Garmin Protocol

[mohd]

I am traying to build a Visual Basic 6.0 application, that can communicate with my Garmin eTrex venture, to download waypoints and tracks etc...



I am traying to understand Garmin protocol, and the formats of data packets ...



I will send the results to this Topic, and I invite other developers to share their experiance.
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No pain No gain

[Dave]

I would say export the data from the Garmin as NMEA 4800, it will be much easier to understand. There's a lot more information sources around on the NMEA protocol so I suspect you'll get better support this way.

[mohd]

With NMEA, We can't download the saved waypoints or tracks, also we can't upload them back to Garmin instrument.



NMEA is usefull only when the instrument is moving, and will return current position and time only.








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No pain No gain

[Dave]

I would think you can probably get this from either contacting Garmin technical support, or perhaps joining some sort of developer program if Garmin has one.



There are other applications on the net that have already accomplished this, so either Garmin are ready to give this information out,or they're not, but it's fairly easy to work out.



I would try contacting Garmin in the first instance.



Or something better, just search for Garmin Protocol in Google. I've just come up with this link and this link which should help.

[mohd]

Dear Dave:

Thank you for the links.



I already have Garmin protocol document, and this is the link of it:

www.garmin.com/support/pdf/iop_spec.pdf



But what I want is to implement this protocol in Visual Basic, and to write a real application using that protocol.



I went through the protocol document, and start developing my application, so far I could connect to the instrument and get the instrument model and the software version.



I will send more explanation soon, and I wish to meet other VB programmers who are working on the same subject in this forum.


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No pain No gain

[trafcam]

I did some of this. Back in the early days of gathering data for TrafCam, we had some Magellan units, and a couple of Garmin units. I successfully implemented the Magellan protocol as it's quite straightforward, but the Garmin protocol was quite a bit more difficult and by the time I'd made progress, we'd got the prototype TrafCam software into a position where we could mark cameras on it directly, so I didn't need to carry on.



Good luck with it.

[mohd]

You are right trafcam, Magellan protocol is a piece of cake comparing to Garimin.
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No pain No gain

[inspiredron]

I have recently downloaded NRoute from the GARMIN website. The program interfaces well with MapSource but will not recognise my BT-338 GPS. I understand that Nroute wants Garmin Protocol but the GPS is NMEA. Can I get the right protocol out of the BT 338 or can I persuade nRoute to accept NMEA?

[philpugh]

Almost certainly NO to both questions.

Only GARMIN GPS units will speak GARMIN protocol. Garmin provide the odd free utility that works with their GPS systems using their protocols.

NMEA as a protocol is designed to do a sub-set of navigation related things across a very wide range of manufacturers equipment.

I did some rudimentary programming work on an old Psion5 with my GARMIN GPS II+ back in the 90's The Garmin protocol is not too difficult to work with but one of the key things to do is to remember to ask the GPS unit which of the garmin protocols it uses. The IOP document you've downloaded should explain this I seem to recall. That is to say not all GARMIN units use all the message types.


Good luck
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Phil

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