Garmin Montana

Thanks for posting your adventure. It was nice to see what the finished product looks like in advance of going through all the steps.

Eric

Issue confirmed and acknowledged by Dev.

Cheers,

Thanks for that! Haven't checked it yet but will do so asap.

Edit - I've found many Adventures to download through BaseCamp, including your ORNV 1000 Mi Outback.

When I plugged my Montana in it offered to create a bunch of Adventures from the tracks and photos, and that's when I realized just how easy this is. Sure makes me happy I bought the 650 with a camera onboard, that's for sure. I think I'm going to be using it more, in future!

+1...I was on a little side trip today and this kept happening to my unit. This latest firmware release is really buggy. Since I've "updated" mine:
1) freezes (a lot) when navigating
2) turns off completely when I press the options menu as posted above, and
3) generally looses it's way constantly (keeps telling me I'm off course, do I want a re-route...even though I'm not).

If it's easy enough I plan to go back to the previous version asap, until a better "new" release is issued. EDIT - Never mind, found the Garmin Montana Wiki, which has links to each firmware version and instructions on how to install. It's located HERE if anyone else is interested. Thanks.

I have a question re the memory in the Montana.

If I purchase the 650T how much of the 3.5G internal memory is used by the topo maps, ie 3.5G ram - 3G maps leavs 500M ram?? plus uSD card (16G). or
If I purchase the 650 and buy the topo maps on uSD can I copy an image of the map data onto a larger uSD card ie a 16G card with a 4G partition.??? 3G ram plus uSD 12G & 4G (maps).
Can the Montana have a uSD card with one or more partitions??

Salty..

The 650T has extra memory for the 100K topo maps from Garmin; it will have 3.5G RAM available to the user.

The User Available Memory for the 600/650 is 3.64GB, and the 650t is 7.35GB - The 100K Topo maps installed on the 650t will use up about half of that space, but it is available to you if you remove the 100K Topo and replace it with something you like better.

If you buy Pre-loaded maps on uSD card from Garmin, they are locked to that uSD card. You will not be able to move them to another uSD card.

I have never partitioned a uSD card, but I doubt the Montana would like that very much.

The 100K Topo's are well known to be off by as much as 300 yds in some areas, and are only good as a baseline reference. Garmins 24K Topo maps are much more detailed and accurate. You can also find some very good maps for Garmin GPSr units at GPSFileDepot.

I have tried this. It is not so useful.

My Garmin 550 Zumo will recognize the first partition, but will not recognize any other partitions.
I imagine the Montana would also read only the first partition.


My camera, which is about 8 years old Casio and can only use up to a 1GB SD card will also recognize only the first partition. In this case partitioning can be useful since 1GB SD cards are nearly impossible to find at good prices. So I can use 2GB cards that I partition into 2 partitions for this use.

Thanks all for the info. As I am i Oz it looks like I can only get the 650T any way, and the 1:100K maps will have to do at the present time.

Salty

Hey that's pretty cool. I did not realize the end product comes out like that.

Thanks for putting that together and sharing it with us

Jon...

Anyone else been having a hell of a time with 4.4?
Up until now, my unit has been trouble free.

With 4.4 loaded, if I hit the menu button in map view (with the data point sidebar) the unit will immediately crash.
No matter what I tried, I ended up having to revert back to 4.2

On a side note, I've always thought my internal audio output on the device has been INSANELY low.
I've always been able to hear my 60csx just fine riding along as it beeps at me, but never the Montana.
Just discovered the diagnostic mode last night, and when I get to the audio page, I get a big message saying "INCOMPATIBLE AUDIO" and none of the tests will work. Same message appears with headphones plugged in, although I will get sound through that port. This seem unusual?



EDIT: SORRY! Just went back far enough to find others reports of this issue. What a PIA. Would still love some feedback on the audio though. Thanks!

What you see on the "Diagnostic-Audio Test Page" is normal. Edit: Sorry I said that poorly. Have you selected a Tone with a higher volume? I believe Tone 7 has a high volume.

Cheers,

I do yes, but it still remains pitifully quiet. Even the test tones at 100% through the headphones out.

Can you guys hear your beeps through the internal speaker while you're rolling?

Volume is a very subjective thing in this case. On the Bike I can only hear tones when the engine is off and I have my XD Aria on. If I have my Schuberth C3 on, no sounds heard. I don't rely upon the beeper anyway.

Cheers,

In anticipation of creating a BaseCamp Adventure, I made a point of using the camera in my Montana 650 today. I know I can use any camera even if it's not connected to a gps, but the Montana makes it all so easy. I had the unit angled in such a way as I could take quick shots, and still see the map.

These are some of the pics I took. The BC Adventure will come later.











And this one was taken after a little rain.

Where does the Montana store the pic files and what is the directory they are stored in named? Thinking I can load up geotagged pics from an iphone onto a ZUMO and be able to create an adventure in Basecamp with those pics.

First, I love your signature ;-)

The Montana saves Photos taken with the Camera in the DCIM\1000GRMN\ directory, either on the Montana itself, or on the uSD card, depending on where you have chosen to have photos saved to in [Setup | Camera | Save Photos To].

I just used some iPhone photos to create an adventure this weekend. All you have to do is drag them from your iPhone into your Adventure file displayed in BaseCamp. Super simple drag and drop!

Speaking of pics, so what if my trip pictures were taken with a point-and-shoot that didn't have geotagging?

This is slightly off topic from of all things Montana, but I stumbled on a BC (Win) feature that quickly Geotag's each of your non-Montana photos using a recorded track. Works best if your camera clock and Montana clock were somewhat in sync. Also best if pictures are organized into separate file folders that align to tracks (ie, trip1\day1, trip1\day2, etc). Simply highlight a track and select "Geotag Photos Using Track...". BC will auto-geotag each picture in the folder by matching the create timestamp with the track timestamp. There's options to "Import photo into BC after geotagging" and set an timeshift offset adjustment if the GPS and camera clocks were not exactly in sync. Suggest doing the geotag prior to creating an Adventure. Big time saving and slick feature....

My Montana 650T will be delivered today....

Should I upgrade the software or wait till the next version comes out? Not knowing how long the unit sat in a warehouse I don't know what version is currently in it.

From reading its sounds like the current update is buggy.

All software is buggy, but if it doesn't affect you then it's no problem. I am on the latest version and don't have any problems with it. I just don't try to hit the menu button when I'm using the data fields dashboard. The rest is all good..

So I would suggest updating.