Alan Map 500 (.trl, .wpr)
Alan Map 500 Tracklog (.trl) and Waypoints and Routes (.wpr) are the file formats of the Alan Map 500, a handheld outdoor GPS receiver sold under the Alan/Midland brand in the mid-2000s.
At a glance
| Extension | .trl, .wpr |
| Encoding | binary |
| By | Alan Electronics GmbH |
History
The Alan Map 500 was sold by Alan Electronics GmbH under the Alan and Midland brands; a company catalogue places it on the market in 2004-2005. GPSBabel's documentation notes the device is identical to the Holux GM101 handheld receiver — a common practice for GPS hardware of that era, where one manufacturer's chassis was rebadged for several brands.
Where it is used
The device stored its data on a Compact Flash card as plain files rather than through a USB sync protocol: a tracklog had to be named TEMP_TRK.TRL and a waypoints/routes file TEMPWPRT.WPR, with only one of each allowed on the card at a time. Support covers the Map 500's OS 2.xx firmware; GPSBabel's own documentation notes OS 3.0 uses an undocumented format it cannot read.
Structure
Both formats are binary container files specific to the Map 500 firmware, decoded by GPSBabel rather than from a published public specification.
How widespread
The Map 500 has been off the market for about two decades; RouteConverter's support exists for reading old CF-card archives from the device, not for any current product.
RouteConverter support
| Reads | Alan Map 500 Tracklog, Alan Map 500 Waypoints and Routes |
| Writes | Alan Map 500 Tracklog, Alan Map 500 Waypoints and Routes |
RouteConverter reads and writes both formats through the bundled GPSBabel rather than with its own parser, so gpsbabel must be present — the installer ships it.