A couple of Newbie Questions

Finally found a forum that may help me. I'm an experienced mapsource user that is being pushed into the basecamp world. I tend to create my routes in microsoft street and trips, save them as .gpx files, open them in mapsource, move my waypoints to intersections, and send to the device.

While trying to do that in basecamp, i'm doing alot of head scratching.

1. i'm trying to figure out whether or not basecamp is actually using my map data from within my gps or not. I do see in the dropdown my map version, so i'm going to figure it is.
2. i see no "save as" in basecamp. if i create something in there (or modify something i've imported), can it be saved?
3. is there way to actually choose an intersection in basecamp?...mapsource would give me information during the point pick that would allow me to do this.
4. how does one extend a route? i pick my house during a route, then pick a point up the street. it works great. then i pick the pan button to move to the north. i figured out how to insert a point in between those two point, but can find a way to extend my route from the last point pick. i thought that would just be a basic function of adding to the route, but it just isnt there. \
5. i had heard that i had to have my gps plugged into the computer "before" using basecamp, but that doesnt seem to be the case. i think garmin told me it would be reading the map data directly from my device. when i load basecamp, it seems to allow me to do routes without the device being plugged in. will there be some sort of "map mismatch" if i dont have the device plugged in?

appreciate the help. i think once i get going, i may be a useful member of the forum. i do alot of custom routing for my bike trips.

thanx again

Greygoose

I'll try to get you started.
1. and 5. If you have your maps loaded on your computer (highly recommended) then BC will use them. If you plug in your device, it will show you those maps in the selector as well. As long as you're using the same maps on your device and on your computer, there won't be any issues moving routes and waypoints back and forth.

2. BC uses a data base...everything is saved by default. You need to quickly figure out how to use its list mechanism, or you will run away from BC screaming. Review these to get started:
[URL="http://garmin-mapsource.wikispaces.com/BaseCamp#BaseCamp-Tutorial-Creating Lists (Organizing your data)"]garmin-mapsource.wikispaces.com/BaseCamp Lists (Organizing your data)[/URL]
http://www.2wheelgeek.com/HowTo.aspx

3. This is a recurring cry of the MS users. The shorts answer is no. The longer answer is "why does it matter?"
I hear that long-time MS users want to use intersections to "mask" via points flags and announcements. With BC, you can use "shaping points" to accomplish the same thing. Read "getting shaping points to work correctly" here:
http://www.2wheelgeek.com/HowTo.aspx

4. My best answer to this is to use a different workflow to create a route in BC. Try this: http://www.2wheelgeek.com/Routing/Routing.aspx

I hope that helps you get started. I strongly advise that before you do anything else, you go through the wiki here:
http://garmin-mapsource.wikispaces.com/BaseCamp

and the Garmin tutorials, nicely indexed here:
http://gpstracklog.com/2012/02/garmin-basecamp-video-tutorials.html

thanx for these links. i got this figured out pretty well and figured out a way around some of the base camp mess given my particular "mapping ways".


I really only considered using basecamp for 2 reasons. 1. i can no longer get the map i need to download from garmin unless i pay for it...2. i wanted to get some introduction to basecamp in case garmin decides to move away from mapsource. I do some really involved routing for my bike trips. there so involved, i need to take a backup gps in case one fails. so i really just want to download a duplicate route into my back up unit before my trip. i couldnt do that because i no longer have the map installed on my computer. that's where basecamp comes to the rescue.

so, i realize that when i plug in my gps, i do have access the map that's on it, even though its not loaded on my computer. so that was a real bonus.

so my process involves mapping with street and trips, exporting to gpx. loading the route in mapsource. placing my vias on intersections so that dont get announced, saving that file as a .gdb, then downloading into my device. I found a very interesting tidbit while trying this with basecamp. when i open the .gpx in basecamp, all my via points are flags and (thanks to you) i found i could tell basecamp to not announce, but it would anyway. i have a ton of vias in my routes, so going in and using the routing tool to get shaping points into the route, then deleting the waypoints would be just plain painful (but doable if had to). i then ran a test. what would happen if i loaded the .gdb into basecamp. Low and behold, i get my route and no flags. everything is automatically set to no alert. so if mapsource ever goes away, i'll be able to route in street and trips, export to .gpx, then convert to .gdb, then load into basecamp.

i did learn how to extend my routes using the "join" function. its another one of those things that works but is painful (but doable).

I'm sure alot of people are probably thinking "why doesn't he just use mapsource or basecamp and be don't with it". the reason is that street and trips is just that much easier to use. i never have to click and icon at the top of the screen during the route process. i can do everything with the mouse through button clicks. extending a route and modifying a route in street and trips is also painless. Its just too easy.

thanx again for the help. i can definitely now use this tool in my arsenal.

Greygoose