Track line

[daddywpb]

Went on a little scouting trip yesterday, and noticed something on the Legend C. While I was walking, there was no "breadcrumb" trail on the screen. I was a little concerned since I was in a new area, but when I saved the track and checked the box to show it on the map, my track was there. On the track setup screen there is a place to turn the tracklog on and off, and it was on. I'm sure it is a setting I have wrong, but I haven't been able to find it. Thought I'd throw it out there before I called Garmin and looked like an idiot. Any ideas?

Also, when in "trackback" mode, I don't get any info on the trip computer or compass pages. I thought I remembered using the compass page pointer while doing trackbacks before. Is that info only for following routes? Thought I was going to have to break out the compass last night. It was long past dark when I got back to the truck where the wife was waiting. She had been fishing. I guess I need to read the book again!

I was set up in a pop up ground blind, and I got to watch a mature doe feed by. She hung around for about 5 or 6 minutes. Kept looking over at me, but didn't spook. Those few minutes made the trip worthwhile.

[Siskiyou]

daddywpb:  Interesting question, by the way I always appreciate your questions because I learn something about my gps units in the process.  I do not know if some of the menus for the Legend C and the 76C are the same.  I suspect that many process are shared with the Legend C, the 60C, and the 76C.

When I first worked with the 76C I noted the bread crumb trail was not as defined as it was the my old gray scale Legend.  There is a location that I walk the dog that I repeat my tracks a number of times and the bread crumb trail became clearer. ( I must admit that I am looking at the this trail with old eyes.  When I zoom in the trail is clearer.)  Because of your question I went to the Track Page.  From there I went to Saved Tracks>I noted there was a >Color>option> There are numerous color option.  Take care on option is Transparent.  I have not tried Transparent.  My unit was set for Magenta, what is okay, but I switched to black.  I will experiment with that. >Another option on the page was an unchecked box labeled "show on screen."  I checked the box, so now I need to take a walk and see what changes I observe.  I noticed on the screen that my saved Trac Bac showed up clearly.  But there was another option on the bottom of the screen.  A "white" arrow on showed up on the screen and at the bottom of the screen in small black letters with a blue background was the message, "Select the point you want to TracBack to.  It works.

A couple of things happen to the 76C.  I get a pop-up screen showing the route and get a "tone" if I need to make a turn or I am a location.  This is part of the auto routing system.(When out hunting I would shut the tone off.)  When in the proper Trac Bac mode the compass arrow points the direction of the Trac Bac that has been saved, and then selected.

I found that the transition from my older Blue Legend to the 76C rather easy regarding the basics.  The kicker is that the new color series units offer more screens and other options on top of the old.  With more options the learning curve just grew a little bit.  

Lately I have been out re-walking the same route with a friend who had hip replacement surgery.  At times I wonder what the neighbors think about the two old guys going up and down the street staring at something in there hands, and with a line going back to their neck.  Of course it is our gps units, and we are playing with tracks, satellite reception, Trac Bac, and other options.  Knowing that my friend had surgery recently another neighbor asked if my friend was wearing a heart monitor? :-)

Time to take the dog for a walk.

[daddywpb]

Siskiyou,

I'm glad someone is learning something from my mistakes! I did try a couple of the things that you mentioned. I guess I left some things out of my original question.

I did change the color of the breadcrumb trail to black, but it still wasn't showing up. I think the 'show on map' box is only for tracks that are already saved. I went for a bike ride on saturday, and the breadcrumb trail was there, and easily visible. I can't figure out what I changed to get rid of it. And, why would it not leave a breadcrumb trail on the screen, but still show the same track after I saved it?

Shouldn't the compass page be functional during a Tracback so I could follow the arrow in the very dark woods? I haven't had any time to mess with it since Sunday, but I need to figure this out before next weekend. Thanks for your input.

On a totally different subject, I just mounted the tail fan from the turkey  got this season. I found a solid oak plaque that holds the tail and beard. Took about a month and a half to dry, but it looks pretty good. Also made wingbone calls out of both wings.

[daddywpb]

A quick update here...I just went out and walked around the house. The 'breadcrumb' trail was plainly visible on the map page, in black like I had selected, and when I saved the very short track and went to Trackback I was able to follow the red arrow on the compass page. All trip computer data was also working.
I must admit I'm stumped as to why it wouldn't work the other night. If I had a choice, I'd rather have it work in the woods and not in the driveway.
Another question. Any ideas on what program to use to download waypoints from the Geocache website? I was using EasyGPS with the Legend, but that one won't work aith the C.

[Siskiyou]

daddywpb:  I agree that the "Show on the Map" box is for already saved tracks.  

Yesterdays dog walk was interesting.  According to the gps it was a little under 3 miles.  If you pictured the track as the shape of a Lollypop.  The first 3rd of the route being the stick.  The second top of the track being the candy.  Meaning on the far end of the route I made a loop and came back to the original track.  At the point  I was on the intersection with the original track I >Saved the Trac> then I hit the BacTrac option> I selected home (my start point) as the location I wanted to backtrack to.  I then selected the follow Trac option.  But The compass arrow was point down the opposite direction on the saved track.  It was pointing South and I wanted to go North. :shock:  I should note the map page was showing the full track in a bold Black color.  I walked about 100 feet to the North and suddenly the BacTrac page popped up showing the back route to the North.  I have noticed the 76C making this adjustment before.

