+horsegeeks Posted December 21, 2004 Share Posted December 21, 2004 We own a Garmin 60C, City-Select 6, and use GSAK to organize and download the waypoints to the 60C. My problem is when there is a series of caches, for example the Dalmation series in Nashville, only a few of them are actually transferred to the GPS because of the similarity of the names. I have tried transferring them both by City-Select and from GSAK itself. I've increased the size of the name that is downloaded but to no avail. I have just lived with it up to this point but now would like to solve the problem. Thanks very much for any advice. Quote Link to comment
robertlipe Posted December 21, 2004 Share Posted December 21, 2004 I'm wagering you have GSAK set up incorrectly. %smart and max waypoint length need to match. If you have %smart set to ten and waypoint length set to 8, the last two characters (that keep the repetitively named caches unique) get truncated. Quote Link to comment
+horsegeeks Posted December 21, 2004 Author Share Posted December 21, 2004 I'm wagering you have GSAK set up incorrectly. %smart and max waypoint length need to match. If you have %smart set to ten and waypoint length set to 8, the last two characters (that keep the repetitively named caches unique) get truncated. I have %smart=30 and maximum characters right under it set to 30 also. 30 is way too much I know but I was just experimenting Quote Link to comment
+Marky Posted December 21, 2004 Share Posted December 21, 2004 I'm wagering you have GSAK set up incorrectly. %smart and max waypoint length need to match. If you have %smart set to ten and waypoint length set to 8, the last two characters (that keep the repetitively named caches unique) get truncated. I have %smart=30 and maximum characters right under it set to 30 also. 30 is way too much I know but I was just experimenting You also need to set the length to something that is no longer than what your GPS will support. In this case, I think the GPS is doing the truncation. Count the number of characters your GPS is showing and set both to that length. --Marky Quote Link to comment
+horsegeeks Posted December 21, 2004 Author Share Posted December 21, 2004 Yes it does look like the GPS is truncating it to 10 characters. If that is the case I would suppose it will remain a problem. I can see the cache on GSAK and on Mapsource but not on the GPS. HMMM. Quote Link to comment
robertlipe Posted December 21, 2004 Share Posted December 21, 2004 The correct answer for the 60 is "ten" as that's all they'll hold. You told GSAK to generate names unique to 30 characters so it would have sent names to your unit like "dalmatianseespotrunlitternu10" and "dalmatianseespotrunlitternu11" Your GPS gets these, throws away all but the first ten, sees you that 'obviously' meant to overwrite the first "dalmatians" with the second one you sent it and tosses it. This is a common enough configuration mistake that I've considered making GPSBabel catch this and "fix" the names on the way through. (Of course, then the reported problem will be "why does it screw up the names" instead of "why does it lose some of the waypoints" but somehow that seems better.) Quote Link to comment
+horsegeeks Posted December 21, 2004 Author Share Posted December 21, 2004 That sure would be better. We've missed caches all over because of this.problem and for now I guess we will just have to synchronize our GPS with the printouts or PDA display. Like my kids used to say bummer Quote Link to comment
robertlipe Posted December 21, 2004 Share Posted December 21, 2004 Just set max waypoint length and %smart to accurately reflect the hardware you're using and you'll be fine. No manual synchronization needed. Quote Link to comment
+Sputnik 57 Posted December 21, 2004 Share Posted December 21, 2004 If you set max length to 10 in GSAK, it will provide unique names for the 60C. Quote Link to comment
+horsegeeks Posted December 21, 2004 Author Share Posted December 21, 2004 That did it. I tested it with the Dalmation series and all of them were the same from GSAK to the 60C. Thanks very much for all of your help. Quote Link to comment
+ClydeE Posted December 21, 2004 Share Posted December 21, 2004 Yes, smart name length should always be set to no more that the maximum lenght your GPS will accept. In the case of the 60c the correct syntax would be %smart=10 GSAK will then makes sure it generates unique waypoints 10 characters long and you won't loose any when sending down to your GPSr. Quote Link to comment
+horsegeeks Posted December 21, 2004 Author Share Posted December 21, 2004 That's great Clyde. You'd think if you could provide longer names Garmin could too. You've got a great application that we love to use. Quote Link to comment
+Olar Posted December 22, 2004 Share Posted December 22, 2004 That's great Clyde. You'd think if you could provide longer names Garmin could too. You've got a great application that we love to use. Garmin's GPS V will hold something like 15 or 16 characters for the waypoint name. Wonder why they cut it back to 10 for the newer, more memory, units like the 60c and 76c.???? Olar Quote Link to comment
+NightPilot Posted December 22, 2004 Share Posted December 22, 2004 (edited) More is a relative term. Just because it has more memory dedicated to maps doesn't necessarily mean it has more total memory. I don't know exactly how much total memory either has, because there is just no way I would ever pay that much money for a GPS. But I do know .TANSTAAFL. Edited December 22, 2004 by NightPilot Quote Link to comment
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