Oregon 550 Track

[+Evshro & son]

I searched a little but did not find much on the topic. I checked here and the Garmin Wiki. Anyway, I was hiking quite a bit yesterday with my Oregon 550 and wanted to check the track log. I went to track manager--current track--view map to see the distance we had gone. It said something like .70 when I knew we had gone at least two, and it never seemed to be accurate.

 

Today I took a very short path to a cache and noticed when viewing the track on the way back to the car that the distance on the "view map" page was decreasing. I did not hit track back. I will confess to being new to using the track features, but I would think that the distance should be all that we walked since the track was started---even if we walked part of the track twice. I am just trying to figure out what is happening. By the way, I did clear the current track before beginning the hike. Thanks to anyone that can shed some light on this for me.

[+Red90]

Make sure "lock on road" is turned OFF.

 

You do not need to clear the track. It holds a lot of track data.

[+g-o-cashers]

When you select View Map the bubble at the top of the map page which says "Current Track" displays a distance. That distance is not the length of the track it is the distance to the track from your current position (the other number your bearing to the track). This is consistent with how these numbers are displayed for waypoints, POIs, photos, etc but I too find it very confusing especially for something like a track or a route which is not a point. The unit seems to use an average of the trackpoints to compute the distance and bearing.

 

If you want to see the distance of the current track tap the bubble and you'll get the length and area.

[+Evshro & son]

When you select View Map the bubble at the top of the map page which says "Current Track" displays a distance. That distance is not the length of the track it is the distance to the track from your current position (the other number your bearing to the track). This is consistent with how these numbers are displayed for waypoints, POIs, photos, etc but I too find it very confusing especially for something like a track or a route which is not a point. The unit seems to use an average of the trackpoints to compute the distance and bearing.

 

If you want to see the distance of the current track tap the bubble and you'll get the length and area.

 

Thanks! I knew you'd have some valuable input here. So, just to be sure I got this, when I vew the track on the map the distance given is not the total. To get the total, click the bubble I am viewing that is above the map. (Does that make sense?)

 

Thanks!

[+g-o-cashers]

If you select a track from one of the various lists you'll first come to a map preview window with a status bar (aka bubble) at the top. The distance visible on the lower left side of the status bar is the distance from your location to the averaged center of the track. It has nothing to do with the length of the track. However if you tap the status bar you'll come to an information page that has the name of the track, the length of the track and the area of the track.

[+Evshro & son]

If you select a track from one of the various lists you'll first come to a map preview window with a status bar (aka bubble) at the top. The distance visible on the lower left side of the status bar is the distance from your location to the averaged center of the track. It has nothing to do with the length of the track. However if you tap the status bar you'll come to an information page that has the name of the track, the length of the track and the area of the track.

 

Thanks. I am not sure how you figured that out (maybe I sould have read the...uh...manual), but that makes sense to me now.