If I was hunting in strange country I would have handled this a little different.  Normally when I am in the the woods I always have my gps in the tracking mode.  When I park my pickup I will create a waypoint.  In the case I will name it, "PK1."  When I start back to my pickup I will go to the waypoints and select "PK1" and hit the GoTo option.  When I start moving the compass pointer(In the pointer option) will point to the "PK1" waypoint.  I like being out on mountain side until the last light.  Trying to catch the old buck moving out of cover.  Because of that I need to be careful in my route back to my pickup.  At times pulling the old headlamp out to light the way.  I know that my original route brought me safely through some bluffs and across a stream.  When I cross my original track, I hit the save Trac option.  I will then continue a short distance on my Goto PK1 option before selecting the BacTrac option.  I will also check to make sure I am going the right direction.

While it sound complicated it is rather simple.  I was fortunate to being raised in a rural area and having a father who loved to hunt.  When my brothers and I were teenagers he would drop us off on the top of a mountain just before daylight.  We would spend the day hunting our way off the mountain.  I even had my little brass case Boy Scout compass with me.  If we did not spend the morning dragging deer off the hill we would holdup during the day and eat our lunch and maybe take a nap before continuing down planning to hit the road about dark.  Did we get lost, nope, did we love it, yep.  Sometimes we had to hang a deer and go back for it the next morning in the light because the going was to rough.  Our advantage was that when we were little guys we would follow Dad around in the woods.  Now if we were an industry they would calling it training, but we called it hunting with Dad.  

The bottom line is a gps is a neat tool, but not a requirement.  I would have loved to have had a gps up in the Canadian Bush.  The country was heavily wooded and there were no visible Mountain Peaks for reference.  Just the sun.  My senses were in overdrive in the Bush.  In Montana my gps helped me find a trail head 26 miles from the pavement.  I had the Lat/Long for the trail head which I had set as a waypoint.  I just hit the GoTo and started working my way there.  The route was rather complex because of numerous logging spurs in route.  When I would hit the unsigned intersections the gps gave me a clue to where I was going.  Because I did not have the topo maps for the area installed on the gps it was little more complicated then need be.  But the unit was a great asset.

I like the track option because I download my Tracks to the computer and print maps on Topo software.  It helps me learn more about the country.  On my Montana trip I spotted a number of Elk and Mule deer.  I passed the locations on to a local in terms of Lat/Long.

Just fell off the soap box.

[daddywpb]

The last morning of turkey season I talked to a nice guy from the NWTF that was also hunting. He gave me Lat/Lon of a spot where he had seen turkeys the previous morning. Not having anywhere in particular to go, I set them as a waypoint, hit GOTO, and was on my way. I got there before sunrise in a round-about way because of so much standing water, set up and called untill about 9:00 am. Heard a gobble, but never saw anything. When I got up and started looking around, I found the tracks he had told me about. Unfortunately, they were dried in the mud under about a foot of water becasue of rain during the week. It was a long walk in the Florida heat carrying all my turkey hunting "essentials", but the sunrise was beautiful, and the weather was unusually cool. No birds were checked out in that area that day.
I wish there was an easy way to transfer data from the Legend C to the Legend and my yellow Etrex. MetroGuide won't support the C, and CitiSelect won't support the Legend. I can do it, but it's a chore. I'm just trying to keep the waypoints and tracks updated and the same in all three.

[Siskiyou]

I have had no problem transferring the waypoints from the Legend>to the computer>to the 76C.  But I am using the same MapSource Topo software on both units.  I might buy the City Select software in the next year.  Loading the City select maps for some areas on the 76C.  

One thing that I do is connect my laptop to a gps.  I have Microsoft Streets and Trips 2005 loaded on the laptop.  I updated from the 2003 version.  The software has a gps tracking mode.  I normally have a passenger following our track into a City.  If I did a lot of city traffic I would purchase an external antenna.  The cement canyons created by the tall builds block out satellite signals to the old Legend.  I have not tried the 76C in the city.  I do have security concerns when entering the world of cement canyons.  Lots of "bottom feeders" around.  Any more the cops do not take action on a vehicle burglary.  They take a telephone report or a internet report.  That is if you still have a computer to make the report on.  I try and avoid the world of cement canyons.  But the software is great for planning road trips and tracking road trips.  And if I plan on having my laptop with me, it is not an extra.

How well does City Select identify the wildlife areas in your State?

There is a list of programs on the geocache website which can be download for obtaining the cache locations.  I have not downloaded this program for security reasons.  Just my paranoia!

[daddywpb]

I downloaded EasyGPS from the Geocache site, and it worked fine with the Legend, but not the new one. I don't look for caches enough to worry about it, I'll just type them in. City Select will identify parks and even WMA's but there is no detail. I got the Mapsource Fishing Hotspots free when I got the Legend C, and that's about what it's worth - zero. There is no detail about any local lakes or canals. Just Lake Okeechobee, and that's a two hour drive from here.