it's a shame the GPX file doesn't store time and date... but i think it will make a new GPX file for each day so at least i can synchronise the date on photos to that days riding to give a rough location. (will be heading off for a few months on the bike so it would be nice to use a simple GPS time stamp to match the camera time stamp to give the location of photos taken and I’ll not be carrying a laptop with me, keeping life simple)

Hmmm, I wander if you turn the GPS on and off will they create a new GPX file also…? how is the GPX file name generated...? OK, I need to run a few wee tests I think… (don’t have a microSD adapter with me now so I can’t download these files to my laptop)

...to be continued

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http://www.travbuddy.com/mrduck
Don’t believe everything you hear! People love to tell a good story...

Ahhhhaaaa!

I’ve managed to download the GPX files made by the 60csx and to my surprise they have also stored the time and date!! Happy days!! I’ll explain my conclusions/summary so far for those who are reading this hoping to understand how this GPS works and what the hell i'm up to (((and also for someone to correct me if I’m wrong, an unusual event!! heeheehee)))

Thanks to Ian’s reply #11 & 12, I’ve enabled the storing a GPX file directly on the microSD and can use memory cards greater than 2GB with the firmware update, but GPS writes to a GPX file only and cannot read from it to BackTrack, I’ve opened the GPX in MapSource.

It seems one GPX file is saved for that day and if you turn the GPS off/on through out the day info is added/updated to that GPX file who’s name is the that days date. When I opened a GPX file in MapSource each time the GPS was switched off/on it created a new track called ‘ACTIVE LOGxxxxxx’ and in this is stored the Index, Time(!!), Altitude, Leg Length, Leg Time, Leg Speed, Leg Course and Position.

So all you have to do is cross reference the times of my camera to the GPX file after the trip and I’ll have the exact position I took my shoots. SIMPLE! So! No need for an expensive independent GPS logger as discussed in post #7!! This 60csx is a superb unit and I’d recommend it!!

I wander how much data can be stored on the microSD card with this GPS…? (back to the chalk board…)

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http://www.travbuddy.com/mrduck
Don’t believe everything you hear! People love to tell a good story...

Looking at the GPX files created it seems each 1point = 0.115KB, this is an average guesstimate for multiple Tracks per file!

1MB = 1024KB = 8904points
1GB = 1024x1024KB = 1048576KB = 9118052points

So for example, logging a point every second like Ian said before,
1GB = 105.5days

I would like to compare this to the GPS trails I made in Morocco when I had the 60csx setup to log points in ‘AUTO’ mode and not per second (don’t have them with me) but I reckon there should be more than enough memory, memory cards these days are cheap.

Hope these figures help some of you who are interested...

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http://www.travbuddy.com/mrduck
Don’t believe everything you hear! People love to tell a good story...

The GPX files from my Etrex Vista do have date and time- I would extremely surprised if the 60csx files are any different. You can confirm this by copying a GPX file from your 60csx across to a PC and opening with a text editor to look for the "time" tag- see the example below:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="no" ?>
<gpx xmlns="http://www.topografix.com/GPX/1/1" creator="" version="1.1" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xsi:schemaLocation="http://www.topografix.com/GPX/1/1 http://www.topografix.com/GPX/1/1/gpx.xsd">
<trk>
<name>ACTIVE LOG061922</name>
<trkseg>
<trkpt lat="-16.394568" lon="122.928480">
<ele>33.423</ele>
<time>2009-07-06T22:19:22Z</time>
</trkpt>


Regards,

Ian

Once you have accurate photo time stamp and GPS data, programs such as GeoSetter for Windows can read the GPS data from GPX files and add it to the photo EXIF data automatically - thus updating all your fotos with a geotag.

It reads the timestamp on your foto, then searches thru all your GPS tracks for where you were at that time, interpolating the two nearest timestamps.

It requires you keep the clock on your camera accurately.

Its free (as opposed to the 500+ GBP Nikon GPS attachment)

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Nice one! i'll give that software a go when i get back....only 3days then off around Africa

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http://www.travbuddy.com/mrduck
Don’t believe everything you hear! People love to tell a good story...

I kept accurate local time on my camera and that made it harder ... for each different time zone I had to do different settings on the program. The program actually uses the UTC time which is what is recorded in the GPS unit. If you keep your camera on UTC time (London time with no daylight savings) it will real easy to sync the GPS track with the photos.

Try and keep the time on your camera as accurately as possible, as the UTC time recorded by the GPS is accurate to tiny fractions of a second as it comes from the GPS satellites.

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