Garmin Montana

I've always liked track up, I loaded topo on my Zumo, but the thing is only good for directions... I'm psyched that I'll actually be able to follow routes! :lol

No, there is no 'Detour' in the Montana. You can insert via points into a route you're currently navigating but that's about as close as you can get to the detour feature.

refresh my memory on the montana via point limitation again...it does not seem limited compared to zumos in other ways but in the via point stakes?

Oh no, we're not starting that again are we?

Reminds me of an old joke:

Is it ignorance or apathy?

I don't know and I don't care.



No really, I do not build routes so way and via point limits are academic to me. But I'm sure someone will answer the question.

You can check this thread where Snooker has painstakingly researched and documented the subject: http://www.advrider.com/forums/showthread.php?t=861944

thats what i wanted nothing to see here move along please

Perhaps this has been addressed here somewhere, and it isn't specific to the Montana, but is there some reason there are so few colors available for for the different tracks you are viewing?
I use tracks exclusively, and in an area like Moab, would like to have more colors to differentiate tracks from one another, as well as more brightly colored, hi-viz track colors. How about Orange, Pink, Neon colors?
I'm sure the screen could render these, is there some reason Garmin doesn't have these?

Why don't you ask Garmin through their forums?

I'm old school, I always use North up, can't shake the old paper map days.

50 points per route. The ZUMO's have limits but a lot higher, at least 250 and more depending on the model.

Me too.

I liked the Detour feature on the Nuvi. I used to use it often on dirt roads when Garmin had routed me to a locked gate or a washed out bridge or private road. I'd punch in 'Detour' to see if Garmin could route me on an alternative. Good feature, but it's not on the Montana.

Re: inserting via points into your current route. A nuvi with routing (550 is what I had) would let me keep adding more and more stops but the Montana seems to allow only one insert at a time.

For example, you're following a route, you want to get gas so you:

Where to?> Set via point> location of gas station-

and the Montana will put that into your route. But if you try to add another, say a restaurant, it will drop the gas station via point and only route you to the restaurant.

I just noticed this last week, and haven't had the chance to confirm it but I think that's how the Montana works.

...........shu

I assume, if this is the way it works, that Garmin wants you to use Route Manager to add more than one via point into a route you're currently navigating. Not that this is a good idea, of course, but Garmin does seem to like to add little variations in their gps units so you always have this niggling desire to get yet another gps, in the faint hope it'll answer all your gps prayers.

It's futile, obviously, to think we'll ever be perfectly satisfied. But that doesn't stop us from buying more of their products.

These minor irritations really don't annoy me all that much because the Montana is still the best gps you can get, for now. IMHO, of course.

I agree with that. The Nuvi had some good features but the screen brightness and readability of the Montana alone makes it much more worthwhile. It never failed that in heavy traffic and confusing streets, just when you needed the Nuvi the most, the sun angle would be wrong and the screen would be totally unreadable.

Just to mention a few: the ability to use tracks, to design different profiles, the superior alphabetical search for shopping, lodging, etc, are far superior on the Montana.

Just wish they had kept a couple of features that worked well from the Nuvi.

..........shu

Anybody have an answer to this?

Well, I am thinking the profile you used to base your custom profile on is maybe the wrong one?

I would make another profile, base it on Automotive or Bike or even Rec and modify that profile one step at a time. Keep checking as you got to see if the Tracks are available.

I cannot get the error you have, so it must be a fault with something you changed.

Good Luck
TS

This custom profile is my experimental one for sure and I've messed around with it and probably turned off the selection for Tracks (somehow)...

... but this to me means it could happen to me in the field so does anybody know how to add Tracks back as an option (after Where To?) if it got deleted somehow??

I looked but could not find how to add it back, so I would suggest, as TravellingStrom did, that you create a new profile from a known good one, and modify it as you want. But what happens if you make a copy of your custom one? Does it get the Where To/Tracks back?

Have you Reset the device to see if that would do it?

Thank you both for the clarifications. I will try this out sometime.

I have the bike rigged now to run both the Montana and Zumo 350 simultaneously, side by side, and intend to try to notice and report on differences in how they work and what they do in different situations. Still pretty cold here, so I won't have much of anything for a while.

While the Montana is better at some things, it's still not as good at others. Unfortunately, Garmin refuses to make a "best" GPS for my needs, so that's why I have 4 of them.

On the Dutch forum it was found that the profile got corrupted slightly. You might correct it with Wordpad:
a) on the Montana change the current profile to another than the bad profile to allow this the bad profile to be overwritten.
b) connect to a PC, open "Garmin\Profiles\badprofile.gtt" with Wordpad and under <findmenu>the < Findmenu> add the following: "<findmenu><fin><fmitem>< FmItem > 30 < </fmitem></fin></findmenu></findmenu><findmenu><findmenu><fin><fmitem>/FmItem >" excluding quotes and spaces.
c) check that all other Fmitem numbers between 0 and 37 are also present.
</fmitem></fin></findmenu></findmenu><findmenu><findmenu><fin><fmitem>d) disconnect from USB, power on the Montana and choose the </fmitem></fin></findmenu></findmenu><findmenu><findmenu><fin><fmitem>bad profile again. It should now have the "Tracks" find option re-installed.

It is likely that it got corrupted during firmware update. </fmitem></fin></findmenu></findmenu>The exact fail conditions are not known.