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In this month’s GPS Training podcast we talk about the all-new GPS Training website, the future of the Garmin Montana 680t, Power Banks, and then we have Ian’s FAQ’s.
In this month’s podcast
The first thing on this months Podcast is to look at the all-new GPS Training website
Just find the product you have and write a review. A proper review please, not just a sentence!
Everybody who writes a review in the first 7 days of February will be entered into the draw.
If you have any feedback you want to give directly to Garmin you can do that online here.
Homepage –
Personalised GPS Recommendation – more here
Never had a GPS before – more here
And link to of course the GPS Training podcast
Product pages – FAQ’s tab – Map overview, battery/ powerpack overview videos and lots more. If there is any questions not in there you think would be useful for customers please do let me know.
To find out more about the new GPS Training website please just go to – gpstraining.co.uk
The next thing on this months GPS training podcast is the future of the ‘old’ Montana 6xx range after we heard last week that the Garmin Montana 680t being discontinued.
Usual great communication from Garmin, we discovered this after we were sourcing product images for the new website.
Sales have dropped the edge of the cliff for the Garmin Montana 610, 680 and 680t
Understandable really after the launch of the Garmin Montana 700 range
To find out more about the Montana 700 please go to our website and just type Garmin Montana into search icon (magnifying glass) in the top right. This will show both the products and reviews for the Montana 700 range
The next thing we are going to discuss on the podcast are the battery packs that are now really coming to the fore now a number of popular GPS units come with a built-in battery.
What GPS units now come with built in batteries.
Garmin GPSMAP 66i –
Battery size 3,100 mah, Battery life 35 hrs
Garmin GPSMAP 66sr –
Battery size 3,100 mah, Battery life 36 hrs
Garmin Montana 700, 700i and 750i –
Battery size 3,100 mah, Battery life 18 hrs
SatMap Active 20 –
Battery size 5,000 mah, Battery life 16 hrs
Mobile phone –
Battery life 3100 mah, Battery life 24 hrs
Option 1
Powertraveller – Sport 25 (£45.00) –
2 x GPS unit or phone
1 x SatMap
Powertraveller – Harrier 25 (£60.00) – same mah (6,700) – but has wireless charging for iPhone users!
So, a lightweight power pack could keep your GPS powered for a further 70 or 36 hours (i.e. two charges), so full charged GPS unit (GPSMAP 66sr or 66i) and ‘budget’ powerpack can keep you going 105 hours or half that for the Montana 700 range
If you walked 10.5 hours a day that’s 10 days walking for a 66sr/ 66i or 5 days for a Montana 700 series
And we have not even started to discuss bringing a solar panel into the equation! Very impressive! Just a ‘budget’ power bank.
The thing we have not yet thrown into the equation is also keeping your mobile phone also charged. It has the same mah rating as the GPS units we have discussed so far (3,100)
Therefore lets instead get a – Powertraveller Merlin 75sd
(size of a can of coke) – this is my option 2
This has a mah rating of 20,000 so we could charge our mobile phone and GPS for a joint total of 6.5 times!
So charge your phone every 24 hours for x 5 days (plus the one charge you started with – making 6 days in total)
And charge your GPS unit 1 ½ times, 53 hours from the power pack and then the 35 hours you could start with – 87 hours
You could walk 14 hours a day for the 6 days
Therefore in my fag packet calculation you could keep a mobile phone up and running for 7 days with a larger powerpack if you where walking 8 hours a day and had your phone on 24 hours a day with this 20,000 mah power pack AND still no solar panel put into the equation!
Sorry, it’s something I have started to get interested in
If you want to see my video where I look at the power banks I have mentioned over the past few minutes go to – gpstraining.co.uk > search for one of the units we have discussed – GPSMAP 66sr, 66i or Montana 700 range and click on the FAQ’s tab on the relevant product page.
Ian’s FAQ’s, the frequently asked questions Ian gets asked whilst supporting our customers.
Should we rename this section – Ian’s moan at Garmin in a nice way?
Now moving onto Ian’s FAQ’sGarmin maps not being recognised by Basecamp – numerous queries this month with either map cards not loading or the GPS not connecting to the PC. Basic computer skills resolved all.
Are the OS maps loading on the GPS when the GPS is disconnected from the Mac? If they are, it will most likely be one of the following
Satmap – updating using WiFi
I have recently found that my anti virus treats SatSync as a virus and the only way that I can use it is to disable the anti virus software. So, I am now just updating via WiFi. It is a U Turn but quicker and easier. Also, as SatSync is so poor for Mac owners, the only alternative for the update is WiFi.
Wearables
Our Fenix 6X customer this month whose watch started to lose power (within a day) really quickly and not record any Health stats. We did a master reset on the watch (all data is retained in Garmin Connect) and since then, it’s back up and running absolutely fine and discharging as expected. As the customer and I remarked at the time, it’s like cleaning out a computer. It must have been the watch software running in the background/forever trying to connect to Garmin Connect.
And Finally
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