Select Search Location in Garmin Mobile PC

I am giving Mobile PC another shot and have come up against a problem...

On my iQue M5 (which was recently stolen)...I could search for a city by state....such as Gulf Shores, Alabama...

By the way, I loved my M5...and Garmin is blowing it not offering the PDA any longer...

When I attempt to search with Mobile PC ....

Where To -> Cities - >

The program will not search beyond a certain radius it appears

So how do I load city as my destination on the east coast when I am on the west coast?

CW

You can use the 'Near' button to change where GMPC searches. The choices offered are not what you want though so choose the 'Near Other' button. Again, unless you know a city near where you want to find your city of choice, Browse Map would be the easiest to use from there.

Terry

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Or do you mean you want to search for particular items within a specific City which you want to name?

In that case, pick the type of item you want first from the POIs, go through the same procedure but choose Search City from the last pane and spell the name of the city you want.

Terry

You had it right the first time....

I want to drive from San Francisco to Gulf Shores Alabama

The help file says "nearby" is the default setting...then goes on to explain that you can search nearby the route nearby this and that

Boggles my mind how crummy so much of this nav software is....

Thanks,

CS

My impression is the programmers assume a majority of their customers use it differently than what you suggest. It appears to be based on the Nuvi and excels at one day or point to point trips.

If you want a route planner, while GMPC can do it, I would suggest S&T 2009 is a better choice.

If you plan on travelling with a computer anyway, why not have both.

Terry

My comment on the iQue M5; I loved my Street Pilot III and used it extensively until it broke. But I didn't pay to get it repaired as there is so much more on the market today; both PNDs and software. As with other companies, Garmin tries to sell what the market will buy. Also, I think Palm will soon be out of the PDA market completely. Even Microsoft o/s products are almost entirely limited to the phone sector.

I use Garmin XT on a WM PDA and have Que on 2 other older WM PDAs (all non-phone). Any are great for short trips but I want a bigger screen for longer trips to get a better idea of my surroundings. I will probably still use a paper map anyway but its going to be a different experience.

Terry

Hi CS,

If you already have Mapsource it's way better for trip planning. As Terry said, Mobile PC is designed as a PC version of the Nuvi .. designed to try to optimize the in-vehicle navigation experience, including touchscreen support. That inevitably meant tradeoffs that reduce its usefulness for trip planning. In Garmin's engineers' defense, they have included all the functionality you need. It just happens to be a couple of levels down in the interface due to the default (and correct, I think) assumption that the vast majority of users want to search and/or navigate starting from where you are, not somewhere else.

Good planning tools, like Mapsource and Streets&Trips start from the other assumption: that you could be wanting to search or navigate starting from pretty much any arbitrary point. This really affects the nav functions of Streets&Trips. Garmin just took the nav functions out of Mapsource rather than try to improve them.

Frankly, the iQue isn't as great as you make it sound in this particular regard. My personal favourite is still my iQue 3600 - the original. I like is so much that I've tracked down and purchased some backup units so if my original ever dies I've got replacements on hot standby. I now own my original, one used backup, one new backup and one new 3600A that I'm quite taken with and might make my prime unit (I love the aviation navigation screens!!).

I love the iQue 3600 to pieces but the iQue (all models, because it's essentially the same Que software that Terry mentioned above) is somewhat biased towards searching and navigating from your current location (actually the last location it got from the GPS) rather than from some arbitrary starting point because it was also designed as more a nav device than a planning tool.

You still have to fake it out to force it to start the search or plot a route starting from somewhere else. It's just that you already know how to do that on the iQue. Arguably it might be a bit easier on the iQue, but not a whole lot. Mostly you just need to know how. Once you know how, it's not a big thing on either the Que software or the Mobile (PC/XT) software.

In my opinion.

...ken...

I am in iQue withdrawals right now...I have been scoping on eBay and I too will pick one up or two...

As odd as it sounds I am going to go with nRoute for my laptop....WHY?...because it most closely resembles my old iQue unit...and finding stuff and the accuracy is better than SA or ST....

I loaded up Spanner and gpsGate to feed it so I could use my already paid for maps with the 20x I have that came with MPC...

I couldn't find any way to get WAAS though via the 20X through those filters...I tried it both ways with gpsGate...Spanner and NO Spanner...no luck...

