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POI and waypoint to car navigation portables


Alan2

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I'm thinking about getting a Nuvi 350 for my wife for voice commands for driving. When she's not using it, I will for both driving and for spotting cacne locations. Can I load waypoints for off rooad in woods? Will it accept coordinates for waypoints? How about waypoints created by GSAK? Is there a way to transfer. There's a program from Garmin that allows computer transfers but not enough details.

 

Another model better?

 

Thanks Alan

Edited by Alan2
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I'm thinking about getting a Nuvi 350 for my wife for voice commands for driving. When she's not using it, I will for both driving and for spotting cacne locations. Can I load waypoints for off rooad in woods? Will it accept coordinates for waypoints? How about waypoints created by GSAK? Is there a way to transfer. There's a program from Garmin that allows computer transfers but not enough details.

 

Another model better?

 

Thanks Alan

I am also interested in this subject and I will add as much as I know.

 

I have a Garmin eTrex Legend and a Garmin StreetPilot c530. What I am saying about the 530 is likely true of the Nuvi. You can load the caches into the 530 in exactly the same manner as you would the Legend. Either MapSource can be used to extract the locations from the geocaching site or the geocaching site will push them down to your system. I have found however, that the caches are only "visible" on the StreetPilot when you go th the "Where TO" then select "Browse Map". The caches show up like any POI and have a small 'treasure chest' symbol. If you 'point' at one, it will display its name. You can then select "Go To" and the driving instructions will take you there - or at least, close. At that point I use my Legend to actually find the cache.

 

I would like the caches to appear in the regular driving map so I would be able to 'see' the nearby ones as I drive down the road. Better still, I would like the StreetPilot to recognize the caches in a manner similar to the way you can load and 'see' RedLight' cameras. It could then give both a visible and audible warning when the car came within some predetermined proximity of the cach.

 

Anyone got any ideas how to load the caches so they are visible in the regular driving map and, even better will give off a 'redlight' type of warning?

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I have a Garmin Legend C and now a Garmin nuvi 660. So far, I've discovered that the 660 assimilates the .gpx output of GSAK into it's "Current.gpx" file and then shows them on-screen in driving mode. You can then access the individual waypoints in "My Favorites" and then set any of them as the next destination. It only sorts them by "nearest" to current location. One hiccup so far is that the directions want to take you to the nearest road segment to the cache which may be a house on a cul-de-sac that backs up to a city park where the cache is in the back corner of the park. Thus the cul-de-sac road segment is closer to the cache than the park entrance. Oh well, minor issue. You can set the nuvi for "off-road" but that becomes more cumbersome in some other cases.

 

The other hiccup is that once you input the waypoints, there are only two ways to delete them - either one at a time (a real pain if you've loaded 400+ waypoints!) or delete the entire list (the whole current.gpx file). The second option can be worked around by maintaining an "off-line" copy of the basic "current.gpx" and replace the one in the nuvi.

 

Information available is sketchy at best. Only the Waypoint code (GCXXXX) and the coordinates - that's it. No names, data, etc. Best workaround so far is using Cachemate on our PDA for all the other info.

 

Anyone out there played with the POI function for additional info transfer.

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e9eefac3-ca71-4856-8a78-8cba72bf8b2f.jpg

 

You can do it! I'm still experimenting but this is what I've found.

1) First, you must delete all your all of your "My Locations" by touching the "Delete All".

2) Second, you must generate a PQ (Pocket Query). I generate a PQ with 480 waypoints. This leaves 20 waypoints that can be used as other go to's like address.

3) Connect your nuvi to you PC. Open My Computer>nuvi>Garmin and paste the PQ .GPX file into the gpx file.

 

You can also load a PQ into MapSource and send it to your nuvi.

 

Here are a couple things I've found. You need to keep the "GC" prefix on the waypoint. This is what displays the treasure chest on the map. I've used GSAK to send the files but you just end up with a dot. I'm not sure where Garmin keeps the icons. If we knew, maybe we could add some custom icons and use GSAK.

 

Another thing I found. You must delete all your favorites to load new PQ's. The nuvi hides these somewhere and keeps them even when you go in and delete the gpx and poi files.

 

Next subject: Proximity alarms. You can use Garmin's free POI Loader to load thousands of waypoints and notify you when you go within a selected distance from one of these waypoints. I load about 4000 waypoints and enter 2000' for the distance. Then I can drive around and the nuvi makes a tone and displays a red band across the top of the screen telling me when I'm near a cache.

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c115867a-d0b0-4f35-a306-69ef88b7b558.jpg

 

Here’s what my POI’s look like. I use GSAK to manipulate the Pocket Queries to show a bunch of information. On this cache (GCXARG) the first 2 letters (GC) have been dropped and replaced with TR. T = traditional cache, R = regular container. (4.5, 4) = 4.5 difficulty and 4 = 4 terrain. Amalya’s House of Rock is the name of the cache. dave bear is the hider. The hint is: Well hidden in some rocks about twenty yards from the big one.

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OK I ordered the 350 from Amazon for 369.54. They didn't charge shipping or taxes. Hope my wife likes it. I didn't get the 360 Bluetooth because her car syncs with bluetooth cellphones already. I think she's really going to be surprised when she gets it. Thanks all for your input. Alan

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Okay, this may sound like a no-brainer for an automotive GPS, but believe it or not, I bought

this Nextar unit

and it only zooms out to 10 miles. Makes it very difficult to get a true overview of your trip...you can't even see the next city over. (I only paid $129 for it, so I guess you get what you pay for!)

