I've been watching with interest a yahoo group on using GPS with Macs (macmap@yahoogroups.com). I brought a Garmin GPS over a year ago, and at the time the sales assistant assured me that.
A) Mapsource would work fine in Virtual PC
B) Garmin were soon to release a Mac version of Mapsource, and my maps would be compatable.

I didn't really believe that the PC maps would be compatable with any mac software, but hey I needed the GPS and figured that by time the software was actually released the maps would probably need updating anyway.

So I installed Mapsource onto my Mac, running windows XP under virtural PC. Mapsource ran ok, I could register the software, load the maps, but it just wouldn't see the GPS.
I read somewhere that it was probably a problem with XP - which I find easy to belive, so I trashed XP and installed Windows 98. Windows 98 is my favorite of the windows OSs (if I can say such a thing) and is by far the fastest for what I want to use it for.
Still no joy.
Futher reading pointed me to new USB dirvers, problems with USB on virtural PC and whole host of other issues. So I gave up and brought a windows PC which is soley used for Mapsource, and a couple of games that Eli plays. It doesn't have a screen, or keyboard - we just connect to it using Remote Desktop, but it shows just how far you sometimes have to go to get something to work. All up, this software has cost me a few grand (the orginal Mapsource software, the Ozzie map set, Virtual PC with windows XP, and finally a PC) and I still can't upload maps in the field.

Now I'm looking at a GPS for Shelley. Part of me says go with Garmin - I've already brought the maps (and spent the money to get the software to work), the GPS I have is really easy to use and Shelley has no problems with it. But there are other "Mac Friendly" products available. So what do you do? Continue to support a company that promises Mac support, but never delivers? or go out and buy a new product from someone else.

I now have basic GPS support for my Mac. I can load all the waypoints into Google Earth but the one thing that I can't do is upload maps - that is the only thing I thought that the mapsource software would be usefull for. (The GPS doesn't have enough room to store all the maps I need to cover the places I need to go to for work). So along comes this new company offering the "Holy Grail" of Mac Mapping software - but with no map support? What is it that they do? They can import your waypoints into google earth! Something that Google Earth can do quite happly by itself thank you very much!!!

Anyway, that's my rant for today. I feel much better now :)

Field trip

Had a nice class outing today to celebrate 100 years since the Marconi company compleated their first radio broadcast across water.
We all made the trip down to Queenscliff for our regular Friday morning meeting (today being Wednesday) then meandered across to Point Lonsdale to watch the re-enactment. All very swish!
The local ham club had a spark gap transmitter, just like the type use 100 years ago, although they used a more moden HF transmitter for the re-enactment. A message was sent by morse to Devenport, folowed by the local MP, and her Tassie counterpart having the usual "were a better state than you" banter.