Confused GARMIN Oregon 650 owner

[Clarinetcat]

Hello all!

 

My GARMIN Oregon 650 came in yesterday... I installed my screen protector last night, put batteries in it this morning, fired it up, aaaaaand...

The STATE highway I live on doesn't even show up as a road on the map?!?!?

 

So, I had read somewhere that I may need to install maps on my GPSr. I assume I need to add a more detailed road map? Do I have to purchase through GARMIN's website? Or is there a recommended free update available anywhere?

 

Same thing with outdoor maps, I see on the GARMIN website I can purchase a Northeast USA 24K TOPO map for like, $100. Is there a recommended site for me to get a quality TOPO map?

I found http://www.gpsfiledepot.com/ in this thread, is that a recommended place to get maps?

 

(Don't know if I even really NEED a TOPO map, but I'm disgusted that roads aren't showing up on a brand-new GPSr, seems pretty silly that roads aren't included)

 

Thanks in advance for any information you can provide!

[Pup Patrol]

Hello all!

 

My GARMIN Oregon 650 came in yesterday... I installed my screen protector last night, put batteries in it this morning, fired it up, aaaaaand...

The STATE highway I live on doesn't even show up as a road on the map?!?!?

 

So, I had read somewhere that I may need to install maps on my GPSr. I assume I need to add a more detailed road map? Do I have to purchase through GARMIN's website? Or is there a recommended free update available anywhere?

 

Same thing with outdoor maps, I see on the GARMIN website I can purchase a Northeast USA 24K TOPO map for like, $100. Is there a recommended site for me to get a quality TOPO map?

I found http://www.gpsfiledepot.com/ in this thread, is that a recommended place to get maps?

 

(Don't know if I even really NEED a TOPO map, but I'm disgusted that roads aren't showing up on a brand-new GPSr, seems pretty silly that roads aren't included)

 

Thanks in advance for any information you can provide!

 

Before you jump to any conclusions, or start adding stuff....

 

Did you let the gps sit for quite a while, like an hour, to let it get its bearings?

 

Brand new out-of-the box, or moved a long distance, requires letting the gps sit out and orient itself.

 

Let it sit for at least an hour, and then check it again. Outside, unobstructed view of the clear sky.

 

Our gps's came with "base maps" and those were more than adequate. Definitely had the major highways on them. And that's for Canada.

 

B.

Edited June 20, 2015 by Pup Patrol

[+Viajero Perdido]

What Pup Patrol said. The first satellite fix takes an especially long time, and until then, it may think you're outside Garmin headquarters, or some similarly illogical spot. If you zoom out enough to get oriented (assuming there's a base map being shown), you may see you're not "at home" as you expect.

 

Garmin expects you to buy maps (from them), but lots of people have come up with excellent FREE maps for Garmin units, and I see you've already found one such repository. I've been an avid Garmin user for years (until I switched to a phone, another story), and in all that time I've only bought one map, and not from Garmin. When I travelled to another country, I'd always been able to find something both excellent and free.

 

Have fun.

[+Gitchee-Gummee]

 

...put batteries in it this morning, fired it up, aaaaaand...

The STATE highway I live on doesn't even show up as a road on the map?!?!?

 

So stated.... it can take a seemingly looooong time for the device to find satellites, build an almanac and properly display the correct position.

 

This happens when it is new, moved long distances w/o being turned on and when sitting unused for long periods of time (hopefully, without batteries installed if a very long time).

 

This question comes up with moderate regularity here....

 

Do not attempt to hurry it.

[+GrateBear]

The units only come with a "base map", so any detailed maps have to either be purchased from Garmin, or you can download free maps from these sites:

 

http://www.gpsfiledepot.com

http://www.openstreetmap.org

 

It's rather odd that you can buy a Garmin Nuvi for under $100 that comes with a detailed map and free lifetime updates, but spend hundreds on a handheld GPSr and have to pay for detailed maps and updates.