 

Do the Nuvi's zoom out further? I found a picture of the TomTom which shows the track going across the entire U.S. so I know they do, but I haven't seen a screen shot of the Nuvi yet.

 

Also between the TomTom and the Nuvi, do either of them have a "stopover" feature in which you can add destinations in between your final destination?

 

Cacheola Crew Mom

Edited by Cacheola Crew
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ef658d62-e913-4eb7-9a54-a1499f4ac64a.jpg

 

This is my nuvi 360 zoomed out the whole way.

 

My 360 allows one via point that you can insert while autorouting to another. Some of the higher end nuvi's allow Auto sort of multiple destinations (provides most direct route to multiple points) and will store up to 10 separate routes.

 

Hey that's nifty. Could you show a screen shot more zoomed in (of maybe two towns)?

 

One "via point: would be enough for me. Do you know if the lower end Nuvi's offer that? (Nuvi 200)

 

CCM

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<Also between the TomTom and the Nuvi, do either of them have a "stopover" feature in which you can add destinations in between your final destination?>

 

With TomTom you make itinaries to control your waypoints. There are 2 problems with that:

1- When you pass a waypoint it won't tell you. You have to make all of them as Destinations then navigate to one by one.

2- If you miss a waypoint, it will nag you until you return and pass by that.

If you buy a model with Text-to-Speech you can arrange it to pronounce 'Cache in xxx yards ...' when you are nearing a cache, unless you know how to make an OGG file.

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Maybe somebody can help me. I'm trying to export from GSAK about 650 waypoints into my nuvi350 as custom POI's but every time I do it I can only see 50 entries. I'm using GSAK to export and I'm loading everything onto a 2G SD card. Can somebody point me in the right direction or refer me to another post???

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Are you sure they aren't there? The nuvi will show the 50 closest locations to your current position. Try searching for one by name that is further away and see if it's there.

 

Is there a way to see them all as you drive around or to look at an overall zoomed out map to see where you want to go caching?

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OK I got it. How do you check a route at home where the start and end is different than you currrent position. For example, if I search for Joe's address, I click on Show Map. The map has an arrow to Joe's house, but how do you make this place the Start of a route for pre-checking? When you click Back the map showing your current position shows.

Edited by Alan2
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Easiest way (that I know of) is if you use GSAK to send the desired caches from GSAK to the GPS.

 

In GSAK click on "GPS" then "Send Waypoints"

At the bottom of the popup click on "GPSr Setup"

Select "Garmin"

I don't remember if the 530 uses a USB cable or not, if it does make sure to click the USB spot

"send"

 

This will put the caches in your Favorites file and they will show as treasure chests.

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That is what I have been doing - all I get is an orange flag indicating approach and then a winner flag when I have arrived. No treasure box and only the geocache as a flag for the one I am driving towards. No geocaches close by are indicated. I have uploaded the group as a POI and still no boxes. Just the choice of choosing to drive to the closest. I appreciate the answers. Even the techs at garmin were at a loss with my request.

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How many are you trying to send at a time? I see it has a max of 500 waypoints plus the POIs (haven't seen yet max POIs). Are you loading into internal memory or onto a SD card? If you load them as POIs then check your proximity zoom levels to be able to see them. Also try sending them as favorites from mapsource to the GPS. You may want to start by clearning out all the favorites and POIs already loaded before trying it again.

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I'm not sure this works on the StreetPilot series. I had a c330 and it wouldn't display treasure chest. I think this only works on nuvi's but I never had a c530 and I don't recall ever sending waypoints from MapSource to the c330. I think sending the waypoints from MapSource is your best choice at trying to display treasure chest. Here’s the simplified instructions:

 

1) Download a Pocket Querie (PQ)

2) Open the PQ with GSAK

3) Export the PQ as a .GPX file choosing the codes for the information you want to send (GSAK is another subject).

4) Load the .GPX file into MapSource

5) Upload the waypoints from Mapsource to your c530

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We have had the Garmin nuvi 350 for about a couple of months now and we love it. You can put in the coordinates for the caches and we have not had any problems with it. I usually input the coordinates manually because we generally don't get too many new caches in the immediate area very often. When we decide to go cache we just look to see what the closest ones are and use the driving mode to get to the area and then change it to pedestrian mode for walking. It's great.

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You can choose Off Road mode but it still only counts down to 30’ then it turns into a checkered flag. But, if you keep going and stop in about 30’, you can do “Go To” again and it will tell you how many feet you are away. That is until you move. Then you get the flag again. Here’s something Garmin didn’t tell you. When you are viewing the first screen (Where to, View Map, etc.) touch the satellite signal bars in the upper left corner. Pretty cool huh?

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That is neat. I haven't tried it as I'm going to sleep. But, I hopethe feet in the upper right corner is the distance to waypoint and you should be able to navigate using the coordinates displayed. Not as easy as an arrow, but it should work nice. Thnaks for the hint. I wonder what other hidden goodies Garmin isn't telling us about.

 

They really should have a page giving the arrow and distance like Mapopolis and other programs.

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ok I tried using it in the woods. Switch to Pedestrian mode and Route Preference - Off Road. DOes what you said and I get to the cache. The feet on the upper right is the altitude. Too bad they don't give an arrow and distance.

 

Have they issued any hardware or software or firmware updates you can download since they came out with the Nuvi's?

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