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GPSMAP Proximity Alerts/Alarms


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I have tones turned on and get proximity alerts as per my settings when navigating to a specific cache.  I have a 66st but I saw an old thread elsewhere where someone with a 64 say they had their unit set so that it alerted when they got within a certain distance of any geocache. The thread was really about something else and that person did not elaborate and was not questioned on how they did that.  Is it really possible?   I can not find a way to alarm when I just happen to get near any geocache, not just a specific, single one I may be navigating to. 

 

The main reason it would be nice if I could do this is because sometimes when I am navigating to a specific cache on a trail with lots of turns and switchbacks, I will unknowingly hike right by another cache and not notice until I happen to look at the map.  Often I am then a ways past that cache and, especially if hiking with others, can not backtrack to look for it. 

Edited by Cheminer Will
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Thanks - That is what I was thinking as I searched through all the proximity and alarm settings and they all seemed to be for targeting a specific cache, waypoint, POI, not a category.  Oh well, it would be a nice feature and I just wanted to be sure I was not missing it.

Edited by Cheminer Will
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1 hour ago, Cheminer Will said:

Thanks - That is what I was thinking as I searched through all the proximity and alarm settings and they all seemed to be for targeting a specific cache, waypoint, POI, not a category.  Oh well, it would be a nice feature and I just wanted to be sure I was not missing it.

 

I recently cam across something while doing some other research where I am pretty sure someone was exporting geocaches to a Garmin GPSr that included proximity alarms for each cache, but I am unsure how it was achieved. Possibly with duplicate POI's, I do not remember. If I can find it again, I will share it here!

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35 minutes ago, Atlas Cached said:

 

I recently cam across something while doing some other research where I am pretty sure someone was exporting geocaches to a Garmin GPSr that included proximity alarms for each cache, but I am unsure how it was achieved. Possibly with duplicate POI's, I do not remember. If I can find it again, I will share it here!

 

If you do find that it is possible and being done somehow that would be great!

 


Edit:  I just did another search using how you described it and found the following short thread.  From 11 years ago but maybe what you saw.  Seems like it would still be doable.  I used to use a POI loader with GSAK but have not for years.  And I think it was a GSAK macro not something from Garmin.  

 

 

Edited by Cheminer Will
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21 minutes ago, Cheminer Will said:

 

If you do find that it is possible and being done somehow that would be great!

 

It is in the GSAK 'Garmin Export Macro', under 'Include Attribute POI's' - titled 'Proximity' with a check box, and a distance in meters.

 

There are three settings for custom MFilters below, so I assume there must be some way to make that macro create 'proximity POI' for all geocaches in the export..... But you will need to get more information from a GSAK Master, which I am not.

 

Read number 11 here....

 

If you go this route (sounds like this option creates a proximity alarm for every geocache exported), you will likely want to use a blank (invisible) custom icon for the proximity alarms, which would just need to be an 8-bit Proximity.bmp image with all pixels colored magenta (255,000,255).

I will work on getting that icon included with the other custom waypoint symbols at GPSrChive.com > GPSMAP 66 > Uber User > Custom Symbols > Waypoint Symbol Sources > GPSrChive Custom Symbol Repository.

 

8^)

Edited by Atlas Cached
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12 minutes ago, Atlas Cached said:

 

It is in the GSAK 'Garmin Export Macro', under 'Include Attribute POI's' - titled 'Proximity' with a check box, and a distance in meters.

 

There are three settings for custom MFilters below, so I assume there must be some way to make that macro create 'proximity POI' for all geocaches in the export..... But you will need to get more information from a GSAK Master, which I am not.

 

8^)

 

Yes, I see it there.  It does seem like if you check that box, the proximity alarms will be for all of the POI attributes but probably not for the caches themselves.  So that might be the tricky part.  Perhaps will have to do something like load the caches normally, then load a second GSAK file where all of the caches have somehow been made into POIs in a way that the proximity alarm will set to each cache.  That old thread does seem to describe doing just that.  Tomorrow I will have some time to experiment.

Edited by Cheminer Will
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1 minute ago, Cheminer Will said:

 

Yes, I see it there.  It does seem like if you check that box, the proximity alarms will be for all of the POI attributes but probably not for the caches themselves.  So that might be the tricky part.  Perhaps will have to do something like load the caches normally, then load a second GSAK file where all of the caches have somehow been made into POIs in a way that the proximity alarm will set to each cache.

 

Edited my previous post, try a small group, all POI off, but keep Proximity checked, I think it will always work regardless for all geocaches in the export.

