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Situational "How to" or Wishlists

Former Member
Former Member
My intent of this question is to lay out the situation I’m trying to accomplish using BaseCamp. I believe this situation is similar to what many people are trying to accomplish, especially those using the “on trail series”; such as the Oregon. Hopefully this will help not only me, but also many first time users.

Additionally, I understand some of the developers read the forum, so this may help them not only see BaseCamp as a piece of software, but also as a tool many of us hope to use to enhance our enjoyment of your products. I’ve tried to call out wishlist items that either I haven’t figured out how to do yet or could be added to the product. Also, maybe you could take this and turn it into a FAQ or tutorial.

Situation: My wife and I are horseback riders. We live in Texas but have a second home in Colorado. In the summer time we take the horses with us and head to the mountains to rest, relax and ride. I bought an Oregon 450T to take with us to help navigate, go to new and interesting places, and to increase our safety. (It’d be nice to know if I’m about to ride off a cliff.)

What I have: Oregon 450T with the Garmin 100K US Topo which shows many of the trails in the areas we ride, but is missing some landmarks such as streams and lakes. A 24K Topo of Colorado which shows all the stream and lakes, but doesn’t have any of the trails. A trail overlay which shows most, but not all, of the trails on the 100K Topo, but has several other trails as well. Soon I’ll be adding Birdseye which is important since I’ll be able to see things such as rock outcroppings that you can’t see on a topo. BaseCamp v3.1.3.

Planning: Before we take off we always plan out where we’re going for the day. First it helps know where and how long we’re going to be gone. Secondly, if something happens, people will know where to come looking for us.

What I would like to be able to do is use BaseCamp to plan out the route we’re going to take. In order to do that I would like to able to see all the topos, trail maps, landmarks and satellite imagery on the BaseCamp screen.

Wishlist: On the Oregon 450T I can see all those maps and overlays simultaneously, but on BaseCamp I’m only able to see one map at a time.
I could then plan out the ride for the day over existing trails or “off pique” or a combination of both. If I see a lake I want to get to, or a waterfall, I can figure out how to generate the best and safest route to get there.

Wishlist: I don’t mind using waypoints to generate the route, but I wish there was a way to turn off the flags. I already have the route highlighted, the flags just get in the way and clutter the screen.

Post Trip: I’d like to take the track I just completed, or ones that I saved if I want to do them all at once after the trip, and upload them to BaseCamp. (Which I understand I can do).

Wishlist: I’d then like to take the tracks and edit them and turn them into “trails”. (My understanding is “tracks” is something I’ve done. “Routes” are something I’ve planned, so I had to come up with “trails” as a new nomenclature.) I need to edit the tracks because there may be places I went that I wouldn’t want added to the trail, e.g. a dead end from which I had to back track. These trails I would then use to create a map overlay so I could see them all when I’m out riding. (My understanding is that I can only see the active route and track on the Oregon 450T.)

Sorry for the long post, but I thought it would help set the context of the “what and why” I’m trying to accomplish in BaseCamp. Please feel free to add other thing I’m not thinking about for this context, and address any “wishlist” items or answer any of those as questions if I’m just too stupid to have found out how to do it yet.

I think BaseCamp is a good product is one of the main reasons I chose a Garmin GPS.
  • Former Member
    0 Former Member
    Ron, thanks for the reply. I guess if I think of it as off-road vs on-road I can see the distinction.

    Question: I haven't had a chance to check it out yet. Can you see the tracks you have saved or only the current track? If I'm out for a ride and cross a track I've saved, I may want to follow it instead of bushwack. My understanding is that you can only see the current track.
  • Former Member
    0 Former Member
    PP, In MY O450 with version 4.32, the last version before 4.45, I can select any Track to display. IF you want to save your Current Track--before you begin your travel, whether following a Track you made, downloaded, or a previously saved Track I suggest you do a Clear Current Track every time. I write this because, as previous threads have discussed, you may get lots of garbage points saved BEFORE you start your travel.