[+Viajero Perdido]

http://www.openstreetmap.org

Not quite; that link is OSM-for-web-browsers. You want OSM-for-Garmins. (Same data.)

http://garmin.openstreetmap.nl/

[Clarinetcat]

Thanks for the replies folks! I have the 650 sitting outside now, I'll check it in an hour.

[Clarinetcat]

The units only come with a "base map", so any detailed maps have to either be purchased from Garmin, or you can download free maps from these sites:

 

It's rather odd that you can buy a Garmin Nuvi for under $100 that comes with a detailed map and free lifetime updates, but spend hundreds on a handheld GPSr and have to pay for detailed maps and updates.

 

Yah, rather annoying. I assumed that such an expensive GPSr unit would at least come with roads on the map.

Right now as a driving map, it's worthless.

 

Two hours later, I still have only basic, basic major roads showing on my GPSr.

Attempting to obtain some street map info from OpenStreetMap now.

[Pup Patrol]

We've had 3 gps's so far. A blue Legend, a 76, and now a 60csx. None of them top-of-the-line, nothing fancy.

 

We've always just used the base maps the units came with, and have never had a problem. We've been out in some pretty backcountry areas, and have never had a problem finding caches on roads that aren't exactly "roads".

 

Even in our small urban and rural local area, the base maps were just fine, and showed the streets.

 

B.

[+splashy]

Maybe have a look at this site for video's.

Montana and Oregon 600 have about the same functions.

http://www.gpscity.com/garmin-montana-600.html#videos

Edited June 21, 2015 by splashy

[+geodarts]

The base maps are very limited, but the OSM maps mentioned above work well. I prefer the OSM street maps to Garmin's. Since you can load multiple maps on the 650 you can have options for both topo and street maps.

 

The Oregon 6xx Wiki can be a helpful site to learn more about your unit. Just as an aside, the map display (showing a flashing question mark with the location symbol until position is found) or the satellite page will tell you when you have locked into a location - it took me just a few minutes with my Oregon 600 so I am sure you were good to go long before the hour was up.

Edited June 21, 2015 by geodarts

[Clarinetcat]

The base maps are very limited, but the OSM maps mentioned above work well. I prefer the OSM street maps to Garmin's. Since you can load multiple maps on the 650 you can have options for both topo and street maps.

 

I'll most likely look into add-on maps later this week, thanks for the info.

With add-on road maps and TOPO maps, will they overlay? Or can I only have one showing at a time?

Edited June 22, 2015 by Clarinetcat

[+geodarts]

The base maps are very limited, but the OSM maps mentioned above work well. I prefer the OSM street maps to Garmin's. Since you can load multiple maps on the 650 you can have options for both topo and street maps.

 

I'll most likely look into add-on maps later this week, thanks for the info.

With add-on road maps and TOPO maps, will they overlay? Or can I only have one showing at a time?

 

I like to use one or the other but I have heard that there may be some topo overlays at gpsfiledepot - and some maps combine road and topo information. I have been meaning to look at the maps at http://www.freizeitkarte-osm.de/garmin/en/index.html - there are a lot of sources. Just make sure that maps are named differently so one does not overwrite the other. The garmin installers will use the same filename so if you load maps individually you may need to rename them.

 

If you are a new Oregon user, you may also want to look at the advanced features in the map setup and check the zoom levels. My unit was not showing an overview of caches until I changed this. And it was showing too many other waypoints for my tastes. A few adjustments and it is working the way I want it to display these things,

Edited June 22, 2015 by geodarts

[+splashy]

The base maps are very limited, but the OSM maps mentioned above work well. I prefer the OSM street maps to Garmin's. Since you can load multiple maps on the 650 you can have options for both topo and street maps.

 

I'll most likely look into add-on maps later this week, thanks for the info.

With add-on road maps and TOPO maps, will they overlay? Or can I only have one showing at a time?

