Garmin XT tips and tricks

[Borgie]

Got any GMXT tip or trick? Please share it here.

To start... in GMXT, you can send your current location as a text msg to a compatible smartphone/PDA. How?

1. Open GMXT. Go to "Tools"/"Where am i" then save your current location (take note of the name you gave it).
2. Go to "Where to"/"My locations" then look for your saved current location and open. Once opened, you have 3 options available: "Save to contacts","Weather" and "Send location".
3. Select "Send location". Your phonebook's contacts will be opened. Select recipient's contact cell number, select appropriate message text or customize your own.
4. Once you finish typing your message, don't press "send" just yet. If you're sending the msg to a contact whose phone/PDA has GMXT installed, you have the option to attach a map (of your location) by pressing "Options"/"Attach map". You can also select "Request location message?" if you want to know where your contact is.
5. After selecting "Attach map", the 2D map browser will appear showing your location. This will be the same map that will be received. Press "Back" then "Send".
6. Once the msg is received by your recipient, instead of opening the msg like a normal text msg, a prompt to "Launch GarminXT?" appears. If clicked yes, GMXT will launch and the map you sent will show, and the options are to "Go" navigate to that location or view the "Map". The text msg will have the coordinates of your location.
7. If your recipient does not have GMXT installed, the text msg sent contains the coordinates of your location that can be used in other ways, like in Mapsource as a waypoint.

This is a very convenient way of sending locations to other GMXT enabled devices. You can try this out by sending a text msg with location map to your own number.

[zedd]

thanks! this is great!

[travelbug]

waypoints and routes

great tip borgie

maybe you can help me out
i would like to contribute to the community sicnce i am based in laguna and i see very little info on laguna in the base map.
i dont know how to d/l or record waypoints or tracks with mobile xt however.
the only thing i do is record new stuff on my locations but i dont think that is the same as a waypoint.
i also know how to record routes but again thats not the same as recording tracks/streets
maybe you could help me out on how to use my garmin mobile xt to start recording data that i can then use to upload here

cheers

ps i did search the forum many times and have found no data on this

Got any GMXT tip or trick? Please share it here.

To start... in GMXT, you can send your current location as a text msg to a compatible smartphone/PDA. How?

1. Open GMXT. Go to "Tools"/"Where am i" then save your current location (take note of the name you gave it).
2. Go to "Where to"/"My locations" then look for your saved current location and open. Once opened, you have 3 options available: "Save to contacts","Weather" and "Send location".
3. Select "Send location". Your phonebook's contacts will be opened. Select recipient's contact cell number, select appropriate message text or customize your own.
4. Once you finish typing your message, don't press "send" just yet. If you're sending the msg to a contact whose phone/PDA has GMXT installed, you have the option to attach a map (of your location) by pressing "Options"/"Attach map". You can also select "Request location message?" if you want to know where your contact is.
5. After selecting "Attach map", the 2D map browser will appear showing your location. This will be the same map that will be received. Press "Back" then "Send".
6. Once the msg is received by your recipient, instead of opening the msg like a normal text msg, a prompt to "Launch GarminXT?" appears. If clicked yes, GMXT will launch and the map you sent will show, and the options are to "Go" navigate to that location or view the "Map". The text msg will have the coordinates of your location.
7. If your recipient does not have GMXT installed, the text msg sent contains the coordinates of your location that can be used in other ways, like in Mapsource as a waypoint.

This is a very convenient way of sending locations to other GMXT enabled devices. You can try this out by sending a text msg with location map to your own number.

[Borgie]

i would like to contribute to the community sicnce i am based in laguna and i see very little info on laguna in the base map.
i dont know how to d/l or record waypoints or tracks with mobile xt however.
the only thing i do is record new stuff on my locations but i dont think that is the same as a waypoint.
i also know how to record routes but again thats not the same as recording tracks/streets
maybe you could help me out on how to use my garmin mobile xt to start recording data that i can then use to upload here

Hi. I would like to qoute my reply in another thread "There's a GPX sub-folder under the Garmin folder in your MC. Inside that folder is .gpx file named current.gpx and it contains all the waypoints, routes and tracks (yes tracks can be recorded using GMXT) that you have saved using GMXT in your E66". The "new stuff" you record or save to "My Locations" is the waypoint we are talking about here, that is saved in the current.gpx file. For tracks, before recording, change the setting in GMXT to "Most" and try to check how accurate the tracklogs are when traveling along a known road (in the map). See how it overlays the known roads, especially in tight turns and curves, that way, you already have an idea of how accurately it records the roads you will be traversing that are not on the map. And when you download the tracks in Mapsource, remember where to make line corrections. Would also help if you can get a reference paper roadmap from your city/municipal planning office to see the road configuration in your area and the roadnames.

