Garmin Montana

I couldn't agree more!

In BC, If you right click on a via point in a route's property window, a drop down list will appear that will allow you to change its property to ‘Alert On Arrival’ or ‘Don’t Alert on Arrival (Shaping Point)’. Not all gps support non announcement of shaping points. It would appear that the Montana doesn't. and thus treats them as way-points, The 62s doesn't as well, but I think some Nuvi's do. That's why you see the Blue Flags when the route loads.

I feel like I've beat this horse enough for one day.

daryl

A little primary on the frustrating Garmin language:


POI - A formal Point Of Interest. An entry in the internal POI database with a name, location and usually other information associated with it.

Waypoint - Any arbitrary point on the map that you have designated you want to keep track of. Usually stored in the "Favorites" or "My Locations" or whatever your personal navigation device calls its waypoint storage database. Your device will usually allow you to store such things as the location, any arbitrary name you want to supply and other information such as address, phone number, category(ies) and a symbol/icon to be used when displaying it.

Via Point - A point used to create a multipoint route, e.g. Go from Point A to Point B via some other arbitrary point(s) that you will designate. If your personal navigation device supports multipoint routing, the via point can be a POI, an existing waypoint/favorite or any other form of location that is searchable on your device, e.g. address, intersection/junction, custom POI, etc. In most cases, to use something as a via point it must already exist in one of the devices' searchable databases.

Shaping Point - In Mapsource, to "shape" a route to go exactly where you want there are a couple of methods. Just as with the personal navigation device, you can edit the route's properties to insert Via points (these are not shaping points although they do serve a similar purpose). You can also just use the route tool to click on spots on the map to force the shape of a route. When you do that, you are using a location that is not already in one of the searchable location databases. Mapsource does not force you to add these points to any of the formal databases. It simply inserts the actual coordinates invisibly into the route. These are shaping points.

Shaping points occur in another, automatic, fashion as well. Even when you only designate a two-point route, e.g. go from Point A to Point B, there will usually be multiple places, usually intersections, where a change in direction is required. When building the route, the personal navigation device (or Mapsource/Basecamp) will automatically include all of these points in the route.

Nope, changing the property of a via point to non alert does not convert it into a shaping point. It's merely a non alerting VIA point.

I upgraded to 4.70 using Garmin Express and it worked just fine. The only thing I've found so far is that all the maps were enabled on the profile which was active when I upgraded, but I found nothing else to complain about in the 5 minutes I've had to check it out.

I still get the occasional white screen. Otherwise, it seems to be working ok.

Damn!!! I just got it out to check what Atlas said about USB mass storage and when I started it up, I got that white screen!!

Have you tried JaVaWa Device Manager on that gps to see if it finds any problems with it?

Not yet. I downloaded it earlier today. I'll install it tomorrow and see what shakes out.

I don't think a serial number list was ever circulated, but I doubt there would still be unsold old stock. Garmin actually stopped production and quit shipping units while they sorted out the issue.

Hey! You plagiarised my post!
At least I quoted the original poster from the BC Forum........Tsk, Tsk, Tsk....

God, I love all the smileys we have here!

Yes, I have 2013.30 on my Montana. I reported it to Garmin but have not had anything back from them on it.

Sorry, I'm lazy.

Looks like I'm going to have to beat the horse some more.....

Here's another post from the BaseCamp forum, including response from a Developer.

Shaping points on Montana 600

Hi,
I tried using shaping points in BaseCamp (won't alert, grayed out), but when I transfer the route to my Montana, while the route is as I created it, it is full of Via Points. I'm guessing this means the Montana does not support shaping points? If so, can anyone say if it will in the next firmware release?

Desktop App Developer:
I don't think the Montana supports this. I probably won't be in the next firmware release. Please contact product support and request that feature. The more people ask, the higher the chances it might get implemented.



OK, so I must be wrong. If the Montana does not support shaping points, and does not allow the non alert of via points, doesn't that make ANY type of point you use in describing a route a via point?

And therefore doesn't it follow that the 50 (51) point limit applies? AAAAAARRRRGGGGGHHHHH!


AND....we seem to have been discussing via point limits on an autorouting profile and map, i.e. CNNA, without actually specifying that....my bad.

THERE IS NO 50 POINT LIMIT ON DIRECT ROUTING, BUT I CAN'T FIND THE ACTUAL LIMIT!




