Garmin 396LM

PS Anyone coming to this thread, which started as a semi-rant but has slowly changed into something else, can see that sharing a route file with the problem route on it, makes life much simpler when bods try to help.

er-minio tried to help us by showing screen shots. These were helpful as we could then see what the specific problem looked like. By sharing the actual route files, we could then see (or at least try to see) what the problem might be. As it turned out, we couldn't replicate the problem but at least we could find out if the route should work properly, which it did. That at leat removed one possible variable, that it was a corrupt route. That being the case, that left only a couple of other most likely other causes:

1. Operator error; it happens to the best of us, trust me

2. Some error being introduced in the owner’s own GPS. This is difficult to pinpoint and might (or might not) involve point 1, too.


That it also brought up some discussion on waypoints, their possible use and function, was also a bikermate bonus.

Wapping, thanks a lot for the waypoint explanation. It now all makes more sense to me. I was a bit puzzled by the differences between shaping routes and waypoints, and the way the route was calculated if you, say, loaded it mid-way.
This helps greatly.

The way it was explained to me was only that waypoints were selectable when starting a route and shaping points not.
Btw, if you add text notes to waypoints in BC, those are lost when the waypoint is uploaded to the unit.

People moan about BaseCamp but it really is a very powerful piece of software, just as their GPS devices are now very powerful

Click to expand...

It is. And I still prefer to use dedicated GPS units rather than using mobile phones because of the higher level of customisation you can achieve.
Obviously this comes with a steeper learning curve (Basecamp).

It has to be said that, while after learning Basecamp, one starts appreciating it, still most Garmin software (if not all) is excruciatingly badly done and buggy.
I take into account that Garmin is a massive corporate with several divisions and teams and people working on these products don't have an easy life... but still... I'd expect better.

Search function is near-useless.
When creating a route with the tool, you can press spacebar to switch to the hand (pan) tool to move around before placing another point. This is standard behaviour on computers since 1984. Good.
But while creating a route, after a while the spacebar stops working and forces you to reselect the route from the sidebar – this changes the zoom factor – re-zoom again and place the map where you want, add the extra points, reach the border of the screen/map, reselect the route, etc. etc.
It gets very annoying.
For me, solution is to restart Basecamp when this happens.

I have a Garmin Edge 25, for cycling. Does 3 things and does them well. I love it.
It has a breadcrumb navigation feature built into it. It works wonders... till you have to create and upload a track as they force you to use their GarminConnect website that is another stinking pile of crap
But, again, I digress...


Going back to Basecamp, a little simple tip.
I use two different computers: a desktop mac at home and a macbook pro at work/for work and bring that around with me almost everywhere. I use them both regularly and always try to keep most work/personal data synced on both.

I moved my Basecamp library on Dropbox to keep all my routes/data synchronised on both computers. It works well, the only thing one should avoid at all costs is to open Basecamp in both computers at the same time.
Did it once, lost the last few days of routes I created, but rolled back Dropbox a few hours and problem solved.
I think, at least on mac, you can sync the map files too (using symlinks - alias folders). I'm trying this now (I have other types of maps installed on BC) will write here if it works or if creates a massive meltdown

Note: all those issues with those routes we discussed before happened before I started using Dropbox to sync the libraries and maps, so that is ruled out already

All good stuff.

As the problem is resolved and we’ve dealt with waypoints, I’ll close the thread down.

Until the next time.

Richard