Question About Magellan Roadmate Poi

[+Guitar4Him]

I have a Garmin 2610 that I use in my SUV and on my motorcycle. Recently, for geocaching, I bought a Magellan Explorist 500, along with the MapSend DirectRoute North America and MapSend Topo 3D USA software. I realize that the Points-Of-Interest sets on either one of these software packages are "slimmed-down", due to the fact that they are designed for the "handheld" GPS units made by Magellan. I've noticed that neither software package includes churches or "places of worship", as Garmin refers to them, in the POI database. They do include lesser items, such as golf courses and wineries. The POI database on my Garmin 2610 includes a massive collection of "places of worship" in my area.

 

Here's my question....does this trend carry over to the RoadMate series as well or does the POI database include this as a category?

 

It's an insulting thing to me that Magellan considers golf courses and wineries as more important than churches, but that's my opinion.

[+GOT GPS?]

Seems like Garmin lists them under Attractions, for some reason.

 

Are you able to type in the name of any Church, to see if one pops up in a list?

 

Not all churches are listed on City Select, which would be from Navteq, which would be about the same as Direct Route.

 

I belong to a faith with 12 million members, but City Select has never listed any of the locations, in any state. I don't have Direct Route, so I can't exactly help.

Only if it is a larger church, they might list them.

 

-

Geoff

[+Guitar4Him]

Actually, in my area, some of the smallest churches are listed on the Garmin and some of the largest are not. I don't have a clue as to what their search/selection criteria is.

Edited January 19, 2006 by Guitar4Him

[+GOT GPS?]

You can try Google Earth, but even that only lists some of the churches.

 

http://www.google.com/local <--This is one way to find them, but does not give coordinates.

 

Would be nice if there was an easy way to create a folder on the SD memory card of the Explorist 500 "CHURCHES" and be able to load Points Of Interests into that folder.

 

Between http://www.google.com/local and a Downloadable Google Earth(if you had broadband), you might be able to gather some POI for your Explorist 500.

 

Funny how this is all hit or miss, like my Map60C will show JW's but not LDS.

 

GPS search is still not perfect, but I noticed something new, is that you can put Google Local on some new cell phones now, then you will be able to play the Guitar for him.

 

-

Geoff

[+JohnnyVegas]

Just to add, if yo are looking at the roadmate for geocaching, it would not be a good choice. I called magellan when I was thinking of buying one. They said you cannot create your own waypoints.

[+Guitar4Him]

Just to add, if yo are looking at the roadmate for geocaching, it would not be a good choice. I called magellan when I was thinking of buying one. They said you cannot create your own waypoints.

Can't create your own waypoints....what's up with that? I wouldn't want a GPS for ANY purpose that didn't let you create waypoints.

[+maleki]

You can enter new points by address or manually placing them on the map as I did today. You cannot enter by coordinates though it seems.

 

As for geocaching, the Roadmate 300 does not run on batteries(sure you could make a battery pack of some sort). Seems nice to auto route you to the right area then your out of the car with your handheld. Gonna play with this over the weekend before I pass it along to my Mom.

[+Jamie Z]

I've noticed that neither software package includes churches or "places of worship", as Garmin refers to them, in the POI database. They do include lesser items, such as golf courses and wineries.

I'd much rather have points for golf courses or wineries than churches, so I wouldn't consider them lesser items.

 

That said, it wouldn't hurt anyone to include them all.

 

I'd like it to include Post Offices, actually.

 

As others have stated, the POIs are really hit-or-miss... unfortunately, they're only partially reliable.

 

Jamie

Edited January 27, 2006 by Jamie Z

[+maleki]

Any way to transfer waypoints from GSAK or anything else to a Roadmate 300?

 

The address file saved on the computer is a Vcard file with the following format:

 

BEGIN:VCARD

X-TN-ORDER:0

GEO:-8864756;4209595

X-TN-PRIORITY:tnNormalPriority

X-TN-TYPE:tnStreetType

X-TN-SIDE:tnSideNotApplicable

X-TN-DESTINATION:tnPositionOffRoad

FN: Rest Area 3

ADR:;;;;;GCRGPN;

END:VCARD

 

I manually tweaked the GEO , FN, and ADR lines for this one to reflect some valid cache info and resent to the Roadmate and it seems to work fine. Now if I can get a GPX or LOC file there that would be cool.

 

Thanks if anyone knows and can help.

Edited January 27, 2006 by maleki

[+Jamie Z]

I bet if GPSBabel doesn't do this (which apparently it doesn't), you could send RobertLipe your unit for testing with a greenback tucked in the battery compartment. This may give him incentive to make GPSBabel compatible with the Roadmate, in turn paving the way for GSAK compatibility.

 

Jamie

[+maleki]

I'd like it to include Post Offices, actually.

I just got this RoadMate a couple days ago. I was actually heading out to the PO just after it came and figured that would be no prob and a cool first test. Oh Well.

[+maleki]

I bet if GPSBabel doesn't do this (which apparently it doesn't), you could send RobertLipe your unit for testing with a greenback tucked in the battery compartment. This may give him incentive to make GPSBabel compatible with the Roadmate, in turn paving the way for GSAK compatibility.

 

Jamie

No doubt Mr. Lipe could pull it off if needed I'm sure. I'm sure Greenback, the #1 or 2 cacher in the Chicago area would gladly make the trip too - lol.

 

I'm just playing with this til I pass it along to my Mom in a few days. Just thought it would be cool to dump some caches into it over the weekend. Certainly nothing I have to have unless it's already there.

 

It was actually quite easy to edit the file as I did so I can put in 10 or 15 manually and play with it over the weekend.