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Made a serious attempt to use Base Camp today

Former Member
Former Member
Today, I thought I would work on this summers trip in Base Camp instead of Mapsource. Quick summary a waste of time.

Routing: We tow a small folding trailer about 150 to 200 miles per day. A simple trip really on US highways and secondary roads.
The problem; BC transferred us to Alt US 70 in Ashville NC no problem. Then it routed us through a parking lot to get on the secondary road. Could not find a way to move the route away from the parking lot back onto the street that needs to be used. This is real easy in Mapsource or magic marker on paper maps; why not in BC?

With the route selected and zoomed in on the area of concern I launched Google Earth. Oh! thats right this BC, and unlike Mapsource it zooms to the entire route and you have to then zoom in to the area of interest on Google Earth. Finally gave after I could never correct the route and went back to Mapsource.

@ Garmin if you want us to use BC make it work.
  • 0
    Perhaps if you asked a question instead of ranting you'd get some help.

    I'm guessing you'd like to know how to 'rubber band' a route? One way is to select the route so it's highlighted on the map. Now press the Alt key and left click on the route using the hand tool. You can then rubber band the route. BC is easier than MapSource once you learn how to use it, took me a few days a couple of years ago and now I find MapSource confusing and clunky :)
  • Former Member
    0 Former Member
    After a lot more search I found select the route, click tools, click insert then double click the location you want it moved to. That seems a lot more clunky then select the route, click and drag. I'll also give your method a try. The on line help was no help, for me it was keep trying until I found something that worked.
    First post wasn't a rant it was a statement of the facts as I saw them.
  • Former Member
    0 Former Member
    ...With the route selected and zoomed in on the area of concern I launched Google Earth. Oh! thats right this BC, and unlike Mapsource it zooms to the entire route and you have to then zoom in to the area of interest on Google Earth...


    There is an option in BaseCamp to just show the map area in GE. On the Mac version its a simple right click on view in the menu. Haven't tried it on my Win10 machine but I am certain such a simple option is there, too.
  • Former Member
    0 Former Member
    The problem there is you lose the route in Google Earth. This has been a problem with BC since day one. The purpose for me in making routes to travel with our RV is to examine questionable intersections in Google Earth and without the zoom level feature or whatever you call it that is in Mapsource it can be difficult to see a single intersection in a 200 mile route say.

    I also changed my vehicle from car to RV on a route that I had finally gotten to take the roads I wanted. As soon as RV was selected the route was totally redrawn around Robin Hoods Barn to use an old cliche. I see more study is required there.
  • 0
    Stick a waypoint(s) at your questionable point(s) and you can then select 'View selected item' ... not that difficult.

    Personally if I select a route I'd like to see the whole route, but if I simply want to look at one point I do as I've just suggested. After all it's difficult to judge what might be an issue just off the map so I often want to check out the whole route in GE.
  • Former Member
    0 Former Member
    Well sticking a point works, but if it isn't saved it doesn't show up in Google Earth; but it does pretty good as a work around. Got a lot of practice with the insert tool after the fiasco of changing the activity type to RV. Tried the options available for defining the RV but didn't seem to help. Fastest or shortest is ok sometimes but scenic byway would be our option of choice.

    For the whole route a magic marker and a paper map works best for us even when you have to use best guess for back country roads.
    Well two more months to wrestle this bear.
  • 0
    Well two more months to wrestle this bear.


    You won't need 2 months, you'll be flying within a few days :D

    Just ask away here if you get stuck.
  • Former Member
    0 Former Member
    Agree with Scrubjay as BC was not the way to go. Instead of upgrading Mapsource you reinvented the wheel. When do you expect to come full circle and reinvent Basecamp? I would be happy if you just took some of the things Scrub has said and put them into BC. Every time I try and use BC I end up going back to Mapsource. I work with computers and simulators for a living and believe me BC is not intuitive at all.
  • 0
    As a long term Basecamp user (previously used Mapsource) all I can say is that Basecamp is intuitive but NOT if you try to do things the way you do in Mapsource, and it's invariably ex Mapsource users who tend to struggle.

    What exactly aren't you able to accomplish in Basecamp?
  • Former Member
    0 Former Member
    The problem there is you lose the route in Google Earth...


    Nope, that doesn't happen for me. The route shows up in GoogleEarth if it is selected in BaseCamp and I zoom in and then I select the "View Current Map Area in Google Earth..."

    The first URL below is to a screengrab of BaseCamp, the second is to the view that opens in GoogleEarth (I tried putting actual links but for some reason the forum software wouldn't let me do that!)

    https://augustfalcon.smugmug.com/MiscPublic/i-KqXtSWX/0/M/BC1mbc-M.jpg
    https://augustfalcon.smugmug.com/MiscPublic/i-jGHb7mq/0/M/GE1mbc-M.jpg