Loading maps on your Garmin 650

Your new Garmin Oregon 600/650 comes pre-loaded with some basic maps which contain major highways and waterways but not much else.
The preferred method for getting topographic maps and turn by turn directions is obviously to purchase Topos and City Navigator maps from Garmin.  They are kinda pricey though so for those of you looking for a less expensive alternative, here's how you do it:

Pre-Req:  Garmin's Base Camp must be installed

In your browser, navigate to GPS File Depot.  Select your state if you want to narrow the results down.
Regardless of what else you select for maps, get this one first My Trails-High Quality Trail and POI Maps.  I do not know whether this is still the case but I tried installing these maps before without first installing this one and it was nothing but trouble.  Install this one before the rest and you should be good to go.

Living in New Hampshire, I usually also go for Northeast Topo United States Part 1 of 3 and New Hampshire Wildernesses.  Depending on your location you may also find maps of snowmobile, hiking, horseback riding, or off-roading trails as well.

Next - if you would like to add turn by turn directions (text and beeps only, the Oregon 6xx does not yet do voice guidance), visit OpenStreetMap.  Select "Generic Routable (testing new style)" then check in the box for Enable manual tile selection.  Select your tiles by eithr click in squares or by dragging to select multiple areas at once.  Enter your email address and click Build My Map.
Once it's been compiled, you will be notified and will have to download the appropriate file.

Once you've downloaded your desired maps, make sure that Basecamp is closed and double click on the My Trails download to begin installation into Base Camp.  Once that has completed, install the rest in any order.

At this point you will want to insert your micro SD memory card into your GPS device if you have one.

We are about to start putting those maps onto your GPS so plug your new Oregon 600/650 into the computer using it's supplied USB plug.

in base camp, right click on your internal drive
install maps
MapInstall will open

next next next etc to install all maps
wait wait wait

Delorme PN-60 Routing Error

For those of you who who have a Delorme PN-60 and utilize the turn by turn directions, you will eventually encounter this error "Recalculate Error An error occurred while recalculating the route. Try again?".  It took me a while to figure out the cause and eventually fix for this but here is how:

Problem:
My PN-60 with TOPO9 installed will no longer route to anything.  I believe I have the latest firmware installed and it seemed to work fine until I took a different way one day that caused it to reroute a bunch of times.  Since then it has been completely useless in trying to route anywhere.  It has also started rebooting VERY frequently.

Solution:
Go to routes, then hit enter on each route.
From there click on menu then delete route.
Do this for all routes and presto - everything works perfectly.




Here is the official Delorme response to my query though I never tried this fearing it might delete more than it needed to.

***WARNING! This reset will delete the active track and all routes on the device! Back up any of this data you are interested in saving!***

1. Turn the Earthmate PN-Series GPS off.
2. Hold down the PAGE, MENU and Power buttons.
   
3. Once you see the dark blue Warning screen, release the Power button first, and then release the PAGE and MENU buttons.
4. Press ENTER
5. Scroll to Media and press ENTER.
6. Scroll to Internal 1(user data) and press ENTER.
7. Scroll to Format and press ENTER.
8. Scroll to Yes and press ENTER.
9. When ‘Operation successfully completed.’ appears on your screen, press ENTER.
10. Press the QUIT button twice. 
11. Scroll to Reboot and press ENTER.

Once the reboot completes create a sample route in your device to see if the device displays any errors.

What Mad Geniuses!!

So, I've been eyeing the new Garmin Oregon 650 - intensely.

Don't get me wrong, the 600 is ...wow... But geotagging photos from your gps is so very handy. 

So, I got to thinking - is it worth the $80 extra to get the 650 vs. the 600?

Assume that you've answered the question "Will I use it". For me the newer is Yes, absolutely. But is there a better, cheaper way?

To start off, I looked into a geotagging unit for my Cannon camera.  WAY better pictures and my choice of lenses.  They DO have them but they cost about $250 - plus I'd have to lug my big honking camera around everywhere.  Not going to happen.

Next I considered a separate compact camera.  Drastically improved picture quality but once again, I'd be spending a whole lot more money.

iPhone?  Yea, that would work however it's not ideal.  It's got the same photo quality as the Oregon 650 and they are geotagged but it is not waterproof, not rugged, and has a short battery life.  Generally when I'm out in the wilderness I like to keep my phone charged (and protected) as much as I can - just in case.

It was about that time when I stumbled upon some obscure reference related to geotagging the photos from your camera using your track log.  What?  Really?  What, have you got to remember about where you were when you snapped the picture so you can get your apx location from the tracklog?
Not at all!!!  (Mad Genius time)
Your tracklog is your precise lat/long coordinates as saved by your gps - but it is also the exact time when you are at those coordinates.
Your digital camera also time/date stamps all of your photos!

There is now software out there that will take your tracklog and automatically match it up to the time stamp stored in the metadata of your pictures and add in the geotag for your precise location at that time!

How awesome is that???

Garmin Oregon 650