New Garmin Montana

[GH41]

Originally Posted by scotty69

Darn, batteries are cheep. just bring an eight pack and you are ready for the weekend! No water damage and the unit is perfect!

My 600 won't run over 3.5- 4 hours on the AAs if you set the display not to time out. BTW I have ran the unit mounted sideways and have not suffered any water damage. The mount drains and the little voltage passing through the contacts is not affected by being wet. GH

[davehg]

Starting Friday, REI has the 650t on sale for $499. If you buy it before the sale, you can bring your receipt back DURING THE SALE ONLY and get the difference refunded. Picked up one today and used the $100 savings to buy City Navigator.

[marco polo]

Just got back Saturday from a one-month motorcycle trip with the Montana. I ride an RT, so it was all on-road riding. Dealing with the Montana was -- at times -- enough to want to tear my hair out. Despite suggestions I received here, I never did find out what the problem was. Was it the Montana; was it Basecamp for Mac? Who knows. In summary, I painstakingly prepared a raft of routes in Basecamp then uploaded them to the Montana before I left. Both the unit and Basecamp have CNNA 2012.4 maps. From the moment I hopped on my bike outside my garage at 4:30 in the morning, I had problems. I attempted to load my first day's route ("Where To?", "Routes"). Immediately, a noticed popped up saying the route did not match the maps on the unit and did I want to recalculate (I knew this was not possible, since the only maps I have on the GPS are CNNA 2012.4 (yes, I confirmed that they were enabled)). With no other option, I hit yes, and then received a notice that there were no routable maps for that area (I also knew that couldn't be the case). A day, or two, later I discovered that, even if I encountered this strange situation, I could always select the waypoint for my destination, hit "Go" and the unit would immediately calculate a route there (obviously not the one I had crafted so carefully in Basecamp) -- and navigate to the destination without missing a beat. So much for the "no routable maps" warning I had received seconds before when trying to load a pre-planned route. Later in my trip I would try to replicate -- on the GPS -- my Basecamp routes by creating routes on the GPS (using whatever waypoints I had used in Basecamp initially). I could see my routes in Basecamp on my MacBook Air that I had with me, so I knew what waypoints to use. Where I had included via points (which don't appear in Waypoint Manager), I would drop a pin on the map (a real pain in the ass). So, in the end, I got to where I wanted to go, pretty much using the routes I had wanted to use. But, I was only able to do this with a whole bunch of extra work, creating routes on the GPS, despite the fact that I had a ton of routes that I had uploaded to the GPS from Basecamp. They proved to be, for the most part, useless. I'm not sure what to make of this. Does my unit have a fatal flaw? Were the original routes somehow corrupted when I uploaded them from Basecamp? One lesson I did learn was that, from here on, I will only create routes in Basecamp using waypoints and not with via points. Then, if I'm on the road and the unit refuses to load/navigate a route, it'll be much easier to create a route on the GPS by using those same waypoints (assuming I'll have my MacBook with me and running Basecamp, so I can view my intended route and verify what waypoints I had used in it). I'm not sure where this leaves me. No, I have not yet called Garmin.

[kbroderick]

Originally Posted by marco polo

JI attempted to load a route ("Where To?", "Routes"), a noticed popped up saying the route did not match the maps on the unit and did I want to recalculate (I knew this was not possible, since the only maps I have on the GPS are CNNA 2012.4 (yes, I confirmed that they were enabled)). With no other option, I hit yes, and then received a notice that there were no routable maps for that area (I also knew that couldn't be the case). A day, or two, later I discovered that, even if I encountered this strange situation, I could always select the waypoint for my destination, hit "Go" and the unit would immediately calculate a route there (obviously not the one I had crafted so carefully in Basecamp) -- and navigate to the destination without missing a beat. So much for the "no routable maps" warning I had received seconds before when trying to load a pre-planned route. ...

My experience is that if I create a route using waypoints and set them to be via points (command-K) and not announced, I get that set of symptoms, sometimes; if I take the exact same route in Basecamp and set the points to be waypoints instead of via points, the exact same route works.

My two cents: try this and see what happens. If you experience the same (buggy) behavior, report it to Garmin and hopefully they can manage to fix it.

[oxygenrace]

Originally Posted by atlas cached

You can also find information about Garmin Custom Maps and the Montana here..

