Garmin Montana

this was eating at me so dug a little deeper, and turns out user error caused my loss of track log condition. I had changed active profile from off-road to on-road while using a route, and my default is track off for the on-road profile. The montana was doing exactly as it was told.

Damn technology. Doesn't it know it's suppose to do as I think, not as I say?!

Cheers,

I tried doing it on the Mac version a dozen times, it doesn't recalculate when I switch from along road to direct, when I hit the CMD-Z key effectively deletes the route from the last way point back to the 2nd to last. If I don't hit the CMD-Z then what happens is it still uses along road routing even though it shows direct routing. If I start out in direct it still stays direct when I switch to along road.

I'll try the map switching, thanks for the tip.

Mixed-route in Mac-BC: start with the Along-road routing, then with the Route Properties window open, select Direct Routing in the Properties window (not the BaseCamp Activity list from the Menu Bar). Once in Direct mode lay out your points and when you are back to a road surface stop and go back and change the Route Properties Activity to an Along-road activity. The route will recalculate and look screwed up. Just hit the cmd-z to back out. Your along-road section will look like a Direct section but all you have to do is use the select tool and select that section of the route and place it with a via point back on the road. It will recalculate just that section and you're back in business. The map switching method is easier.

Cheers,

DRTBYK

Can you point me to a tutorial for building a track with the Waypoints and Proximity points?

Would like to try building one and following it to compare against a route.

Our small group has vowed to all be on the same Mapsource version going forward to eliminate all the recalculating we currently do.

But if this track method proves succesful maybe we will go that route and perhaps even move on to the Montana.


JB Rupee

OK, used the map switching method and it works great. I'll just stick to that. Thanks for the help.

I wish you could drag a route to the roads that you want it to take you on without creating a bunch of waypoints. Similar to what you can do with mapquest, google maps and the other online mapping software. I have quite figured out the cutting of routes on Base Camp.

Well, creating a Track is a no-brainer. Several ways to do so but since you guys do a lot of on-road stuff, I would simply create a Route for the sections that are on-road. Then convert them to Tracks: right-click "Convert Route to a Track". For the non-road sections, either use a previously recored Track or draw it in using the Track Draw Tool. Once you have the Track segments for your ride, just select them in the order of travel and right-click and "Join Tracks".

Now you have a Track of your complete ride. Waypoints: use the Waypoint Tool and place them where you want them. Once you have all of your Waypoints created, select them, right-click and call up the properties window. There you can set the Proximity Alert distance for all of the Waypoints that were selected. Select the Tracks and Filter the Track Points to whatever is the lowest GPS spec. Export the Tracks/Waypoints to a GPX file and send to each rider.

Done.

Oh, almost forgot. If you were all using Montana's you wouldn't have to filter your Tracks to some ridiculous small number (700, 650, 500). You could send the high-res track with a very high point count so that you wouldn't miss those parallel road intersections and high road low road "Y" intersections.

Cheers,

The online systems you mentioned don't have to send those routes to a GPS so you don't see the route shaping points they create. Wishing is easy. Learning how to actually create a Route on the roads you desire takes a little effort. What's your problem with Waypoints?

Cheers,

OK Dan. I think I've got it. Will give it a go to see how it works out.

Do I understand you correctly that the Montana has NO limit on the number of track points?

I created a simple 75 mile route between two locations in NJ and converted the route to a track. The track is very detailed. BUT IT HAS 900 segments!!! I can imagine some of our routes having thousands if not tens of thousands of segments.

Anyways..... if this all works out I may be looking at making the jump from my 276 / 478 to a Montana.

Thanks again for the detailed replies and your help.

I didn't say the Montana had NO limit to the number of Track Points. It does. Each Track cannot exceed 10,000 points. You will most likely not exceed that limit with the length of your Tracks/Routes. The Montana Track Manager can hold up to 200 of those Tracks and if that isn't enough room you can use the Track Manager to Archive those Tracks and send the Montana 200 more Tracks. Now you can swap Tracks between the Track Manager and the Archive. In this manner you can have as many Tracks on board the Montana as you have internal storage for.

Forgot to mention that you can "Filter" your Tracks to whatever Track Point count you prefer. If I recall correctly (someone check me please) the GPSMAP x7x units would take 700pt Tracks(?).

I know I post here a lot but I don't sell Montana's nor do I get kick-backs from Garmin - I just like the GPS.

Cheers,

It just seems that you need to create a large amount of waypoints when there are a number of turns in the route that is being created. Where if I could ues less waypoints and just drag the route to the roads I want would be a lot faster to create. I also had an issue where I did not get to a waypoint and wanted to continue my ride but it wanted to keep taking me back to the waypoint that was missed. I then had to cancel the route and just keep making new routes from waypoint to waypoint. If I'm making sense.

Thanks for the help!

Are you using BaseCamp? Since you are asking the question here I must assume your GPS is a Montana(?).

First, in BaseCamp you can easily create a route with NO Waypoints. A simple click of the Routing Tool will place a Start Point and with another click an End Point (Via Points). BaseCamp will, based upon YOUR routing preferences and Activity profile, create an along-road route for you. This will most likely not route you on all of the roads you desire. In that case, select the appropriate route editing tool (depends on whether you're using Windows or Mac) and click on the route section you want to "move" via "rubber-banding" drag the route to the road you want. There are several YouTub and Garmin videos on how to create and edit routes for the two different BaseCamp applications.

Once you've edited your route you can go back and add Waypoints if you desire. Or, you can do so while you are editing the route - there are several methods you can use to do this depending upon the BaseCamp version (OS) you are using.

As it pertains to Routing on the Montana, it doesn't have the Detour routing feature that the nuvi and zumo brands have. So, if you deliberately or otherwise miss a Waypoint in your Route and you don't want to Recalculate the route, you can simply Stop navigation and restart from your current position.

Cheers,

Still waiting on another unit from Garmin. One question: after checking the new op sys, if it is not 4.???? should I update at this time?

I would.

Been running 4.60 since it came out and haven't had any troubles.

+1.......no issues and I have actually been on the road and using it

Should the maps be on the sd card or on the unit?

Do I understand correctly that I do not need the maps on the computer, that BaseCamp will read the maps from the Montana?
Is this true if the maps are on either the sd card or on the unit?

The maps can be on either the SD card or the gps. Makes no real difference especially once they've been read by the unit and cached. When I last used MapInstall it put all the maps on my SD card by itself.

The advantage to this is that you can back up the SD card and have a spare with all your maps handy, in case your maps get corrupted. I keep a complete spare 16 gigabyte card in my battery compartment, taped to the battery.

BaseCamp is "supposed" to see the maps but often it needs a little help to do so. If you can't see the maps, get JaVaWa Device Manager to help you make them visible.

Here's a screen shot of JaVaWa listing my Montana:



Here's the JaVaWa screen showing where you set the map to be visible in Basecamp, among other things.



And this is how those maps are listed in BaseCamp.

Emmbeedee has it right.......................the only other thing is important is to make sure you leave some free space on your internal Montana drive ............get some 8GB SD cards and use those over using up the internal storage space on the Montana.