Garmin Montana

Got my new Tempe in the mail yesterday - there's no way of telling the difference between new and old, as far as I can tell, except the new one should work properly.

I marked the flawed one with an X just so I know which is which.

So are the problems with the Tempe sorted out with the new one?

I hope so. Time will tell but I have no reason to think I ended up with another defective one.

Embee..it may just be the pic, but it looks like the back end of the gold spring clip? is different.

I would imagine that since they don't want the faulty one back then it's some kind of component change rather then a simple firmware change.

I had to send mine to Raytech, in Laval. Just got an email saying that my replacement in in the Snail Mail & should arrive next week.

I think any difference in the clip is an optical illusion.

Speaking of springs, is it Spring yet?

Too bad they put you through that, and didn't just send you one. Oh well, all's well that ends well.

My wife's happy to get my flawed one.

Unfortunately not......

Jon...

Hi guys

I have got a Garmin Montana 650 for Xmas, and I would like to mount it to my XT660Z using a ram mount.

Do you think it will be strong enough for off-road use?

Also, do you suggest using the Garmin Rugged Mount

http://salestores.com/stores/images/images_747/0101165401.jpg

or the RAM Mount?

http://shop.touratech.co.uk/media/images/misc/langtext_ram_montana_01-068-0026-0.jpg

I dont really need to use the power cables of the Garmin Rugged Mount. I just want a solid mount

Any suggestion is appreciated

Cheers

Sam

I use a rugged mount, attached with RAM hardware, for both on and off road use. It holds up just fine.

Definitely, the rugged mount with Ram ball, AMPs plate and medium arm:

http://www.gpscity.com/ram-mount-garmin-montana-powered-rugged-cradle-motorcycle-mount-steel.html

You may change your mind on powering the Montana after discovering how fast the batts go down with full backlight on all the time. I'll bet there's very few here who haven't hooked up the power.

The 24 Hr Min and Max are reset on a daily basis now.

Also, while testing the Tempe I found I could walk away to about 100' and the Tempe was still connected to the gps. This was in a straight line, with no obstructions in the way. I'm amazed it was still connected at that point. I didn't actually find the limit, but I ran out of time for playing around with it.

Edit:

I took the dog out for a walk in the back yard and tested the Tempe to see just how far it would connect.

The experiment:

Tempe hanging from a thermometer right outside my back door.



Walked straight back, still connected at 74 metres.



Lost connection at 105 metres.



Reconnected at about 80 metres.



That's pretty decent for a device of this kind. I think the limit is about 100 metres.

BTW, I didn't wait for the Tempe to cool off from inside temperature - that's why the reading indicates 12C.

Impressive!!
Now I can check the temperature in the cooler in the wife's car while I'm following behind in the truck!

I'm still not sure this thing is worth bothering with, and I'd like to know what else folks find to do with it, aside from esoteric data logging when temperature at the data point is an important part of the data needed.:huh

I don't know if that's going to work, going through the body of the car. One thing I do know: the Tempe does not work under water. It immediately loses connection with the gps.

Re: other purposes for the Tempe. Dunno - if you're on a multi day trip it might be interesting to look back on the temperatures in the track log. It's so inexpensive that it seemed reasonable to buy one just to see if it had a use rather than try to figure the uses out beforehand. Like in the case of the meat thermometer use I found, I wouldn't have thought of that prior to having the occasion present itself.

Sorry if this has already been mentioned, but where are you putting the Tempes when riding? Jacket pocket, on the bike somewhere?

With this recent discussion, I've just ordered one to play with with my new Montana, which still isn't sorted. Supposedly a new LiIon battery enroute.

The ideal location for a Tempe hasn't really been discussed, AFAIK.

In using mine on the bike I found a few things:

1. If it's inside a tank bag or top box, it takes quite a while to react to temperature changes.
2. If it's in the sun, it's going to give an erroneous reading.
3. If you put it into your tank bag map pocket, it's going to display very high temperatures.
4. If it's moved away from the gps and loses its connection for more than a few minutes, it's not going to reconnect unless you go to Setup/Ant Sensor and turn it off, then back on or power the gps off/on. So if the Tempe's on your jacket and the gps on the bike (and powered on) when you go inside for lunch, you'll have to go through the procedure I described to reconnect them.
5. The Tempe can connect to two or more gps units, but only one Tempe can connect to a gps.
6. The Tempe's holder is very solid, IMHO. I have never had it fall out of the holder yet.

That being said, I keep mine on a short strap/carabiner and move it where it looks like it'll not be affected by sunlight. It usually ends up behind my tank bag, between me and the bag. This might raise the temperature a little but in practice, I haven't noticed any problem.

Thanks for that, I'll have to experiment. I was thinking maybe around the steering head, away from engine heat and out of the sun and direct wind blast.

Thanks a lot. This is very useful. Why the medium arm? do you have experience with that? I thought I could use the short arm and the Montana would sit just above the cockpit without sticking out too much
Sam

The shorter, the better, in my experience. Longer ones tend to vibrate more.