Garmin Montana

What is the limit (for Follow Road and for Direct/Off Road) and which zumo?

I asked Garmin the question and got a really dumb answer:

Q: Subject: Max points in a route
Message: I have a Montana 600 and encounter various problems with large routes. Garmin documentation rarely quotes the waypoint limits for Follow Road and Off Road/Direct routing. The 60CSx I had was 50/250 and the Montana seems to be 50/500 (athough some 500 routes work and some cause it to freeze). Some Forum members say the zumo doesn't have any limits so they encounter problems sharing routes with Montana users. Can you provide a list of the waypoint/shaping point limits for these GPS units please? Thanks.
Thanks

A: Dear Bob Morphew,

Thank you for contacting Garmin International.

We are happy to help you. The maximum waypoints for the Montana is 4000. For the 60csx it is 1000. For the Zumo 550 it is 240.

With Best Regards,
Amy Ch.
Product Support Specialist
2nd Shift Outdoor/Fitness Team
Garmin International

Bob

I get canned answers like that all the time, that have absolutely nothing to do with the question asked...

Just talked with Garmin support and was told there is no 50 point max on the Montana? I"m not sure if they even know whats in their gps"s.. I hit a 50 point max wall on my 60, it would be great if the Montana could do more. With 4000 waypoints and no 50 point max I could create most any route i desire.

Atlas, those are some of the exact things I want to do with mine. I use it in a bunch of different modes like you do. It would be nice to quickly switch from one to another. A week ago I was in western NC, riding in a car going to a hike. Auto mode to the trailhead. Switch to hiking with topo enabled, CN disabled, and toggled between topo and satellite imagery. PITA to have to go to setup, blah, blah, blah blah... Definitely need shortcuts.

Oh, we played with Sight n Go. Not to follow a path but to figure out peaks, lakes, etc we saw and how far away they were. What a nifty gizmo! We were playing "guess how far away that is". I did better than I thought I would.

Thanks for the guidance.

atlas cached.....excuse my dummkopf question.

Cannot find it in Wiki or FAQ here.

Placed the short cut Icon, "Go Home" onto main page. Now it needs to be activated (coordinates/waypoint/ or?) to recognize my home's location. Other wise it says: "unable to find waypoint specified in shortcut- HOME". Where did I err? Thank you...

cheers..

Hey, Good One!

If I remember correctly, you just need to create a new waypoint named "Home". I suggest you place this waypoint several blocks from your actual residence, so if someone steals your GPSr, they can't find your place and steal more from you :)

I will check myself ASAP and report back...

Yes, Create a Home waypoint, then select [Setup], [Shortcuts], [Go Home], [Edit], [Where To?] and select your Home waypoint.

Aye Amigo...got home alright but selected a Food store(home waypoint) instead like you said...it's OK for them to rob the store but not my Casa..

Thanks..

After you create this shortcut, and display it on the menu, if later you delete the Home waypoint, the shortcut Icon will still display, but when you click it it will say "home not found".

Mine is that way right now. I cleaned it up the other day and removed the home waypoint the other day.

Good Point.

Also, you can make new shortcuts for common destinations so you don't have to navigate your waypoint menu each time.

I always set my destination shortcuts to run the MAP application after they have been selected.

Has anyone figured out a way to force route recalculation? I don't want to use the "prompted" setting as it seemed to prompt every 5 or 10 seconds which got annoying. With the 60 series, if you were in routing mode through a programmed route or just using "go to" for a waypoint, POI, or spot on the map, you could just hit the "menu" button and choose recalculate.

Use case: you're riding along with a route active. You see an interesting side road, have some extra time, and decide to go exploring. You don't want the darn "off route, recalculate" prompt every 5 or 10 seconds. Plus you might want the route to remain highlighted so you can quickly visualize how far off route you are currently. After some time (5 mins or 5 hours) you now want the GPS to recalculate the route. In the 60 series this was easy. In the Montana I don't see a simple option. I tried "Stop Navigation" and the immediately "Restart Navigation", but that doesn't force a recalculation. I just displays the old route.

Used my Montana for this time this past weekend. Loved it. A welcome final upgrade from my beloved 60 series for ADV riding. Thanks to Dan for recommending it back at last year's Chumstick event.

Dang - I take off for a weeks ride and you guys fill 10 pages :huh

Montana worked perfectly 600 miles with 70% off-road. Routes, tracks, planning, did everything I wanted with zero crashes

Just updated to 4.20 and started planning my next trip.

Where To -> Change Routing Activity -> <pick the activity you want - even the same you are currently using>

Thanks! I was hoping I could convert that to a shortcut, but no such luck. I also noticed it removes any via points you might have created prior to the change in activity. Oh well - close enough.

My GPS is out on the bike so I can't try it, but what about a shortcut? I bet you make a shortcut, and dig down into the short cut menus, I bet you will find something like route, recalculate, and you can use "toggle" which will make it switch to what ever it's not set to now. so if it is currently set to prompted, it would switch to auto, then click the same shortcut again and it would switch back to prompted. then use the application MAP and after you click the shortcut it goes right back to the map. Maybe?

This kind of stuff is why I own a Montana

thanks. But you know I was having that same type reaction on all my shortcuts that ended without an application. I would want to try it with the application MAP to see if it really did need 2 clicks .

Tried it - no dice.

Update: apparently you *can* do this, but there's a bug that made me think it wasn't possible:

Here is what I suggest to folks who want a "Home" waypoint. Once you create your Home location on your Montana, connect it to your computer and go to the Garmin\GPX\ directory and rename the waypoint.gpx file that contains your Home location to something like home.gpx. Then when you are "cleaning up" you may not be so inclined to delete it.

Cheers,

so I am guessing the Montaha puts all its waypoints into waypoint.gpx? If I have 2 or 3 waypoints I went to "protect" should I put those waypoints as the only waypoints in waypoint.gpx, then rename it to something like protect.gpx?

When I create a waypoint on the side of the road, does it also get saved into waypoint.gpx?

You guys must have smarter crooks than we do! Ours either pawn them or sell them on the street.

I got another wrong reply from Garmin about the number of points in a route:

From: Product.Support@garmin.com
Sent: Tuesday, June 26, 2012 8:37 AM
To: Bob Morphew
Subject: Re: Max points in a route (KMM25532496I15977L0KM)

Dear Bob Morphew,

Thank you for contacting Garmin International. I'm happy to help.

The color handheld devices can store up to 50 routes with each route able to store 250 points each. However, if the routing option is set to Follow Road, then the route can only contain 50 points. If more than 50 points are within the route, then an error will occur.

Please let us know if you have additional questions.

With Best Regards,
xxxxxxxxxx
Product Support Specialist
Outdoor Team
Garmin International
913-397-8200
800-800-1020


The Montana (and most other recent Garmins) can store 200 routes and my Montana accepts up to 500 points for Direct routing.

Disappointing.
Bob