As mentioned, download and copy the current.gpx file to your PC, then open and edit in Mapsource if needed. Please review the ff. threads before submitting your contributions:

How to prepare your waypoint file for upload
http://roadguide.ph/forums/showthread.php?t=64 : check your waypoints in the map and see if they are situated correctly (i.e. left or right side of road)

How to contribute gps tracks
http://roadguide.ph/forums/showthread.php?t=4

How to submit names for unnamed roads
http://roadguide.ph/forums/showthread.php?t=1 : In this case, your unnamed roads would be the tracks that you will be contributing...

HTH

[travelbug]

hey thanks borgy

i was trying to find out how through search and couldnt get any answers.
i am using a windows mobile phone but im thinking the procedures are the same or similar

i wanted to try using google map maker but it doesnt have downloadable content yet
then i stumbled into this:
http://www.openstreetmap.org/?lat=14....93482&zoom=16

any chance we can use openstreetmap with mapsource?

regards

[Borgie]

i wanted to try using google map maker but it doesnt have downloadable content yet
then i stumbled into this:
http://www.openstreetmap.org/?lat=14....93482&zoom=16

any chance we can use openstreetmap with mapsource?

Yup, check this out :

http://esambale.wikispaces.com/file/...e_20090114.exe

[travelbug]

Yup, check this out :

http://esambale.wikispaces.com/file/...e_20090114.exe

what does the executable do?

[Borgie]

Same as the roadguide.ph, it will install a mapset in Mapsource once you run it. This will be the openstreetmap Philippines that you were asking about... when you open Mapsource, you see the OSM mapset along with the roadguide map but you can view only 1 map at a time... which is nice bec. you can see the level of detail in each map and make comparisons in a given area... HTH

[travelbug]

Same as the roadguide.ph, it will install a mapset in Mapsource once you run it. This will be the openstreetmap Philippines that you were asking about... when you open Mapsource, you see the OSM mapset along with the roadguide map but you can view only 1 map at a time... which is nice bec. you can see the level of detail in each map and make comparisons in a given area... HTH

oh yeah i tried it last week i remember but roadguides map is much more detailed

[Borgie]

oh yeah i tried it last week i remember but roadguides map is much more detailed

Really? Then why the question if we can use OSM in Mapsource?

Anyways, your observation is correct, our roadguide map is much more detailed and covers more places...

[travelbug]

Really? Then why the question if we can use OSM in Mapsource?

Anyways, your observation is correct, our roadguide map is much more detailed and covers more places...

is wasnt sure if it was the same map bro

[napoleon]

this is a nice site where you can find tons of informations regarding GPS and mapping:


http://www.malsingmaps.com/wiki/inde...ge:General.gif

cheers,
Nap

[Borgie]

How to minimize power consumption when running XT

Another tip....

A common complaint when running XT is how fast it drains the phone battery as the phone is always lit (default setting). Found out that battery consumption can be minimized by changing the display settings like this: settings/display/backlight override select none. XT will now follow your phone's timeout settings. You can even have it run in the background while you text, make a call or whatever. You'll know it's still active when it prompts you to take that turn in x meters.

But you have to be sufficiently familiar with XT so that when it makes those voice prompts you react accordingly even without glancing at the map screen. If you're not that familiar with XT yet, maybe you can set it at on when speaking, that way, the phone is lit when it speaks and you can take a quick peek at the map. HTH

[pinoypaparazzi]

how do you change the Voice to something else. im not talking about the espanyol, svensk, finnish, etc, but im interested in like darth vader (geek. lol), al pacino (not sure if there's one), and others.

[rgcabredo]

Garmin XT on Nokia 5800

I've been using Garmin XT v5.00.40 on my Nokia 5800 for about a month now. It will drain the battery in 3 to 4 hours if the LCD is on all the time. I plug the phone to a car charger on long drives.

Recently I came from a road trip around Bicol. On my return trip from Legazpi City, Albay to San Pablo City, Laguna , I kept the unit on for 10 hours. On normal track log it filled about 36% track log memory. At the end of the day, I was going to review my tracks and POIs. I was dumbfounded to discover that Garmin XT had re-set itself. All my tracks and POIs for the week were gone.... bummer. I tried the import function and it loaded data I had saved 2 weeks ago.

Does anyone know why the program would do an auto reset? would the existence of a GarminXT.sis file on the memory card somehow prompt a reset or re-install? I did notice that there were more functions available on Garmin Online page. I suspect that my original v5.00.30 installation had somehow not been updated properly to v5.00.40.

Lesson: Export data ASAP - backs up your data without a PC around.