Connecting between GPS and laptop

I am a Mac person all the way back to the Apple II+. I was given a Dell
laptop (XP Professional) with Street Atlas 2005. I am trying to connect
the computer to a 60CSx. The computer is seeing the GPS. I thought I had
SA configured to the GPS's USB port. When I use the setting
Garmin/Garmin I get a message it is trying to acquire a signal, but
never does. When I use the setting Garmin NMEA I get a message cannot
connect to the specified port.

I am quite sure I am missing something very simple. Will someone please
tell me what it is?

Thanks!

Rather than use Street Atlas use Garmin Mapsource which is designed to
work with its GPS receivers.

On Mon, 14 Dec 2009 10:40:38 -0600, Robert Boucher


Ah, but you can't have been a Mac person back then, the Mac didn't
exist yet :-)


Are you outdoors when doing so? That might be the simplest solution -
GPS does not work indoors, at least not without a lot of luck (as soon
as steel and concrete enter the equation, that luck dissolves).

Unless you have a good fix displayed on the GPS screen, while the
laptop still states it cannot acquire a signal?


NMEA is not specified for USB - it describes "classic" serial port
communications. There is a Garmin utility that will emulate a serial
port from the data received via USB.

Check out e.g. the following post:

http://forums.groundspeak.com/GC/lofiversion/index.php?t154947.html

Here's the direct link to the mentioned "Spanner" utility. Note that
it is not supported for Vista (nor Windows 7)

http://www.garmin.com/support/download_details.jsp?id=1627

You'll have to point SA to the virtual COM port created by Spanner.

Regards,
Gilles.

I had seven fairly strong bars with the GPS sitting on my computer desk.

This program did the trick and I thank you very much!