kb6ooc

I added two waypoints while driving to various places yesterday and wanted to pull the waypoints from my Montana 600 and view them in MapSource (v6.16.3). Today, however, when I try and download waypoints, MapSource is saying, "The selected device has no waypoints on it". When I look at the Montana 600 itself, I see loads and loads of waypoints. I am able to download the current track, but not waypoints and not routes and not maps. I wonder if this was a bug introduced in a recent firmware update (I'm at v3.70) or if its just me. That aside, anyone know what file contains the current waypoints? I could just grab that. I couldn't find anything obvious. In the "\Garmin\GPX" directory, there are loads of files. The most recent says, "Waypoints_29-DEC-11.gpx" but that only contains the 2 waypoints I added that day. Where are all the others? Thanks for any help!

Don't forget there's 3GB of RAM built into the Montana 600. So, you may or may not need that extra micro SD card. So far, I've got lots of City Select (old but still plenty good) maps loaded, along with a LOT of 24K topo maps and plenty of room to spare in the internal memory.

Sweet! You're on TOP of this yogazoo! Nice work!

My 24K maps are showing trails as black and white dashes. These were red and white after that fix awhile back, right?

The arrow location is fine, for me, in 2D mode. In 3D mode it shows me about a block north of the actual location. If I exit the map, then turn the Montana to another direction and go back to the 3D map, the position can change. Oddly, when pointed E, S, or W, the arrow location was fairly reasonable. I wasn't 100% consistent either. Being off a block in this view doesn't bother me. The Montana seems to really have a hard time keeping this display updated. I think its a bit too much for it to process this view with the resources under the hood.

Late to the party here as I've been out of town for a bit.... Does anyone (yogazoo?) know what the new "track distance" field does differently? Earlier, we had a separate thread going about errors in actual distance traveled versus what the trip computer distance was reporting. The conclusion from that was to set the track log to 1-second updates to solve the problem. I wonder if this new field is a better solution. I'll have to try it out and see, unless someone has already done so.

Thanks for sharing those test results yogazoo. Interesting results on the rounding. I agree that rounding to the nearest 10th seems a bit "sloppy". If the Montana was strictly an automobile unit, that might be fine as mileages would typically be longer. However, with the various outdoor modes, a bit more precision would be nice (and probably trivial for a programmer to do). So are you keeping Montana in the 1-second mode now or are you toggling depending on the activity? Obviously the 1-second mode will fill the track log quickly so "auto" is nice. I guess I can configure it for 1-second logging for "recreational" activities and "auto" for "automobile". On the other hand, if I clear the trip meter in recreational mode, it probably means I am about to start a hike and want accurate numbers. I can probably create a shortcut for that. Thanks!

Yes, I agree that going to Track Management and viewing the current track is the way to go. I wish we could have access to THAT distance as a user-selectable field. Then I could banish the "odometer" field forever and just use the accumulated track log distance instead. Maybe I should suggest THAT option to Garmin. I wonder what the track log does differently to remove all that jumping around? I am still amazed how that amounted to a 17% INCREASE in the distance I walked (an extra 1.6 miles on top of the 8.3 I had walked). That's (roughly) an extra 8,500 feet!

I'll have to dig out my 60CS and bring it on my next hike. I don't remember finishing a hike with the 60CS and thinking the trip odometer was wrong - which is the case with my Montana 600. Since my last hike was 8.3 miles (according to the track log I extracted - and its a reasonable number) and the trip odometer was telling me I hiked 9.9 miles (which I know was way too much), I now know not to trust the trip odometer. That hike resulted in a 17% error between the two methods. That would add up to a LOT of extra miles on a really long hike - or drive. SAMM Clan's reply from Garmin is saying that its normal for the unit to display a slightly longer odometer reading than the track log. 17% doesn't seem very slight. However, if its the norm across all GPS units then I'll live with it and change the odometer field to show me something else. Too bad it can't show the accumulated track log distance - that would be far more useful than the 17% error showing from the odometer - which now seems pretty useless. I'll have my old 60CS and the Montana 600 on the next hike and we'll see how the two Garmin units compare.

Good test, and great idea for that test! Your results seem reasonable. The part I am having problems with, though, is that the tracklog (which is always shows LESS distance than the trip odometer) is actually the more reasonable distance. The trip odometer appears to be erring on the high side, whereas the tracklog (which is probably set to auto, in my case, as I have never changed that setting) reports a lower distance and is more reasonable.