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As an addendum, for regular waypoints, a proximity tag can be added to the GPX file. Basecamp can do this, but cannot for geocaches. I'll have to play around to see if this proximity tag can be added to a geocache file without having to go through waypoints or POIs, though my gut says it won't work because GSAK would already attach such a tag directly if it could be done.

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8 hours ago, Atlas Cached said:

I will work on getting that icon included with the other custom waypoint symbols

Custom Waypoint Symbols are used for waypoints. Hence, the name. Poi symbols are integrated during their creation (either by Poi Loader or GSAK).

 

Hans

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3 hours ago, HHL said:

Custom Waypoint Symbols are used for waypoints. Hence, the name. Poi symbols are integrated during their creation (either by Poi Loader or GSAK).

 

Hans

 

Yah.

 

And Waypoint symbols are 24 bit while POI symbols are 8 bit.

 

Sounds like you've been reading GPSrChive.com - That same information is available there!

Edited by Atlas Cached
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11 hours ago, Mineral2 said:

As an addendum, for regular waypoints, a proximity tag can be added to the GPX file. Basecamp can do this, but cannot for geocaches. I'll have to play around to see if this proximity tag can be added to a geocache file without having to go through waypoints or POIs, though my gut says it won't work because GSAK would already attach such a tag directly if it could be done.

 

Interesting. 

 

Waypoints and Geocaches are both xml files, using similar markup, but I have never looked to see what tags were added when proximity alerts were added to waypoint gpx files. Might be fun to experiment with a geocache gpx file and see if including the same code works....

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20 hours ago, Atlas Cached said:

 

I recently cam across something while doing some other research where I am pretty sure someone was exporting geocaches to a Garmin GPSr that included proximity alarms for each cache, but I am unsure how it was achieved. Possibly with duplicate POI's, I do not remember. If I can find it again, I will share it here!

You can use the Garmin POI Loader to upload cache .gpx files with a specified proximity alert distance. I used to do this a while ago.  See if this old topic may help. POI Tricks

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4 minutes ago, Atlas Cached said:

 

That works so long as you do not mind having all geocaches listed as POI, and do not want to use any of the Geocaching features of your GPSr....

 

Yes, for me what I would want is to keep all of the caches and features of my 66 but also be able to have a proximity alerts for any cache I get close to.  When hiking, I often get distracted by views, our dogs, binoculars, companions on the hike etc. and forget I may be walking right by a geocache or two along the way.

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6 minutes ago, Cheminer Will said:

 

Yes, for me what I would want is to keep all of the caches and features of my 66 but also be able to have a proximity alerts for any cache I get close to.  When hiking, I often get distracted by views, our dogs, binoculars, companions on the hike etc. and forget I may be walking right by a geocache or two along the way.

 

Happens to me all the time!

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16 hours ago, Atlas Cached said:

 

That works so long as you do not mind having all geocaches listed as POI, and do not want to use any of the Geocaching features of your GPSr....

Yes, but I would have BOTH the hundreds/thousands of caches and the POI file of same loaded. That way I get the alert at the specified distance I chose with the cache POIs, and have the full cache info and functionality from the .gpx file.

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27 minutes ago, Timpat said:

Yes, but I would have BOTH the hundreds/thousands of caches and the POI file of same loaded. That way I get the alert at the specified distance I chose with the cache POIs, and have the full cache info and functionality from the .gpx file.

Yes, that would work!

 

One would have to be mindful they are removing all old data and replacing with fresh data each time they update the geocaches on the device, or they may end up with a proximity alarm with no corresponding geocache, or possibly missing a new geocache without a proximity alarm.

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10 hours ago, Atlas Cached said:

Yes, that would work!

 

One would have to be mindful they are removing all old data and replacing with fresh data each time they update the geocaches on the device, or they may end up with a proximity alarm with no corresponding geocache, or possibly missing a new geocache without a proximity alarm.

 

If you use the GarminExport macro, it does everything for you.  Overwrites old data, makes data as GGZ, GPX and/or POI, proximity alerts and much, much more....

 

https://gsak.net/board/index.php?showtopic=15866&st=0

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3 hours ago, Red90 said:

 

If you use the GarminExport macro, it does everything for you.  Overwrites old data, makes data as GGZ, GPX and/or POI, proximity alerts and much, much more....

 

https://gsak.net/board/index.php?showtopic=15866&st=0

 

I thought I did this yesterday afternoon but today when I purposely approached a cache just down the street that was part of the group loaded, I got no alert.  I will have to try again, carefully thinking about the steps to see where I went wrong.

