I’d like to say I’m a genius, but even a blind squirrel finds a nut sometimes…. and in my case the nut happens to be a wonderful free/shareware product called GPS Utility. After some forum searchs I came across this application as a way to go directly from my Magellan MAP330M GPS to an ArcMap shapefile format in one step.

It turns out the process is pretty simple to do and you get decent results usable in ArcMap 9.2.

Here’s the quick recipe:
1. Take a hike and record your track with your handy GPS
2. Download a copy of GPS Utility and install it
3. Connect your GPS to your computer and open GPSU
4. Click the GPS menu and click Setup… and then pick your make and model GPS
5. Click the GPS menu and click Download All…
6. After the download is complete, click the button to view the GPS track points
7. Click File and click Save As… then save your file in the “Shape trackpoint fileset” format. You’ll actually be saving a .shp file along with a .shx file.
8. Close GPSU and then open the file you just created with ArcMap. Along the way you will need to add projection info to the shape file via ArcCatalog.

Results and mileage may vary.