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Old 03-07-2016, 05:44 AM   #21
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Originally Posted by oldphd View Post
Funny timing, just ran into a similar ridiculous direction.

Big Island of Hawaii, going north from Kona to Marriott hotel in Waikoloa. Google maps on iPhone takes us one street past where we should turn left (which was a mile or more), then takes us to a roundabout with 3 exits, and instructs us to take the 4th exit!

Needless to say, we had to figure it out on our own. Out of curiosity, we put it in again another time to try again, and still got the same result.
If the GPS "voice" switches to Rod Serling, worry.
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Old 03-07-2016, 05:51 AM   #22
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A little off topic but these devices can't read your mind. I once entered a motel address near the Miami airport on my way to Key West. Unfortunately, I entered Miami as the city and that is not where the airport is. I arrived late at night running on fumes and found myself in a truly scary neighborhood. I eventually found a gas station and was filling up when a gang banger looking guy comes sauntering by. He stopped, looked at me, and said, "you should get your gas in a more suburban location." Then I told the damn GPS to just take me to the airport which disclosed the city mistake.
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Old 03-07-2016, 07:35 AM   #23
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Our 15 Rules for the RV Road for 2016 - Roadtreking : The RV Lifestyle Blog

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4) GPS units are all unreliable – If you rely totally on GPS to get you somewhere, sooner or later you’re going to miss your mark and be lost. In my role as a tech reporter for all 215 NBC-TV stations, I’ve tried them all – Garmin, Magellan, TomTom, Rand McNally, Clarion, the GPS apps, Google, Verizon and the GPS apps offered on Android and Apple devices. They all fail. They all are incomplete. Maps differ between them and there are GPS dead spots. A GPS transceiver needs at least four satellites to get any kind of a reliable fix. Even on flat ground with a clear line of sight there can be dead spots, where two or more satellites aren’t acquired. So, the transceiver just gives up as if there were no satellites were there. The solution: Carry paper maps. We now have a shoebox full of state maps. We use them more and more.
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Old 03-07-2016, 07:44 AM   #24
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I had a problem with my phone GPS. The best I could figure out was the original location was wrong. It seemed to remember the last starting point, and made directions from there, even though it knew where I was.

It was like a mid-way way-point I needed. Not a major issue, as I was going near there anyway, but it could have been a much shorter trip.
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Old 03-07-2016, 07:58 AM   #25
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The solution: Carry paper maps. We now have a shoebox full of state maps. We use them more and more.
As unreliable as a GPS can be they are still 100X better than using paper maps that usually only include the main roads and do nothing to get you to a specific address.
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Old 03-07-2016, 08:25 AM   #26
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The hassle of opening up paper maps and squinting to find the street you look for... Argh....
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Old 03-07-2016, 11:45 AM   #27
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Called Garmin as suggested by Ron Boyd and others. Got instructions and tried to follow them. Feels like installation on Mac was ok but computer did not see Garmin......kept searching for device. Called Garmin again.......again seemed like they were trying to be helpful and are sending me a USB cable because they think communication was hindered by my using the cable from
my Canon camera.

I don't understand the logic.......I used the same cable to do the original setup of the GPS and it obviously is capable of sending camera photo info to the computer. The Garmin rep said some USB cables only transmit power but not data but I don't think that applies here. Hopefully there is something different about their cable and it does work but I don't understand why it should.
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Old 03-07-2016, 12:35 PM   #28
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Originally Posted by kaneohe View Post
Called Garmin again.......again seemed like they were trying to be helpful and are sending me a USB cable because they think communication was hindered by my using the cable from
my Canon camera.

I don't understand the logic.......I used the same cable to do the original setup of the GPS and it obviously is capable of sending camera photo info to the computer. The Garmin rep said some USB cables only transmit power but not data but I don't think that applies here. Hopefully there is something different about their cable and it does work but I don't understand why it should.
This will be a two part response.

We are preparing to leave on a trip and as SOP I update the Garmins (3) with Garmin Express. I grabbed a USB cable and plugged it in. The Garmin would not connect. Tried several times to make it work and while I was "thinking it over," a message popped up -- "This cable cannot charge your device, please use the USB cable that came with your device." FWIW, I believe the cable came with one of the Canon cameras. Anyway, I plugged in a different cable and it connected right away.

Part 2:

The first Unit I plugged in did, in fact, need updating -- two firmware files and one map. I had forgotten that there is a message prior to OKing the update that says it will take two and a half hours. This sometimes (quite often) is the case and the biggest (and most common) complaint about Garmin is how slow their downloads are. Anyway, it has been a while since it has taken that long but it does happen. So block out that amount of time before starting. (You can, of course, use the computer while the process grinds away.)
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Old 03-07-2016, 10:09 PM   #29
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Originally Posted by RonBoyd View Post
This will be a two part response.

We are preparing to leave on a trip and as SOP I update the Garmins (3) with Garmin Express. I grabbed a USB cable and plugged it in. The Garmin would not connect. Tried several times to make it work and while I was "thinking it over," a message popped up -- "This cable cannot charge your device, please use the USB cable that came with your device." FWIW, I believe the cable came with one of the Canon cameras. Anyway, I plugged in a different cable and it connected right away.

Part 2:

The first Unit I plugged in did, in fact, need updating -- two firmware files and one map. I had forgotten that there is a message prior to OKing the update that says it will take two and a half hours. This sometimes (quite often) is the case and the biggest (and most common) complaint about Garmin is how slow their downloads are. Anyway, it has been a while since it has taken that long but it does happen. So block out that amount of time before starting. (You can, of course, use the computer while the process grinds away.)
Ron, thanks for the tips. Didn't realize there were so many USB cable types so maybe there's still hope. Also now prepared for the long update.
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Old 03-08-2016, 05:48 AM   #30
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Not only that, but perfectly appropriate cables can go bad and need to be replaced. I've had that happen more than once, on various devices.
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Old 03-09-2016, 08:50 AM   #31
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FWIW: Here are a couple (companion?) websites that are useful to Garmin owner's that I visit regularly:

GPS Information.net Forum > • Index page (Also useful for other Brands)

New Items on Joe and Jack's GPS Information Website
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Old 03-09-2016, 05:24 PM   #32
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Another thing to keep in mind...sometimes your unit will act erratically if you are near a Government high security area, or sometimes on a military base. Which makes sense security wise.
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Old 03-09-2016, 09:07 PM   #33
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I remember many years ago a buggy update with our Garmin GPS that caused it to completely seize up while driving. Couldn't even power it off. The only way to fix the problem was to send it in! We did get it back after a couple of weeks.
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Old 03-09-2016, 09:39 PM   #34
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Another thing to keep in mind...sometimes your unit will act erratically if you are near a Government high security area, or sometimes on a military base. Which makes sense security wise.

Driving near Fort Meade MD (NSA Land) my Garmin changed to tell me I was about 50 miles off shore Virginia in the Atlantic.
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Old 03-10-2016, 06:19 PM   #35
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I've convinced my navigator to zoom out and sanity check the route...sometimes it's going to do something really dumb, and I want to know it sooner than later. Never had it tell me to go an hour to make a u turn though!
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