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4 hours ago, Red90 said:

 

If you use the GarminExport macro, it does everything for you.  Overwrites old data, makes data as GGZ, GPX and/or POI, proximity alerts and much, much more....

 

https://gsak.net/board/index.php?showtopic=15866&st=0

 

Almost everything....

 

Will overwrite/refresh poi that already exist, but will not remove poi for geocaches that are no longer part of any gpx/ggz.

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After some fiddling around today, I am unable to make any Proximity POI work on several of my Garmin GPSr.

 

Manually creating a proximity alarm for a specific geocache on my Garmin GPSr works exactly as designed, but is tedious when doing so for more than just a few caches.

 

Examining the GPX file for the proximity alarmed geocache showed no change, so the alarm information must be stored solely in the GPSr internal memory.

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59 minutes ago, Atlas Cached said:

After some fiddling around today, I am unable to make any Proximity POI work on several of my Garmin GPSr.

It's pretty easy. I've created a standard CSV file for Poi Loader.

Poi Loader settings (set Express Mode to manual):

c7535938de97d39abc0e57008ffa163a.png

 

9b0c6e671b2d04229eea5b17afcbc542.png

 

The small black spots are the proximity pois. The alarm was set to 100 mtrs.

 

Result:

 

Prox_settings.png?raw=1

Prox_before.png?raw=1Prox_Alarm.png?raw=1

 

b0292dc34e9d7b699e54a5142966c226.png

 

Happy Learning

Hans

 

Edited by HHL
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36 minutes ago, Atlas Cached said:

I will do more testing without the use of GSAK and report my findings!

Yes. Unfortunately GSAK uses a very outdating version (1.4.3) of GPSBabel.  AFAIK, GSAK uses GPSBabel "under the hood" to create GPI files. The latest fix on proximity GPI files was with version 1.5.3.

 

Hans

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3 hours ago, Atlas Cached said:

I was using the POI Proximity feature found in the GSAK Garmin Export Macro, but I did not try with POI loader only.

 

GSAK did generate Proximity.gpi files, but they did not function, that is to say, my GPSr did not alert/alarm.

 

 

Thanks this was exactly my experience also so I will stop trying to get it to work that way.  I just downloaded the latest version of Garmin POI Loader, (2013).  The settings and use of that look pretty straight forward.  I wonder about the quote below and what is easiest?  Will it work if I don't use the Garmin Export macro but I create a CSV file of the geocaches in a GSAK filter by using the GSAK "File>Export>CSV" is that best?  Or the "File>Export>Garmin POI..." tool?

 

4 hours ago, HHL said:

It's pretty easy. I've created a standard CSV file for Poi Loader

 

 

Prox POI.PNG

 

 

Prox 2.PNG

Edited by Cheminer Will
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11 hours ago, Cheminer Will said:

 

Thanks this was exactly my experience also so I will stop trying to get it to work that way.  I just downloaded the latest version of Garmin POI Loader, (2013).  The settings and use of that look pretty straight forward.  I wonder about the quote below and what is easiest?  Will it work if I don't use the Garmin Export macro but I create a CSV file of the geocaches in a GSAK filter by using the GSAK "File>Export>CSV" is that best?  Or the "File>Export>Garmin POI..." tool?

 

 

 

I believe the POI Loader will also accept GPX files.....

 

see GPSrChive > GPSMAP 66 > Function > POI

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On 2/21/2019 at 4:00 PM, HHL said:

Yes. Unfortunately GSAK uses a very outdating version (1.4.3) of GPSBabel.  AFAIK, GSAK uses GPSBabel "under the hood" to create GPI files. The latest fix on proximity GPI files was with version 1.5.3.

 

Hans

GPSBabel 1.4.3 was 2012. I'm admittedly overdue in getting out a successor to 1.5.3. The changes are so pervasive that we've changed the language it's written in, so anything in 1.4.3 is long forgotten. https://www.gpsbabel.org/changes.html shows proximity in garmin_gpi getting some improvements in 2015 for "large numbers" of proximity alarms and in 2014 we started parsing speed units.

You can tease a fuller history out of https://github.com/gpsbabel/gpsbabel/commits/master/garmin_gpi.cc but that's only the writing side; gpx and csv reader are in different files that you can get to in ways that are somewhat self-evident. 

We can read tons of csv and gpx variations and understand we're at or beyond feature parity with POI loader, but I'll admit to having never used it. The prox alarms are a relatively obscure feature and have been reverse engineered out of the file formats. Buzz me if there is something we're getting wrong. (In current code, not a 2012 version...)

