How to tranfer marks from wrecksite.eu to Lowrance LMS300 chartplotter?

[Jon penrith]

I recently saved a lot of marks on wrecksite.eu website.If I imput the marks manually onto my Lowrance LMS300 chartplotter it takes forever going into differeent sub menus etc.I was told to put the marks through GPS Babel to convert them from a universal CSV file to Lowarance USR file so the chartplotter could read the memory stick which the marks were saved onto.I have done this but the chart plotter still does not seem to recognise the marks saved on the stick.Can anyone assist with this or point me in a direction to get help with this.i subscribe to wrecksite.eu in order to get marks to dive wrecks.If its not possible to get these marks onto my chartplotter I may as well not renew my subscription.

[j.i.wilson]

I can possibly help.

If you are willing to pm me the marks.... I need

The marks in any text format
The format required by the device or a link that shows it.

Can't promise but I used to do this for a living!

[Poly]

Jon, I've previously moved gpx files to a Lowrance handheld via the USR format, with Babelfish. It was a while ago and I can't remember exactly what I had to do - but I do remember if was a PITA! I think the file had to be on the memory card inside the device (not copied over from PC) in a particular location and then some settings to tell it to load it on the device. I think there was something odd about the card format too...

JIWilson - the USR format is a proprietary binary format used by Lowrance. GPSBabel provides the ability to translate from other ASCII type formats to USR format - so I suspect the problem is not the file translation but then getting the USR file in the right place so they plotter finds it? This will be exacerbated by the total inability of Lowrance to produce useful instruction manuals!

[j.i.wilson]

Can the Lowrance import marks in some other format?

[Jon penrith]

i dont believe the lowrance can import marks in another format.
Poly , you are right.As I say the marks on wrecksite are in universal CSV format.You bung them through Babelfish to convert to Lowrance USR file so the Lowrance can read it.This is then saved to a SD card and put in the slot of the cahrtplotter/GPS/fishfinder combo in my case a LMS300 and you go into the plotters menu and get it to download the marks.Its done the same way as if installing a new chart on memory card.As you say it is a mega PITA & the Lowrance isnt recognising the card and or marks when i put it in.I was hoping to save all these marks during the winter and load them on mass as doing it with each mark individually takes ages!
Am getting to the stage of thinking about upgrading to a garmin colour screen unit with blue charts and a home port.i think that will make life a lot easier and perhaps I should consider an upgrade..............if i can scrape the cash together.
What are your thoughts regarding that option & which combo unit do you recommend for ease of use/economy etc.

[Poly]

Jon,

So if I understand correctly - you have successfully made USR file (can you check its size - bascially so long as its not zero then I'll believe there is something there) - but the Plotter doesn't recognise the file on the card?

What do you see?

If I sent you a known good USR file you could put that on your card and try reading it? This would confirm its this last step of getting it in the plotter rather than the file in the right format?

[Jeff]

Lowrance should accept waypoints in GPX format - my HDS5 does
Good luck
Jeff

[9D280]

EasyGPS.

Basic, but does what it says on the tin.

Free download from t'net. Takes about 30 seconds to set up (tell it what GPS you have & what port (or usb) its connected to, then import the file as a gpx, and in the case of the lowrance it seems to know where to save it on the card.

Can also pull your snail trails off the plotter too.

And just to be clear I an nothing more than a satisfied user of the software.

And I have an old win98 version lurking in an archive if your pc is still running that. Pm me if you want a copy.