Enjoy!

I made two custom maps of a local forest (Limerick Forest). The kmz files are listed under custom maps on the montana and custom maps are enabled. the maps show up in basecamp but not on the unit. the draw order is 75 and 76. any ideas?

[DRTBYK]

Originally Posted by oxygenrace

I made two custom maps of a local forest (Limerick Forest). The kmz files are listed under custom maps on the montana and custom maps are enabled. the maps show up in basecamp but not on the unit. the draw order is 75 and 76. any ideas?

Try a Draw Order ≤50. I like 30.

Cheers,

[atlas cached]

Originally Posted by oxygenrace

I made two custom maps of a local forest (Limerick Forest). The kmz files are listed under custom maps on the montana and custom maps are enabled. the maps show up in basecamp but not on the unit. the draw order is 75 and 76. any ideas?

When you say they do not show up on the Montana, do you mean in the Map Selection Menu or the Map Application?

Can you host one for download so I and/or others can look at it?

[DRTBYK]

Originally Posted by marco polo

JI attempted to load a route ("Where To?", "Routes"), a noticed popped up saying the route did not match the maps on the unit and did I want to recalculate (I knew this was not possible, since the only maps I have on the GPS are CNNA 2012.4 (yes, I confirmed that they were enabled)). With no other option, I hit yes, and then received a notice that there were no routable maps for that area (I also knew that couldn't be the case). A day, or two, later I discovered that, even if I encountered this strange situation, I could always select the waypoint for my destination, hit "Go" and the unit would immediately calculate a route there (obviously not the one I had crafted so carefully in Basecamp) -- and navigate to the destination without missing a beat. So much for the "no routable maps" warning I had received seconds before when trying to load a pre-planned route. ...

Originally Posted by kbroderick

My experience is that if I create a route using waypoints and set them to be via points (command-K) and not announced, I get that set of symptoms, sometimes; if I take the exact same route in Basecamp and set the points to be waypoints instead of via points, the exact same route works.

My two cents: try this and see what happens. If you experience the same (buggy) behavior, report it to Garmin and hopefully they can manage to fix it.

The Montana, as of v4.10, shouldn't care if a Via Point is not on a routable surface as long as the map sets (on the unit and the computer) are the same. I'm wondering if your unit is reading the Index for the onboard maps properly. Seems others who have had this issue could temporarily get past it by Master Reseting the unit at the time of the condition.

Question: Were your Routes on the µSD Card or Internal Storage?

Cheers,

[marco polo]

Originally Posted by DRTBYK

The Montana, as of v4.10, shouldn't care if a Via Point is not on a routable surface as long as the map sets (on the unit and the computer) are the same. I'm wondering if your unit is reading the Index for the onboard maps properly. Seems others who have had this issue could temporarily get past it by Master Reseting the unit at the time of the condition.

Question: Were your Routes on the µSD Card or Internal Storage?

Cheers,

They were on the card, but after reading suggestions here while on the road, I deleted all user data from the card and then re-loaded all my waypoints/routes/tracks from my MacBook to the unit's internal storage.

[DRTBYK]

Originally Posted by marco polo

They were on the card, but after reading suggestions here while on the road, I deleted all user data from the card and then re-loaded all my waypoints/routes/tracks from my MacBook to the unit's internal storage.

And after moving your data did you still have the "no routable map..." issue?

Cheers,

[marco polo]

Originally Posted by DRTBYK

And after moving your data did you still have the "no routable map..." issue?

Cheers,

Yes I did.

[DRTBYK]

Thanks. Did you try a Master Reset when you got these error conditions?

Cheers,

[marco polo]

Originally Posted by DRTBYK

Thanks. Did you try a Master Reset when you got these error conditions?

Cheers,

No I didn't.

[oxygenrace]

Originally Posted by DRTBYK

Try a Draw Order ≤50. I like 30.

Cheers,

great draw order of 30 worked. the resolution is a bit lower than i wanted so i may resample and try again. thanks for the help.

[oxygenrace]

Originally Posted by atlas cached

When you say they do not show up on the Montana, do you mean in the Map Selection Menu or the Map Application?

Can you host one for download so I and/or others can look at it?

they didn't show up on the map. a draw order of 30 worked.