I've taken my Montana 600 on two different mountain hikes now. On each hike I've reset the trip odometer so I can see how far I've hiked as the hike progresses. When the 1st hike ended, my trip odometer said I hiked 13.6 miles. I was expecting it to be about 12 miles. When I got home, I pulled the track log out and trimmed my drive to and from the trailhead so I only had the hike (did all that in MapSource). MapSource said the hike was 12.1 miles (which is more reasonable). So somehow the Montana trip odometer reported the hike as being 1.5 miles longer for some reason. I kinda shrugged it off as a fluke of some sort. I just completed another hike a few days ago. Again, I reset the trip meter before starting the hike. Also, I was camping overnight so I didn't have a drive to the trailhead this time (meaning nothing to trim when I pulled the log into MapSource). At the end of the hike, the Montana said I had hiked 9.9 miles. When I got home a day later, I pulled the archived log and looked at it in MapSource. MapSource says I only hiked 8.3 miles. Last time, the Montana said I hiked 1.5 miles further than the MapSource log said. On this 2nd hike, the Montana says I hiked 1.4 miles more than the MapSource log says. I can't let this one go as a fluke this time around. I was wondering if anyone else has experienced this. I'll probably do a bike ride around a pre-planned area specifically to test this out before I report it to Garmin. I figured a bike ride around city blocks is something I can show Garmin and have them look into it (versus a hike on mountain trails). Anyway, curious if anyone else has noticed anything odd like this.

Added option to set off route recalculation from Setup > Routing. WOW! That one should please a LOT of people - well done Garmin!!! Fixed issue where the route distance could be incorrect. Another good fix! Some great stuff in this one Garmin! I really appreciate the additions you've been making too. They are really making this into a great product!

works now -> Fixed shutdown viewing routes on map Very good - that was one I reported. Good job Garmin - keep it up! What are the big problems that are left? The crazy compass was one of them.

Hmm, you might have to completely uninstall your current installation or load 24k onto a new computer and load the .img from there. Sorry to hear your having problems. I know how frustrating it can be. I got it working now. I had several maps (.IMG files) on the device. I went to the USB drive and renamed all of them from .IMG to .SAV - except for the 24K map. Now it shows dashed red & white lines for the trails. After that, one-by-one I renamed each .SAV back to .IMG and restarted the unit. Trails stayed red & white all the way until the last file was renamed back to its original .IMG name. Weird.

When I change between various profiles, my selected map set *IS* changing for me, so I am not able to duplicate that problem. However, I am seeing the route related crash. It didn't happen in 3.20 and prior. For an additional check, I created a new route with a start and end waypoint only. When I tried to view this route on the map, it showed a map with the start and end point and a direct pink line between the two (okay so far). Next, it went to redraw the route with all the appropriate turns so I could drive/walk instead of fly. That's when the unit shutdown. I'll report it to the montanabeta team.

The satellite dashboard works fine for me - so long as its on the main menu or on the backlight page (hit the power button once briefly). When the satellite dashboard is on a map page, it just shows two circles and nothing else. If I rotate the unit, as soon as it redraws the map, it briefly shows the populated satellite dashboard and then clears it again (about 1/4 second later). I'll report it to montanabeta.

I just did a re-install, but I did it by just installing the Topo 24K right on top of the existing MapSource installation. I don't know if there is a way to remove the existing 24K map or not. Either way, I installed the Topo 24K over the existing one. Went back into Mapsource, zoomed into the Yosemite, selected 4 map squares, installed them into the Montana and the trails are still the same old color (white/gray) - not red. Will fiddle more. Maybe a v3.30 firmware will fix this.

I'm in California and I had a look at various trails leading out of Yosemite Valley. None are red for me, unfortunately. I wonder why the uninstall/reinstall would fix it? The .IMG file you generate should be identical to the .IMG file you had before. Your computer doesn't know anything about the firmware version in the Montana, so I would expect it to generate an identical .IMG file. Odd. I'll give it a try. It's gonna take HOURS to do it though. Map generation is sooooo slowwwwwww.

I sent mine back about 2 weeks ago. Got it back on 8/29. Old serial (with bad screen) was 28T000xxx. New one is 28T010xxx. I haven't been using all that much yet, but its spot on when I touch it (so far!). I'll be using it as much as I can to see if it drifts at all.

I sent back my unit (with a bad screen) about a week and a half ago. Serial was 28T000xxx. My replacement ALMOST made it here today but USPS FUBAR'd and it looks like it went to the wrong post office. Hopefully I'll get it Monday or Tuesday.

Ugh - I'm in the middle of a replacement. I've seen several people talk about having to return theirs too and I was wondering if/when I'd hear that someone was having problems with their replacement. I was REALLY hoping to NOT hear this. Bummer. Major bummer.

I had this problem too, at first. I used MapSource to upload the map data to my Montana. When I had the straight line problem, I eventually realized that I hadn't checked the "Include route calculation data" checkbox that is on the "Maps" tab in MapSource. Of course, upload them again took a few more hours (ugh). Hopefully its that simple for you.

Is there information about this somewhere or will my dealer be aware of this? Thanks for your response! I think I am have that sort of problem too. Mostly along the bottom and lower right when I hold the unit in landscape mode. Recalibrated the screen many times and I am still having to be a finger-width off the side of a button to get it.

I downgraded the firmware from 2.6 to 2.5 and I'm okay again. I think the firmware downgrade reset the active profile and solved the problem. I probably could upgrade to 2.6 again but not sure if I want to. Thanks for the help!

Gave it a shot but no luck