 

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I found some old posts here and on the GSAK forums where someone had this issue, but no solutions were there. One person said their problem was caused by using non-default directories when installing GSAK. My installation of GSAK is default, I have not changed anything.  Besides, I don't think this is a GSAK problem as all I am doing with that is exporting the .csv file.

 

What is happening is that after exporting a GSAK filter to a .csv file I can not load that file to my 66st using Garmin's POI loader. It says the file is invalid and I can see that there is a forward slash before the name of the .csv file as shown below.  But I did not put that forward slash there.  I just point the POI loader to the folder with the exported GSAK .csv file and that is what the Garmin POI loader does. I can find no way to edit the path, all the POI loader allows is to browse to the folder where the .csv file is or to type the path to the folder in manually. Either way produces the same error.


This is where the file is -->  C:\Users\...\Geocaching\CSV POI Files\Test.csv

This is the error message  -->  The file: C:Users\...\Geocaching\CSV POI Files/Test.csv is invalid

 

How can I get around this?  Thanks.

 

edit:  I just did it all again from scratch including reinstalling POI Loader.  I also followed HHL's screenshots above using the same folders and file names.  It still puts in the forward slash that makes the path invalid.  Try as I might, I can not figure out why it is doing that or where/how to fix it.  Frustrating!  Wish this stuff came as intuitively to me as it seems to for some of you. 
 

Edited by Cheminer Will
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2 hours ago, Cheminer Will said:

I found some old posts here and on the GSAK forums where someone had this issue, but no solutions were there. One person said their problem was caused by using non-default directories when installing GSAK. My installation of GSAK is default, I have not changed anything.  Besides, I don't think this is a GSAK problem as all I am doing with that is exporting the .csv file.

 

What is happening is that after exporting a GSAK filter to a .csv file I can not load that file to my 66st using Garmin's POI loader. It says the file is invalid and I can see that there is a forward slash before the name of the .csv file as shown below.  But I did not put that forward slash there.  I just point the POI loader to the folder with the exported GSAK .csv file and that is what the Garmin POI loader does. I can find no way to edit the path, all the POI loader allows is to browse to the folder where the .csv file is or to type the path to the folder in manually. Either way produces the same error.


This is where the file is -->  C:\Users\...\Geocaching\CSV POI Files\Test.csv

This is the error message  -->  The file: C:Users\...\Geocaching\CSV POI Files/Test.csv is invalid

 

How can I get around this?  Thanks.

 

edit:  I just did it all again from scratch including reinstalling POI Loader.  I also followed HHL's screenshots above using the same folders and file names.  It still puts in the forward slash that makes the path invalid.  Try as I might, I can not figure out why it is doing that or where/how to fix it.  Frustrating!  Wish this stuff came as intuitively to me as it seems to for some of you. 
 

 

I have some good news and some bad news for you....

 

First, the good news: I did exactly as you are, and had the same issue with the CSV files (which I never liked to use anyway), so I did it my way, and used the GPX file GSAK exported to my GPSr in place of the Crappy Separated Value file. This worked splendidly, and I ended up with the GPX file and corresponding GPI file with proximity alerts enabled on my GPSMAP 66.

 

Now the bad news: They still did not alert on my GPSMAP 66, even though, when I viewed the POI files individually on the GPSr, they showed they were within the specified alert distance! Worse yet, I copied the POI and GPX to other Garmin GPSr, and they also failed to alert, even though they too showed the POI was within the specified alert distance on those devices!

 

So, is it a POI Loader Issue (I am running v2.7.3.0)? I don't think so because the POI files all show the proper warning distance as sent, yet the GPSr fails to act!

 

Or, do I have the horrible misfortune that every GPSr I have tried thus far just happens to have a firmware bug that prevents this feature/function from operating as designed?

 

I'll have to dust off a few more units and get them up and running to find out.....

 

 

POI Loader Settings.png

 

  155.png  226.png

 

1244.png  1250.png

Edited by Atlas Cached
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Ha! :o  The good news I guess is that at least this time, since you have the same issue, maybe a problem I am having with the technology does not seem to be related to my ineptness!

 

But yes the bad news is that although it seems like it should be straightforward, we still don't have it working.  Maybe HHL/Hans will come back and set us straight.

Edited by Cheminer Will
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10 hours ago, Cheminer Will said:

How can I get around this?  Thanks.

Make the CSV's content valid. Exporting CSVs for Poi Loader must have Lon,Lat,Code,Waypoint Name, only.

That said: Create a View in GSAK just containing these columns.

 

3213869ed3884a9cb21c251ee63391eb.png

 

Select that view and then export the CSV file.

