New Garmin Montana

[Albie]

Originally Posted by Honkey Cat

Bought two brand new, both of them were the biggest pieces of junk, they would freeze, turn off and on while hard wired, returned them both. Anybody having same problems?

Yes, pretty much the same problem with many Garmin units. Intermittent battery connection due to vibration. Simple fix but since you sent them back,it's a little late to be asking.

[esp41]

I am doing a TAT trip this summer. I will be using Sam's GPS tracks. Would I be wise to load the Maps (CNNA, Topo) and all the tracks on the SDCard and making backup of the card? Or would I be safe putting maybe the CNNA maps on the Garmin memory (CNNA and Topo will not fit on the internal memory together)

Thanks-Mike

[FreeTheBeast]

So...with my new Montana bought yesterday...I've now installed BaseCamp on my Mac. I'm a long time user of MapSource. BaseCamp is very cool how you can search for other people's routes online.

I always had trouble transferring files between an older 2610 and MapSource. The Windows PC would blue screen almost every time. The interface between the Mac and Montana seems to be reliable, so far.

After 10 years of using Garmin GPS units, I'm finally in a good place.

[Albie]

Originally Posted by esp41

I am doing a TAT trip this summer. I will be using Sam's GPS tracks. Would I be wise to load the Maps (CNNA, Topo) and all the tracks on the SDCard and making backup of the card? Or would I be safe putting maybe the CNNA maps on the Garmin memory (CNNA and Topo will not fit on the internal memory together)

Thanks-Mike

It's always a smart idea to have backups. SD cards are cheap considering how much money you're going to spend on a trip like that.

[Emmbeedee]

Originally Posted by Albie

It's always a smart idea to have backups. SD cards are cheap considering how much money you're going to spend on a trip like that.

Ditto.

I keep a spare taped to my Montana battery.



At an annual rally last year one of the guys who'd come up to Canada from Vermont didn't have maps for this area in his Montana so I traded my spare card for his empty one and bingo, he had all the maps he needed.

OSM maps, of course... so no copyright violation.

[FireDog45]

Not sure if this belongs here but...

I set up a pretty simple route (about 20 miles) to see how BC and the Montana interact. I'm using the most recent version of BC on a Mac running OSM routable maps (I posted the link a few posts ago). I used a start and end point, had BC generate the route then had it convert it to a track. Both of these were sent to the Montana with no issues. BTW both BC and the Montana are running the same map.

On the Montana I set the track to View and changed the color to black (DRTBYK suggestion...?) then loaded the route. When it came up I noticed there were A LOT of blue dots along the route. When I clicked "Go" it came back with the 50 points error.

My question: is this a Montana issue, BC issue, OSM issue or operator error?

I like to use routes when I can for the turn notifications and there are times when I want to set up a route while sitting in a parking lot. Right now it doesn't appear I can do that, is it just me?

[FireDog45]

Originally Posted by Attico

You should try osm while you wait for city nav. They work well is most areas but dont have all the nice stuff of city nav. At least you can play around with that for a while.

Please define "work well". I can't get it to find the intersection that's a mile from my house. I even went so far as to zoom in to see exactly how the roads were named and still nothing. I left off the "Rd" and picked from the choices it gave me still no luck. I used the County and State Rt designations... nada. What am I doing wrong? (Where to? > Intersection )

If I can't count on it to locate something around the corner I don't have much faith in finding something 500 miles away.

I'm sure it's something I'm not doing right because so many here sing the praises of using OSM but I'm not seeing it.

Thanks for any advice!

[cablebandit]

It's pretty much crowd sourced material. So if you are in an area without much input they are really not that great. For other areas (Europe specifically) they are generally really good.

[FireDog45]

That makes sense (I think). It looks like I'll be ordering CNNA tonight when I order the mounts I need.

Thanks

[FreeTheBeast]

Damn! That's right! Thanks for the inadvertent reminder. I'm going to need topos for Canada. Emmbeedee knows why.

[Emmbeedee]

Originally Posted by FreeTheBeast

Damn! That's right! Thanks for the inadvertent reminder. I'm going to need topos for Canada. Emmbeedee knows why.

Is it June yet!

[250senuf]

Originally Posted by Emmbeedee

Is it June yet!

Nyet!

[Attico]

What he said. Dont forget to send in your track log if something is missing. Thats how it works. Please contribute back to the project. It only gets better if you contribute corrections or new roads.

Sale pitch over and out

Originally Posted by cablebandit

It's pretty much crowd sourced material. So if you are in an area without much input they are really not that great. For other areas (Europe specifically) they are generally really good.

[FireDog45]

Originally Posted by Attico

What he said. Dont forget to send in your track log if something is missing. Thats how it works. Please contribute back to the project. It only gets better if you contribute corrections or new roads.

Sale pitch over and out

That's the interesting part. When looking at the map (it's the only map enabled) the intersection is there, right where it should be. So I'm not sure what the issue is: is it the map, the GPS or the operator?

Also, I'm VERY new at this OSM thing. I wasn't even aware of it until last week so I'm not sure how to contribute back. I'm willing to learn but not really sure where to start, any suggestions?

This is starting to feel like a thread hijack but I still don't know if this is a Montana/me issue or not.

[esp41]

Originally Posted by Emmbeedee

Ditto.

I keep a spare taped to my Montana battery.



At an annual rally last year one of the guys who'd come up to Canada from Vermont didn't have maps for this area in his Montana so I traded my spare card for his empty one and bingo, he had all the maps he needed.

OSM maps, of course... so no copyright violation.

That is a great tip. Thank to all who replied, I will put it all on a card with a backup card.

Mike