My ASEAN Free GPS Map Project

Dear All,

I have just successfully activated the hidden tracklog function in my Nuvi 200 and now I can use it to record tracks which (unlike the Nuvi 205), are not locked onto roads i.e. I can use it to record tracks off-road. Although I learnt this trick from the gpspassion.com (basically French?) and the Polish garniak.pl forums, unless you can understand Polish or the English employed (which was tough for me) you cannot get very far. If there are brothers (or sisters) interested to do the same, please respond to this thread. With sufficient interest, I shall write-up the procedure in English that you can understand. Otherwise, you can go to the following thread and read for yourself:

http://www.gpspassion.com/forumsen/topi ... ichpage=18

This is the hidden function in my Nuvi 200:

JasonLee wrote:Dear All,

I have just successfully activated the hidden tracklog function in my Nuvi 200 and now I can use it to record tracks which (unlike the Nuvi 205), are not locked onto roads i.e. I can use it to record tracks off-road. Although I learnt this trick from the gpspassion.com (basically French?) and the Polish garniak.pl forums, unless you can understand Polish or the English employed (which was tough for me) you cannot get very far. If there are brothers (or sisters) interested to do the same, please respond to this thread. With sufficient interest, I shall write-up the procedure in English that you can understand. Otherwise, you can go to the following thread and read for yourself:

http://www.gpspassion.com/forumsen/topi ... ichpage=18

This is the hidden function in my Nuvi 200:

moz-screenshot-7.jpg

More discussion regarding the feature can be found in Nuvi 200 tracking Part 1 and Part 2

Cheers

ahbahari wrote:
More discussion regarding the feature can be found in Nuvi 200 tracking Part 1 and Part 2

Cheers

Bro ahbahari,

Thanks for the lead to the MSM thread. I have read through the whole or Part 2 and find that it is focussed on updating the firmware with OFFICIAL firmware from Garmin. Some forummers who tried to downgrade to FW 3.40 and found that they could not do it.

You must have a firmware version for US Nuvis older than 3.40, then you can upgrade to 3.40 which inadvertently revealed the existence of this hidden feature. When this was highlighted by certain forums, Garmin immediately changed their FW so that anyone who upgrades their FW above 3.40 or buys a unit with a FW higher than 3.40 installed, they cannot revert back to 3.40 so the tracklog feature remains hidden.

What neadrenalin of gpspassion.com did was to patch the official firmware 5.0 to make it perform like 3.40 to reveal the feature. No official FW from the Garmin website will allow you to do it. In addition, popej of garniak.pl has written a software wnutrak.exe to convert the recorded track logs to gpx files which MapSource can read and display on our maps.

Really, they are entirely different issues.

JasonLee wrote:What neadrenalin of gpspassion.com did was to patch the official firmware 5.0 to make it perform like 3.40 to reveal the feature.

Mmm ... If this works also on Nuvi205W I'd be very much interested! ;-)

sabre23t wrote:Mmm ... If this works also on Nuvi205W I'd be very much interested! ;-)

Hi bro sabre23t,

I also have a Nuvi205 and presume your 205W should behave the same way.

The 205 already has tracklog (Trip Log) as native which you can see from this screenshot that the recorded track is light blue in colour:



You can check your unit by touching Tools/Settings/Map and should see the following screen if your 205W has the Trip Log feature:



If it has, you will need to activate it by changing the Trip Log button from <Hide> to <Show>

This is a very good news for nuvi 205 owner then...

Yes, indeed. With the 200 discontinued, the 205 can be purchased through the Net at around US$180.

Currently, FW patches to enable the hidden tracklog feature are available for the 200 and 200W while work is being done for the 7XX and other 2XX models.

JasonLee wrote:The 205 already has tracklog (Trip Log) as native which you can see from this screenshot that the recorded track is light blue in colour

Should have mentioned that I am already using Nuvi 205W's triplog. Even though they are only "most often quality" and not 1sec tracklogs. When really needed I go around the "locked to road" feature, by turning off the map. Also you can't directly download the tracks in the 205w triplogs into Mapsource 6.13.7. You need to convert "current.gpx" using GPSBabel then only Mapsource 6.13.7 can read it.

Hence, my interest in your mentioned modified FW for Nuvi 2xx.

I'm also considering to just spend another RM300 or so for a dedicated GPS data logger, such as i-Blue 747 or similar.

My old tracking setup of GPSProxy+GarminQue+HoluxGPSlim226+XdaIIs busted when my XdaIIs died.

sabre23t wrote:Should have mentioned that I am already using Nuvi 205W's triplog. Even though they are only "most often quality" and not 1sec tracklogs. When really needed I go around the "locked to road" feature, by turning off the map. Also you can't directly download the tracks in the 205w triplogs into Mapsource 6.13.7. You need to convert "current.gpx" using GPSBabel then only Mapsource 6.13.7 can read it.

Hence, my interest in your mentioned modified FW for Nuvi 2xx.

I'm also considering to just spend another RM300 or so for a dedicated GPS data logger, such as i-Blue 747 or similar.

My old tracking setup of GPSProxy+GarminQue+HoluxGPSlim226+XdaIIs busted when my XdaIIs died.

This is how I understand the difference is from what I have read at the other forums.

The 205 Trip Log cannot be started or stopped by the user. It starts every time you switch on and stops when you switch off. A new track will be started at the next boot up and this keeps on adding until the limit of 10,000 track points are reached then the new track points will over-write the oldest track points. There is no control over the frequency or intensity of the track point. It is on auto mode. A forummer mentioned that if you switch to Pedestrian mode, you can unlock it from the snap-to-road feature but I haven't tried it. You can use MapSource to directly receive tracks from the unit if you specify the Device as your Nuvi 205 as so:



I have done this many times and there is no need to use GPSBabel. Incidentally, GPSBabel is a Godsend with which I can now convert my Magellan tracks to gdb files. Hence my Magellan has been recalled to active duty from retirement. It can lay track points as frequent as every 10 metres and not time based.

The patched 200 & 200W also do not offer any control over the detail level of the tracks but I haven't tested it out yet. The advantage is that they can be started and stopped at will and they do not snap-to-road. The downside is they need to be converted by wnutrak to gpx files for MapSource to read.

Since the 205 already can record tracks, I suppose there is no urgency to produce a patch so neadrenalin is focussing on the Nuvis that are not supposed to be able to record tracks for the time being. He is working on the other 2XX and 7XX models.

JasonLee wrote:I have done this many times and there is no need to use GPSBabel.

Are you using Mapsource 6.13.7? Did you keep the triplog settings to display the blue tracks on Nuvi 205W? With those settings, I couldn't get Mapsource to directly transfer the tracks from the current.gpx in Nuvi 205W. Unless I convert the current.gpx to GDB using GPSBabel.