CW

Why do you need Spanner and GPS Gate? nRoute will work directly with the 20x and if the maps are locked to the 20x, they should work too. If not, GPS Gate will see the 20x and allow locked maps to be used in nRoute. I've only used Spanner with the 20x to provide NMEA output for other mapping programs; GPS Gate doesn't need that.

I don't have a 20x right now but don't recall it having WAAS in Mobile PC. It is actually my least favourite GPS and I have quite a few. I probably shouldn't ask how you expect to use the Mobile PC maps in nRoute so I won't.

Terry

Terry's right. You don't need either Spanner or GPSGate to use the 20x with nRoute. You especially do not need both at the same time, if that's what you meant. The 20x will do Garmin protocol and that's what nRoute wants.

But I wanted to toss something else in here. Why do you want WAAS? Do you do something that requires the slightly improved accuracy?

For vehicle navigation I've never found any useful difference between a reported accuracy of 5 metres versus 2.5 metres.

...ken...

nRoute will not let me see map detail using my 20x that came with my copy of Mobile PC...

I have 2009 NT maps that came with the 20x, but they of course are useless in nRoute.

I have maps and upgrades that I used with MapSource for my Garmin iQue unit...and they are currently loaded and unlocked and work just fine. My current legacy set is CN 2008 (non NT), TOPO USA and Blue Charts North America...these are the maps i want to use with nRoute...

In fact these maps work fine in nRoute as long as the 20x is not plugged into the program...The moment I point nRoute at the 20x the map detail gets locked. I have entered and re-entered the keys via nRoute but it makes no difference. In this configuration I have WAAS and the best satellite data...but the maps I have will not unlock the detail...

The 20x is working fine in this config(other than no map detail)...I have rapid aquisition, WAAS etc...but no map detail..

If I fire up Spanner, and assign-link it up with the 20x it just hangs and will not connect..Spanner is working fine...

This can be confirmed via Street Atlas...if I set SA to read Garmin NMEA on serial 1 all is well...on SA

However, Garmin has written a blocker or flag into Spanner that tells nRoute that the user is trying to use an 'unauthorized' Garmin device to access the program...using Spanner with nRoute alone is futile.

Hence the obvious work around is to try gpsGate as a filter filter in between Spanner and nRoute...so firing up gpsGate works...it fools the nRoute into thinking that its getting fed generic serial NMEA data...

The next postulate is to try gpsGate without Spanner...well that works too...however, the satellite position and status data is rather screwy...and the position fixes jump around alot more...

Thus..the most stable configuration is to run like this:

20x -> Spanner -> gpsGate -> nRoute....

And that unlocks my maps and lets me use nRoute....

If you have another solution I am all ears...

Carson Wales
Hole in the Wall Gang

All of this is gonna become moot in a week or so as I am thinking of getting a GlobalSat receiver anyway...but nonetheless, if you fellow addicts have a solution to force nRoute to digest disassociated Garmin maps and a 20x coupling lets have at it...

I want WAAS because its there...

I am an addict...

An NO...nRoute does not recognize the "Authorized" maps that came with the 20x because they are NT....

This is the only way I have figured out how to make the 'free' nRoute work with my brand new POS 20x and my 2008 CN non NT maps...

Hey ?

Don't I get a prize for daisy chaining virtual serial ports?

Spanner puts out NMEA data; that is its purpose. nRoute only works with Garmin PVT. nRoute can work directly with the 20x but the maps you have are not unlocked to the 20x. GPS Gate can take the 20x output and provide Garmin PVT to nRoute. nRoute no longer sees the GPS as a Garmin product so the maps are not locked (crazy, I know but that's the way it is). I guess it doesn't support the WAAS information though. Not a major issue as WAAS is not very useful when travelling.

nRoute works fine with NT maps. The problem is the maps with Mobile PC are already compiled. nRoute and MapSource do not work with compiled maps.

Terry

Whats Garmin PVT?

Here is the bottom line for me...

I want to use nRoute with NT2009 maps and a third party receiver....

What do I need to do to accomplish this task?

I have nRoute, a useless Garmin 20x (will replace with GlobalSat unit) and need to acquire an un-compiled nRoute compatible version of NT 2009....

Help me out....

CW