Instructions for Uploading Basemaps to Sportrak Pro
by Cass Lewart
Word of Caution: The following step-by-step basemap upload procedure worked for me and for other GPS owners, but I can give you no assurance that it will work for you. I was able to replace my original North American marine basemap with a European basemap and then replace it back with the original basemap. Other upload/download procedures, which I did not try, also exist. Upload/download procedure are not for you if you are faint of heart. The procedure may or may not work for other Magellan products besides Sportrak Pro, e.g. MAP330, and may not work with some versions
of firmware and software. In any event, reloading of software may
not be covered by the Magellan Warranty if you mess it up.
This information was obtained from often contradictory descriptions in various newsgroups, private communications and my own observations. After
uploading you should end up with a new basemap, which will replace the current one. Waypoints, routes and detailed maps uploaded from Mapsend CDs should not be affected.
Depending where the GPS was purchased Sportrak Pro comes with a different factory installed basemap (US Marine, US Land, Europe or Australia). Sportrak Pro basemaps are between 9 and 13 Mb in size. The same basemap may be used by several Magellan products. Basemaps are also included on Magellan Mapsend CDs.
Basemap downloading: A factory installed basemap can be downloaded from Sportrak Pro to the PC and kept as backup. Download can be done by following the procedure described in mapdl.txt in the file area of the sportrakgps Yahoo newsgroup. The mapdl.txt procedure uses HyperTerm terminal emulation program, NMEA commands described in Magellan Data Communications protocol versions 2.5 or 2.7 (but omitted in other versions), and the XModem 1K transfer protocol. I followed the procedure using a different terminal emulation program (Smartcom), and was able to download the basemap file mr_105.dat, 9.5 Mb, to my PC. Checksum values, the two hex digits following "*" required for each NMEA command, can be computed with my program shown at the end of these notes.
Step-by-step Instructions for Basemap Uploading
1. Put fresh batteries in your GPS.
2. From GPS Setup screen set NMEA to off and Baud Rate (it really is bits/sec rate) to 115,200. To be on the safe side make a backup of your
waypoints and routes using programs such as Easy GPS.
3. Turn GPS off.
4. Connect GPS to an available serial port on your PC.
5. Press and hold NAV key (second from top on the left side) while pressing the PWR key. A small rectangle should appear on the GPS screen with "00". If you change your mind at this or a later point your GPS may "freeze". Pressing "+", "-" and GOTO keys at the same time or removing
batteries for a minute should revive it.
6. Using cursor keys change "00" to "98" and press Enter.
7. Select Basemap Upload option.
8. Run MAGUP.EXE. The program is included in each mew software release from Magellan, it can also be found on MapSend CDs.
9. To the first prompt: "Proceed with software upload?" answer "NO".
10. Click on Expert menu and check Sportrak Map/Pro, Com Port number, and Expert Upload ON. Click OK. See comment below!
11. Click on File menu, click "Select Database file" then choose the basemap file to be uploaded. Click OPEN in the file selection dialog.
13. Click Upload.
The basemap upload should now begin and take about 25 minutes at 115,200 bits/sec. All done!
Comment to #10: When I tried to restore my North American basemap MAGUP.RXE came up with a strange error message: "Basemap file mr_105 of 9.5 Mb is larger then available space of 11.5 Mb". At this point I tried to delete all my maps (basemap and detailed) using code "95". The maps were deleted, but when I tried to upload the original basemap I got the same error message. My GPS was now completely incapacitated. After a bout of panic I run MAGUP.EXE again, this time selecting from the Expert menu MAP330 and not Sportrak Pro as my GPS receiver. MAGUP was now happy and uploaded the basemap.
Basic program to compute checksum:
5 CLS
10 PRINT "Program to compute checksum by Cass Lewart"
15 PRINT
20 PRINT "Enter string to compute checksum,"
25 LINE INPUT "e.g., $PMGNCMD,VERSION* : ",A$
30 L1=LEN(A$)
50 C=0
60 FOR I=2 TO L1-1
70 C=C XOR ASC(MID$(A$,I,1))
80 NEXT
90 B$=HEX$(C)
95 IF LEN(B$)=1 THEN LET B$="0"+B$
97 PRINT
100 PRINT "checksum of ";A$;" is - ", B$
Questions? Comments? Corrections? Email Cass Lewart