Help Needed Garmin 62st

[fair-chase]

After purchasing a new Garmin 62st, I have come to realize that I am not nearly as tech savvy as I previously thought myself to be. Looking for a little advice and education on these matters.

The main issue I am having is with Garmin's Birds Eye Satellite Imagery. I have erased all waypoints, tracks, routes, etc. from the unit; giving me a whopping 3.68GB of free space. The problem lies in that a satellite image overlay for the State of WA runs roughly 225GB. Therefore, every time I attempt to download any imagery larger than couple of sections, I receive a message claiming "You have exceeded the download size limit of the imagery server".

Currently I am only running the WA OnXmap SD card.

1) Obviously I need a boost in storage capacity, but nearly $500 for Sandisk's 512GB is out of the question. I need a solution that doesn't involve deleting and reprogramming the overlay everytime I travel to new areas. That just seems like it would be far too tedious and time consuming. Does anyone have a work around for this problem? Can I get a satellite image of the entire state and still keep the OnXmaps land ownership???

2) Everytime I open Garmin Basemap on my PC, it forces me to install it, agree to the terms and conditions, blah, blah, blah... Anyone else run into this problem? Only takes a minute but after installing it 50+ times, it gets annoying.

3) Batteries. This thing chews threw batteries in record time if left on. Looking for the best AA battery for all devices on extended backcounty hunts. Currently I'm only powering the 62st, a pair of Zebralight 52 spot+flood, and crappy point and shoot camera. All running AA's. Would prefer NOT to pack a solar charger.

Thanks.

[Whitpirate]

I run the topo 24k map on mine and don't waste the space with the satellite imagery.  That's what base camp and google earth are for.  With the On-X ownership and 24k topo you should be good to go.  When installing base camp (right click) and make sure it says Run as Administrator and hopefully it won't cause it to re-run every time it is executed.

 

[Encore 280]

Somebody posted a link on here not too long ago CalTopo. Don't know if it's what you're looking for or not. I've always had good luck with Energizer batteries, they seem to last longer than anything else but if you have something that goes thru batteries too fast then maybe get a different gps.