Proximity Alarm

[+G & E]

My Garmin GPSMAP60C has a proximity feature that I've never used. While driving on vacation, it occurred to me that it would be handy if it would tell me if we were within a certain distance of a Geocache. That seems to be the whole idea of the proximity feature. However, when I go into it through the main menu, it asks for a name. If I hit enter it takes me to the the same set of options as the find feature. In other words, it seems to work with just specific waypoints rather than a type of waypoint. This really reduces the usefulness of the feature in my opinion. Has anybody found a way to enter proximity's by icon so that it will beep if you are getting close to a type of waypoint (geocache in this case but it could be any type)?

[+Timpat]

My Garmin GPSMAP60C has a proximity feature that I've never used. While driving on vacation, it occurred to me that it would be handy if it would tell me if we were within a certain distance of a Geocache. That seems to be the whole idea of the proximity feature. However, when I go into it through the main menu, it asks for a name. If I hit enter it takes me to the the same set of options as the find feature. In other words, it seems to work with just specific waypoints rather than a type of waypoint. This really reduces the usefulness of the feature in my opinion. Has anybody found a way to enter proximity's by icon so that it will beep if you are getting close to a type of waypoint (geocache in this case but it could be any type)?

Sure. When you're on the main menu, click on Proximity as you describe. You will see the blank for Name highlighted, with Radius to the right. Click Enter with Name highlighted. As you said it takes you to the FIND menu. Now you can select any waypoint icon you want, including Geocache. Then refine the search by Nearest or By Name. You were almost there. Select the geocache waypoint you want, click Enter, and at the bottom right click on USE. Now the Radius will be highlighted. Click on it to enter in the radius distance desired. You can refine the distance to 0.01 miles (52.8 feet).

Edited August 23, 2006 by Timpat

[btrodrigues]

Sure. When you're on the main menu, click on Proximity as you describe. You will see the blank for Name highlighted, with Radius to the right. Click Enter with Name highlighted. As you said it takes you to the FIND menu. Now you can select any waypoint icon you want, including Geocache. Then refine the search by Nearest or By Name. You were almost there. Select the geocache waypoint you want, click Enter, and at the bottom right click on USE. Now the Radius will be highlighted. Click on it to enter in the radius distance desired. You can refine the distance to 0.01 miles (52.8 feet).

 

I think he was refering to setting up a general proximity alarm for every geocache.

I would love to have such a feature on my 60CS.

[+Prime Suspect]

Sure. When you're on the main menu, click on Proximity as you describe. You will see the blank for Name highlighted, with Radius to the right. Click Enter with Name highlighted. As you said it takes you to the FIND menu. Now you can select any waypoint icon you want, including Geocache. Then refine the search by Nearest or By Name. You were almost there. Select the geocache waypoint you want, click Enter, and at the bottom right click on USE. Now the Radius will be highlighted. Click on it to enter in the radius distance desired. You can refine the distance to 0.01 miles (52.8 feet).

 

I think he was refering to setting up a general proximity alarm for every geocache.

I would love to have such a feature on my 60CS.

I think you have to upload the caches in a POI file to do this. You can set it so the entire file is considered a POI class, and set the proximity for the entire class.

[+Thrak]

I downloaded a bunch of .csv files that have red light camera coordinates and loaded them as custom POIs on my unit. I use the proximity alarm to tell me when there is a camera coming up. I can't really see any need for an extra proximity alarm for all geocaches.

[+Timpat]

Prime Suspect is correct, for our 60CX/SX units. I do this when I want proximity alarms for some of my custom POIs. The older 60C/S units do not have this ability to load custom POIs....unfortunately.

[+G & E]

Sure. When you're on the main menu, click on Proximity as you describe. You will see the blank for Name highlighted, with Radius to the right. Click Enter with Name highlighted. As you said it takes you to the FIND menu. Now you can select any waypoint icon you want, including Geocache. Then refine the search by Nearest or By Name. You were almost there. Select the geocache waypoint you want, click Enter, and at the bottom right click on USE. Now the Radius will be highlighted. Click on it to enter in the radius distance desired. You can refine the distance to 0.01 miles (52.8 feet).

 

I think he was refering to setting up a general proximity alarm for every geocache.

I would love to have such a feature on my 60CS.

 

Yes that is correct, I was referring to a general proximity alarm for any geocache that I am close to. It would be handy while driving. It sounds like this is not possible. That is too bad as it should be a real simple thing for Garmin to write into their software.

[+Prime Suspect]

G7ToWin makes it very easy to add proximity distances to whole groups of waypoints at once. I was able to set the proximity of 260 cache waypoints to .25 miles, in just a few seconds. But when I tried to upload them, I almost immediately got a message on the GPS saying "proximity memory full". Apparently, you can only set proximity alarms to about 10 waypoints (on the 60CSx).

 

It looks like using a "redlight" type POI file is currently the only way to do this for a large group of waypoints.