Hiking Trails on Signal Mountain, Tennessee

If a trail is difficult to see on the ground, the easiest way to follow it is by using a GPSr (Global Positioning Satellite receiver), into which the details of the trail has been loaded.

GPS receivers use the signals from 24 orbiting satellites to determine their location on the earth's surface. They range from small hand-held devices, ideal for hiking, to more elaborate systems installed in cars, aircraft, etc. The latitude and longitude of individual locations may be loaded into a GPS receiver as "waypoints". A "route" can be defined, which goes from one waypoint to the next in sequence. Routes for the trails on Signal Mountain, suitable for loading into GPS receivers, are provided on this website.

There are many different makes and types of GPS receiver, most of which use different and incompatible formats! This website aims to overcome that problem by providing route information for the trails in a "universal" format known as GPX. A number of free programs, including GPSBabel, are able to convert routes from GPX into the appropriate format for different GPS receivers.

GPSBabel, written by Robert Lipe, is available as a "command line" version, on the author's website (www.gpsbabel.org), or as an easier-to-use and more flexible "packaging" of the program, GPSBabelWrapper, on the QuakeMap website. Both versions of the program will convert route files between different formats, and will also copy route files directly to a number of popular GPS receivers. The instructions which follow are written for GPSBabel Wrapper.

Magellan GPS receivers

Garmin GPS receivers

Using GPSBabelWrapper

• The GPS receiver must be attached to the computer by a serial or USB cable (depending on the make and type of GPS receiver). Consult the documentation which came with your GPS receiver for how to do this.
• When using a USB-to-Serial cable, on a computer without a serial port, follow the "serial port" instructions, not those for USB.
• Run the GPSBabelWrapper program.
• In the "Input" window, select "File", and click on the box with three little dots to navigate to the "*.gpx" route file to be loaded. Under "Format", select "gpx GPXXML". Check the box for "Routes", and uncheck the other boxes.
• In the "Output" window, select the device and type of connection for the appropriate make and type of GPS receiver, as described above.
• For a serial port connection, it is necessary to know both the "COM" port number and the Baud rate. If you do not know these, try COM1: and 9600 baud - if these settings don't work, you will need to experiment to find the right settings.
• Click on "Process". If all is well, the file will be copied to the GPS receiver, and the program will display a confirmatory message.

Routes for trails on Signal Mountain

Note 2: in order to avoid clutter on the screen of mapping GPS units, the waypoint names have been kept very short - three lower case letters at the beginning and end of trails, and trail junctions; two lower case letters for the other waypoints. Duplicates have been avoided, so it is safe to load as many routes as you wish, up to your GPS receiver's limit.

Note 3: the distances quoted above are the actual distance from the first waypoint to the last. Except in the case of loop trails, additional distance is required to return to the starting point.

Note 4: this information is based on my experience with only two GPS receivers - one Magellan, one Garmin. I would welcome any additions or corrections!

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