Leaving Tracks On Magellan Gold

[larrydam]

On my Sportrak Pro with mapsend streets and destinations it was able to leave a bread crumb trail. after losing my gps i got the mag. gold with DirectRoute and can't figure out how to get that bread crumb trail back. All I get is straight line tracks.

 

thanks for any help this way.

[robertlipe]

The firmware required by DirectRoute stupidly turns off the display of track logs every time you enter a street route and, I think, every time it displays a turn while that street route is active. (It does this at the same time it stupidly resets your map to "track up", stupidly resets map detail to "medium", stupidly resets backlight to "on", and stupidly resets your arrival alarm.)[1]

 

You can go into option->map display and turn it back on, but the firmware will just turn it back off the next time you use a street route.

 

[1] Ask me how I _really_ feel about this. But only if you're a firmware engineer at Thales/Magellan...

[Texasbagman]

OK, well at least I know my MeriGold is not screwed up. It was doing all that as described above when I run a street route. I thought I screwed up something.

 

I kind of like the "Track Up", but does the "medium" setting cut anything out of the detail?

[+embra]

I kind of like the "Track Up", but does the "medium" setting cut anything out of the detail?

In most cases, yes. Look at the display with Medium detail and look at it with High or Highest, and you will probably see a difference. This is not always bad; sometimes there can be too much detail on the display.

[larrydam]

I've gone to menu, "map setup" and then "Detail" = highest, "track mode" = auto (also 2 mi., and auto detailed) and i still get straight lines that go back to the point of starting. it doesn't keep track of where i go.

[+embra]

The map detail setting only affects the map display; it has no effect on the track data or track display.

 

The track setting does affect how the track data is recorded, and it is explained in the manual. I'm not quite sure what you are trying to describe in saying that you get straight lines going back to the starting point, but I think you are referring to Magellans' practice of presuming that you only have one track going at a time, and they will therefore connect any segments of a track together into a single track.

 

On Garmins, for example, suppose you track from point A to point B, then either turn off tracking or turn off the GPS until you get to point C, then reactivate tracking until you reach D. Garmins will show two separate track segments: from A to B and C to D.

 

Magellans do it differently. You would have a one continuous track: the A to B segment, then a straight line from B to C, and the C to D segment. The Magellan would assume that your travel between B and C is supposed to be a part of your track record, and makes its best guess (a straight line) to provide a continuous track.

 

If I misunderstood your problem and haven't accounted for what you're seeing, run it through me again. Straight lines from the starting point to where?

Edited August 24, 2004 by embra

[larrydam]

ok i think i found my problem. i just finished upgrading the firmware from 5.09 to 5.35 and now it seems to be leaving the tracks like i'm used to seeing.

 

thanks for the info on tracks.

Edited August 24, 2004 by larrydam

[+embra]

One warning on the 5.35--a bug in that version will delete your track whenever you create an autoroute. Some people don't mind this, but it annoys the heck out of some of us. An alternative that I have taken is to go back to the 5.12 version (available in the files section at the Yahoo Meridian Users group).

 

5.09 was not a version that Magellan ever posted on their web site...it sounds like it was a transitional firmware release that came installed on some new units, like you found. Glad to hear you resolved your immediate problem.

[+DavisFamily]

The other day we attempted a creative cache where there were 31 different compass headings we had to walk at the prescribed # of paces for each. When we finished, we were supposed to be able to view numbers that we had paced off and would then enter those #'s into the coords. This would have given us the final cache location. Unfortunately, we couldn't view anything when we finished. We weren't certain if this was due to not being able to zoom in any further. Although heading read the above thread, it seems like this is the way Magellans track?

 

Any help? Thanks!

[+embra]

Have you ever seen the "breadcrumb" track display on the map screen?

 

Two things have to be in place: tracking has to be turned on, and the track display has to be turned on. From the map screen:

 

Menu/map setup/[Format]/track mode: auto detailed (preferred for hiking)

Menu/map setup/[Display]/Track lines toggle on (checked)

 

I think that by default track lines are not displayed. It's also possible that if you are using DirectRoute that creating an autoroute may turn off tracking even if you have turned it on (I can't remember all the settings that DR hijacks).

[+DavisFamily]

Have you ever seen the "breadcrumb" track display on the map screen?

 

Two things have to be in place: tracking has to be turned on, and the track display has to be turned on. From the map screen:

 

Menu/map setup/[Format]/track mode: auto detailed (preferred for hiking)

Menu/map setup/[Display]/Track lines toggle on (checked)

 

I think that by default track lines are not displayed. It's also possible that if you are using DirectRoute that creating an autoroute may turn off tracking even if you have turned it on (I can't remember all the settings that DR hijacks).

Sorry, I don't think I was clear enough. We could see our track but apparently not zoomed in enough to read anything. It also looked like it had merged our wanderings into one large track.

 

After reading the logs the other day, I checked the track settings and did change one thing but it didn't make a difference for the track markings from that cache.

 

We really like our MeriGold. For every other cache, it's been right on and easy enough to follow the tracks on the way out. But apparently, it's not the best for this kind of a cache.

 

Thanks for the help!