Just a follow-up, something I forgot:

Flying Dutchman notes above in his post that he purchased a Garmin 76 GPSR in America, then loaded European cartography into it for his use in Europe. He's using it for para-gliding purposes, so it's safe to assume he does not need turn by turn autorouting guidance - he's flying through the air, not riding a moto down a road.

He could have sourced and installed his European cartography in one of three ways:

1) Purchased the European "City Select" CD, which supports automatic route creation - this is unlikely, because it is a quite sophisticated and thus far more expensive map product than he needs;

2) Purchased the European "MetroGuide" CD, which shows the same visual detail but does not support the automatic route generation feature (so, this would not be a good answer for anyone except those who do not drive on roads, for example, hikers, sport paragliders, bicycle riders, etc.);

3) Purchased (or perhaps he already had the CD from a previous GPSR) an older cartographic product, such as "Roads & Recreation", which also does not support autorouting, and is now about 6 years out of date. The 6 years out of date part is of no consequence to a sport paraglider, because it is no problem if the latest streets and roads are missing - all he wants to do is identify his postion relative to villages and cities.

So, what Flying Dutchman says is correct, and his answer makes sense - but only if you plan to use the GPSR for paragliding or parachute jumping, and not for street and road navigation.

PanEuropean

[This message has been edited by PanEuropean (edited 05 June 2004).]