    To answer you question--Yes you can see any single Track. You can't display multiple tracks at the same time, iow on the same screen, unless you use BC to edit them, But then BC will have a problem with say 4 Endpoints, because it only wants to have 2 Endpoints-- the Start & End points.

    My suggestion with your question, have multiple Tracks saved to your O450t. The bad thing about that is all the Waypoints will be seen, even if they don't belong the particular Track you see.

    So, i assume, before you started your ride, you would know there will be a trail junction ahead, and you may want to take it, versus staying on the trail you will travel. I would add a Waypoint (ie, called Junction) to the first Track located at the junction of the trails. Then Send this new file to your O450t. I would also on my Map display, show Next Point (the next Waypoint you'll come to) and Distance to Next or Time to Next--this way you'll know you're approaching the Junction Waypoint.

    So now your ready to start your ride. Turn on you O450t, using the Main Menu, press Track Manager/Current Track, scroll down and press Clear Current Track. Go back to the Main Menu, press Setup/Tracks/Track Log and Record, Do Not Show. You can adjust the other items in this menu depending how detailed you want. For my bike rides I have Record Method set to Distance, and Interval set to .01 mi.

    Now your riding along and you see you're 500ft from your Junction waypoint, so you know the trail will be coming up. you get to the junction and you decide to follow the Track you had saved previously (and loaded it in your O450t). I would go to Main Menu/Track Manager/Current Track/Save Track. It will offer you the option of Renaming the Track at the top, or just leaving the name as it is. Once saved it will ask if you want to clear the current track. If it were me, I would not clear it.

    I would then load in your Saved Track and follow it, until??? maybe you encounter the same thing with another junction or perhaps it takes you back "home". Once you finish the ride, Save the Current Track, clear it, go back to Setup/Tracks/Track Log/Do Not Record--so you don't save any bogus track data.

    If you want, you could Clear Current Track each time you Save it, but then you would have to combine them using BC if you wanted a complete record of your ride.

    There also could be an instance where the direction of the track is different from the way you want to travel it. IF so, Press Track Manager/The track you want to reverse, scroll down and press Copy Reversed. It will copy a reversed Track to your O450t, with the same name, but a ! in front of it. Use that then to Navigate, and your Next Point and other info will be correct. But if you don't care--it will not affect you recording & saving the track.

    I hope this makes sense. Give it a try.
    Ron
  • Former Member
    0 Former Member
    I might be able to use some of the suggestion.

    What often happens when we're out riding is that we'll follow a trail out, but instead of just coming back down the trail, we'll often take off cross country, picking our way back, simply because we kind of know where we're going, although there won't be a formal trail.

    What I would like to do is when I'm stuck trying to pick my way through fallen timber, for example, see a "track" that I saved that is close enough for me to get to and follow. I can do that if it's a "trail" on a map overlay, but because I can only see one "track" at a time I could be within 50 ft of a saved track and not even know it.

    I guess I'll have to use a third party piece of software to create a trail overlay map of all the tracks I want to save and update it every time I edit and want to save a track for future use.
  • Former Member
    0 Former Member
    Here is a solution for your second wishlist item. You can directly set the value of the symbol used by BaseCamp for waypoints in the registy:

    1. Windows->Run->RegEdit
    2. Browse to where BaseCamp stores its user "Settings" on your machine. This is dependent on the OS you use. For example, on XP, this is HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Garmin\BaseCamp\Settings\Waypoint. If you have difficult finding this for your particular OS, ask on this forum.
    3. Right click on Waypoint, then New->Binary Value
    4. Set the name to "Symbol" and value to 12 00 00 00
    5. Done! (quit and restart BaseCamp)

    Useful for Basecamp... thank you. Also makes waypoints for routes smaller in MapSource as well.

    However, is there a way to make track points similarly small? Using the above registry tree as a model, I went and looked at MapSource in the Registry and I see the Waypoint Symbol settings already exist and already have that value. Before I start experimenting with changing the value in the registry and possibly getting myself in trouble, any suggestions?

    Also, is there a way to adjust the opacity of tracks and routes - I'd like to experiment with them being slightly more opaque if possible so that underlying features show through better.

    Thank you.