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5 hours ago, HHL said:

Make the CSV's content valid. Exporting CSVs for Poi Loader must have Lon,Lat,Code,Waypoint Name, only.

That said: Create a View in GSAK just containing these columns.

 

3213869ed3884a9cb21c251ee63391eb.png

 

Select that view and then export the CSV file.

 

This clears up the CSV issue, but the resulting POI.GPI still does not alert 8^(

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There's a GSAK macro that lets you build POI files for the Garmin Nuvi units.

 

I've taken one of the files I built using it and have used it on my Oregon 600.

 

The proximity alarms worked great.

Annoying sound but it did work.

 

I also had the geocaches loaded from a GGZ file, so I could mark as found, etc.

That's where it gets weird because you still have the cache icon on the screen even though you've found it.

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On 2/25/2019 at 9:35 AM, BlackRose67 said:

There's a GSAK macro that lets you build POI files for the Garmin Nuvi units.

 

I've taken one of the files I built using it and have used it on my Oregon 600.

 

The proximity alarms worked great.

Annoying sound but it did work.

 

I also had the geocaches loaded from a GGZ file, so I could mark as found, etc.

That's where it gets weird because you still have the cache icon on the screen even though you've found it.

 

You can edit/choose the sounds you hear for different alarms on the Oregon 6x0, as well as set a Geocache Filter to not show Found geocaches 8^)

 

GPSrChive > Oregon 6x0 > Setup > Tones

 

GPSrChive > Oregon 6x0 > Applications > Geocaching > Geocache Filters > Status

 

 

Edited by Atlas Cached
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9 minutes ago, Atlas Cached said:

as well as set a Geocache Filter to not show Found geocaches 8^)

Right. But, what is meant is this: the Pois still show the found caches (even the filtered out ones) as unfound.

 

Hans

 

NB: cross posted with BlackRose67

Edited by HHL
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Just now, HHL said:

Right. But, what is meant is this: the Pois still show the found caches (even the filtered out ones) as unfound.

 

Hans

 

Oops, reading comprehension failure on my part...

 

Just now, BlackRose67 said:

Guess I didn't write that correctly.

 

Found caches are not displayed.

 

The POI symbol for the just found cache is still shown, since you can't turn off individual entries in the loaded POI file.

 

Can you use a fully transparent POI icon for the GPSr that also have the geocaches loaded as GPX or GGZ files?
 

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10 hours ago, HHL said:

Make the CSV's content valid. Exporting CSVs for Poi Loader must have Lon,Lat,Code,Waypoint Name, only.

That said: Create a View in GSAK just containing these columns.

Select that view and then export the CSV file.

 

So I did that as in the screenshot below and still get the same "invalid" error with the forward slash before the file name?

 

Sorry - Changed the coordinate format to match yours and it worked.  Thanks!

 

 

Capture.PNG

Edited by Cheminer Will
Update
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3 hours ago, Atlas Cached said:

GPSrChive > GPSMAP 66 > Common Issues > Bug 39 posted!

 

I just left this alone for the past few days but I guess the consensus now is that all that can be tried has been done and no go?  The bug report says that the POIs "may" fail to alert. But did anyone ever actually get it to work?  I know Hans said it was easy and listed steps to follow to set it up, but I was not sure from reading his post if he really had it alert in the field.  Or, if he was just detailing the correct steps to take to set it up and in theory get it to work.

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57 minutes ago, Cheminer Will said:

 

I just left this alone for the past few days but I guess the consensus now is that all that can be tried has been done and no go?  The bug report says that the POIs "may" fail to alert. But did anyone ever actually get it to work?  I know Hans said it was easy and listed steps to follow to set it up, but I was not sure from reading his post if he really had it alert in the field.  Or, if he was just detailing the correct steps to take to set it up and in theory get it to work.

 

Now that you mention it, he was getting  alerts on what appears to be a first generation Montana....

 

Well, nuts, no luck with my Montana 650 either... 

 

Or a GPSMAP 62stc, or GPSMAP 64sc.....

 

Edited by Atlas Cached
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15 hours ago, Atlas Cached said:

Well, nuts, no luck with my Montana 650 either... 

 

Or a GPSMAP 62stc, or GPSMAP 64sc.....

 

Well since it Hans confirmed it worked with a load of POIs for him but not for us on our GPS MAP 66 units or your numerous other models, makes me think we are doing something slightly different that Hans.  Do you think it is possible the problem is that, not the model of GPSr?  If it was just me trying to make it work, I would be more sure of user error in the process.  But with you also trying, and with all the different models you have used to test, I am puzzled as to why only Hans is successful.

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