​

One of the reasons I bought the Montana was because it has the ability to use "custom maps". My idea was that in certain areas in Thailand where no roads appear on the OSM maps I could use the Google Earth images as a guide, driving them with a GPS and then adding those roads to the OSM map later. However, after playing around with this approach for a few days and suffering through the frustrating tedium of correctly geolocating those images I began to reevaluate the idea of using Birdseye imagery for my map making efforts.

I've read quite a bit of the info about Garmin Birdseye imagery and have not been impressed. The customer comments on Amazon are very negative and what I've been able to ferret out in here and on other forums is far from positive. The money isn't the concern -- $30 a year is peanuts for a good mapping alternative to the GE images. But if the imagery is indeed inferior or out of date as many reviewers say, I don't want to waste my time on it.

Do any of you have experience with Birdseye positive or negative you'd care to share? And more specifically, have any of you have tried the images for Thailand or SE Asia?

This isn't really a Montana subject, but Lost Rider seems to love Birdseye. I'm looking for a post of his where he describes using it. Not in Thailand or SE Asia, though.

Say it ain't so!
Yes.
Yes.
Try 250.

daryl

So I am pretty set on getting a Montana for my first gps... Seems like a solid choice.

I have nearly a dozen GPSr..... I use my Montana every day!

All the discussions about 50 (via/shaping) point limits prompted me to perform a few tests of my own. The tests confirmed much of what has recently been discussed here, and my understanding about some of the limitations of the Montana.

In BaseCamp, I created a 30 point (30 via points, according to the route property window) direct profile route. I duplicated the route and converted it to automobile profile routing (so I could see how BaseCamp calculates the actual routing on roads (versus the straight lines shown between the direct routing points). I then transferred the 30 point direct route to the Montana. As expected, when loaded via the "Where To" menu, the route initially displayed as the direct route, while the Montana re-calculates the route, and then displays the route on the roadways, using the via points that I defined. The route calculated by the Montana matched the BaseCamp calculated automobile profile route (same map set loaded on both BaseCamp and the Montana!).

I repeated the process, but this time using an 80 (via) point route using BaseCamp (as shown by the route's properties window) and set to use direct profile routing. I duplicated the route in BaseCamp and converted the duplicate to automobile profile routing, again so I could see how the route would display on actual roads. I also converted the 80 point automobile profile route into a track. I transferred the 80 point direct route, the 80 point automobile route, and the 80 point track to the Montana.

When the 80 point direct route was initially selected using the "Where To" menu, it initially displayed all 80 points and all the direct line segments between those 80 points (along with the "Go" button). Immediately selecting the "Go" button resulted in a message being shown that states "Only 50 points can be used for follow road navigation." If the "Go" button was left unselected, after the Montana completed calculating the route, the route along the roadways was displayed, but was truncated (did not display) any of the segments after the 51st via point. The route's description box provided the correct length of the route up until the 51st via point (compared to the length of that route as calculated by BaseCamp).

When the 80 point automobile profile route was selected using the "Where To" menu, it displayed the full route with direct routing segments, but the "Go" button never appears. Clearly the Montana cannot re-calculate the full route for a non-direct profile route when that route exceeds 51 via points.

Next, the track that was generated from the 80 point automobile profile was loaded via the "Where To" menu. As expected, the entire track displayed properly (along the actual roadways) and selecting the "Go" button began navigation using the track.

To summarize, direct profile routes exceeding 51 points (which on the Montana includes via points, waypoints, and points of interest) can be used when transferred to the Montana, but these routes will be truncated to use only the first 51 points. Non-direct routes (for example, routes created using the automobile profile) which exceed 51 points in length cannot be used by the Montana for navigation. Routes created in BaseCamp using a non-direct profile (for example, the automobile profile), that exceed 50 points in length, can be converted to tracks and those tracks can be loaded to and used by the Montana for navigation, albeit without the turn-by-turn direction provided by routes. (From a programming standpoint, I assume the via points are loaded into an array that begins with a base value of zero and has a maximum value of 50, resulting in 51 location values being used for the route calculation).

My apologies for the long-winded discussion, but I hope this explanation will be of some value to our newer Montana owners, or to those still trying to make a decision on whether to purchase a Montana.

Good Job Bill!

daryl

Very reassuring... It seems to me when it comes to gps it is fairly simple. Like all electronics it just needs to be reliable and easy to use (relatively speaking). I will be shopping around for awhile as I am in no hurry, want the gps for riding the TAT later this year.