 

It's important that you know and understand how this Gps is working, you need to invest time on reading and look at the video's, if not it won't work as you expect.

You can set the different maps on and/or off, the best is to make profiles on the Gps with the different maps active for that profile.

Routable maps should be active alone, never more then 1 active. BTW having more than 1 map active is normal unless there is a mapfile that came with that map, most of the time multiple (topo) maps active doesn't look so good.

[+Mineral2]

The base maps are very limited, but the OSM maps mentioned above work well. I prefer the OSM street maps to Garmin's. Since you can load multiple maps on the 650 you can have options for both topo and street maps.

 

I'll most likely look into add-on maps later this week, thanks for the info.

With add-on road maps and TOPO maps, will they overlay? Or can I only have one showing at a time?

 

The answer is Yes and No. They will "overlay" but if the map on top isn't transparent, you won't see the maps underneath. So, it does depend on the draw order on the maps as to which will show up on top. I think topo maps usually draw on top of Open Street Maps, so all you'd see on the screen is the topo map. But, the data for the open street map is still there and being read, so you can route by road even when the non-routable topo map is displaying on top.

 

The good news is, it's super easy to turn maps on and off with the new Oregons, and you can set different maps to display with different profiles.

 

One thing to keep in mind is that address searching doesn't work well with Open Street Map, so if you were hoping to use it exactly as you'd use a Nuvi, you might buy City Navigator (which often draws on top of all other maps) for your device. But if you can live without navigating to specific addresses, then the free OSM is the way to go.

[+on4bam]

One thing to keep in mind is that address searching doesn't work well with Open Street Map, so if you were hoping to use it exactly as you'd use a Nuvi, you might buy City Navigator (which often draws on top of all other maps) for your device. But if you can live without navigating to specific addresses, then the free OSM is the way to go.

 

I can assure you that (at least in Europe) OSM address search is working as expected. I used an OSM map on my windows 6.5 mobile with Garmin XT for years (up until 2 weeks ago.)

Used in Belgium, France, Norway, Denmark, Australia.

Edited June 23, 2015 by on4bam

[+Mineral2]

One thing to keep in mind is that address searching doesn't work well with Open Street Map, so if you were hoping to use it exactly as you'd use a Nuvi, you might buy City Navigator (which often draws on top of all other maps) for your device. But if you can live without navigating to specific addresses, then the free OSM is the way to go.

 

I can assure you that (at least in Europe) OSM address search is working as expected. I used an OSM map on my windows 6.5 mobile with Garmin XT for years (up until 2 weeks ago.)

Used in Belgium, France, Norway, Denmark, Australia.

 

In the US, it does not. The best it can do is bring you to a street, but not a specific property number.

[+geodarts]

One thing to keep in mind is that address searching doesn't work well with Open Street Map, so if you were hoping to use it exactly as you'd use a Nuvi, you might buy City Navigator (which often draws on top of all other maps) for your device. But if you can live without navigating to specific addresses, then the free OSM is the way to go.

 

I can assure you that (at least in Europe) OSM address search is working as expected. I used an OSM map on my windows 6.5 mobile with Garmin XT for years (up until 2 weeks ago.)

Used in Belgium, France, Norway, Denmark, Australia.

 

In the US, it does not. The best it can do is bring you to a street, but not a specific property number.

 

It depends on the map. One of the OSM maps I have on my Oregon will route to a specific address. (Frietzeitkarte U.S. west). The generic routable from openstreetmap.nl routes me to the street in California.

Edited June 24, 2015 by geodarts

[+Viajero Perdido]

Whether or not OSM address lookup works in an area depends on whether anybody's taken the time to enter the address data into OSM, or - more likely - import it from a government database.

 

With 2 million contributors and counting, it's just a matter of time. OSM has become surprisingly useful over time, especially (IMHO) when it comes to trail maps.

 

Count me as one of those contributors. Working on it..