Transferring Targets or Fishing Log Waypoints to My Smartphone with Contour Elite?

With Contour Elite, many smartphones today are GPS-enabled.  With a GPS-enabled smartphone with an installed mobile GPS application, it is possible to export GPS files from Contour Elite and display them on your smartphone for on-the-water navigation.

Contour Elite is able to export GPS data in several different formats. A couple universal formats that can be used by many smartphone GPS applications are "GPX" and "KML" formats.

One smartphone mobile GPS application that is available is Google Maps. You can access this application from your mobile device by typing in this link: m.google.com/maps

Follow these directions for exporting GPS data from Contour Elite and displaying it on your smartphone using Google Maps for mobile:

Step 1: Open Contour Elite's Export to GPS interface by clicking on the "Export Targets to GPS" button on the Target Tool panel or the "Export Entries to GPS" on the Fishing Log panel.

Step 2: Choose Google (.kml) file format. Specify the file location and file name for the .kml file that you are about to create. Select the targets or fishign log waypoints you would like to export. Click Export. The export will create one .kml file with all of the targets or fishing log waypoints you selected.

Step 3: On your computer, open your web browser and log in to Google Maps at http://maps.google.com/ You will need a Google account to do this.

Step 4: Click on My Maps. You will be creating a personalized map using the .kml file you exported from Contour Elite.

Step 5: Select Create New Map.

Step 6: Select Import. Locate and select the .klm file you just exported from Contour Elite. Give your new map a name, description and select whether to share or keep it private. Click Done.

Step 7: From your Smartphone, open Google Maps by opening the Google Maps app that came on your phone or use the phone's browser to go to: m.google.com/maps. Click the menu button (top right) and select "My Places". If you haven't logged into your Google maps account, you will need to do so at this time. Once logged in, you should be able to see the map you created in step 6 listed under My Places.

Step 8: Click on the map that you want to open. Then, a listing of the waypoints you imported should be displayed. Select one of the waypoints and the map with your waypoints/tracks should be displayed.