GPS Training podcast – number 49

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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

1. The all-new GPS training website
2. Garmin Montana 680t being discontinued, what else will follow?
3. Powering a GPS with a built-in battery – do we need a battery pack? If so what options are there?
4. And then we have Ian’s FAQ’s, the frequently asked questions Ian gets asked whilst supporting our customers.

The first thing on this months Podcast is to look at the all-new GPS Training website

1. Lockdown 3 – project – After we limped up to Christmas 2020 with the old site it just had to be done!
2. Search facility – magnifying glass – great way to find reviews, new articles and products that relate to your unit. It just does not search products as many sites do.
3. Please do review a product – if you do during first week in February 2021 you will be entered into a draw to with a Garmin Instinct GPS watch.

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?

1. Discussion about people not needing to plan mega walks to familiarise themselves with their GPS and hence, as you say, are asking questions from their living rooms rather than going out for a walk that can be very short? It seems that I’ve had a few of these kind of customers this month and it has needed me to point out to them that they can do it around a few streets.
2. Lack of response from Garmin in resolving deleting a track on the Oregon 700’s and eTrex Touch GPS’s since the update in August last year. I’ve had a few unhappy customers this month and I do know that they have contacted Garmin and had a moan when I’ve pointed out to them that this was reported to Tom and Garmin by me at the time. Thank you.

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

• reduced the ‘detail’ and increased it? It gives the graphics card a chance to load the map properly. The easiest way to do it on the Mac is that at the bottom of the screen, there is a slider bar where you can reduce the detail and slowly increase it.

• tried a different USB cable?

• checked the permission settings on the Mac for the SD card?

• tried attaching the GPS to a different computer if you have one available, to see if the SD card is being read?

• checked that you can see the SD card in the ‘Finder’ or on the desktop as a separate drive?

• checked that the micro SD card is held securely in the card slot, which can be found underneath the batteries

• shut Basecamp down and re started it? The same for your Mac.

• delete all routes, tracks, waypoints from your GPS as one of them may be corrupt and stopping the GPS connecting. You should see a right pointing USB fork symbol on the GPS screen when it’s connected. It can, from time to time disconnect and so you need to unplug the GPS and plug it back in.

• check that you have the latest software update installed on your GPS. Go in to the Setup>About

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

• Many thanks for listening and let us know anything you would like to be covered in the Podcast please do let us know and if you know of anybody interesting that you would like to hear interviewed in future podcasts please do let us know.
• Give us a call especially if you are thinking of a new GPS unit
• Please do look a look at both our physical GPS courses and also our webinars, just go to GPSTaining.co.uk and click on – GPS Training courses.
• Please do tell your friends about the podcast and GPS Training and encourage them to subscribe to it on whichever Podcast app they are using.
• AND don’t forget to give us 5 star rating on iTunes and Google Podcasts, for Android users, just look in the Playstore and download this app, search for the GPS Training Podcast and subscribe to it.
• If you can also snazzy review on whatever platform you listen to us on it would be appreciated.
• Many thanks to Ian for joining me on this month’s podcast