1.9 Waypoints & Route Point Names
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Ensure that the XT retains your name.
Pics 1 and 2 show a different 485 mile trip from Fort William in Scotland to Skipton in Yorkshire. The blue circles mark the Shaping Points and the orange flags mark the Via Point that I have used.
Pic 1 shows the Trip from the XT, and
Pic 2 shows the map. To get both images I have stitched together a few
adjacent screen shots from the Zumo.
On the map I have drawn rectangles, each of
which contains a 3 digit number. These represent the mileage from the
start of the route, and I added this 3 digit number to the front of the name of
every single route point.
This will help you to recognise individual
points from the trip list in Pic 1. But for some route points, that
number has been lost. I have outlined these points in red in the Trip
List. The XT has renamed the points - they no longer have the number that
I allocated - seemingly using the lat/long coordinates to look up a place name
from somewhere.
The behaviour seems to be random - It happens to some - but not all of the others. I don't
know why. But it never happens to points that were first created as Waypoints in Basecamp - using the Waypoint
Flag tool.
Garmin know about this fault, and I have been told that
they are currently working to find a solution. (Garmin Support Sept
2021). How long they have been working on it, I don't know - but the
same fault existed on the 595.
At present, the only reliable way that I have found of making the Zumo XT retain the names that you gave your route points - is to create them as Waypoints before you start the route.
Remember that Garmin's definition of a Waypoint is a location that is defined and saved. It is not the same as a point on a route - although if it is used in a route it can be a via or a shaping point.
Identifying Waypoints in Basecamp.
If you created a point with the flag tool, before starting your route, then it will be a Waypoint. It will be automatically stored in the list of 'Favourites' or 'Saved' locations when the route is transferred to the XT's Internal Storage. If it is transferred to the SD card, 'Favourites' or 'Saved' places have to be imported manually. It doesn't happen automatically.
You cannot identify Waypoints in your route list in Basecamp. The symbol (small dot, small circle and large circle) sometimes gives a clue, but it isn't reliable - that symbol seems to have more to do with the size of a town or village.
The only reliable place is to look in the bottom left pane of Basecamp. In Pic 3 I show the Library folder structure. I have a list (hi-lighted in blue) titled 'Skipton from Ft William'. That is in a folder called 'For Screen Shots' - a folder I created for preparing this article.
In the bottom pane are listed all of the items that are in the 'Skipton from Ft William' list. The Waypoints, the tracks, the routes. The routes can be spotted by the vehicle icon - in this case a motorcycle. The tracks are the pair of footprints. The waypoints are the green circles and the blue flags. But those symbols are irrelevant. I assigned them to make them stand out for this article.
If a route point appears in that bottom left
hand pane - then it is a Waypoint. No other route points appear in
there. When inserting route points, you may often land on a location that is a saved point in the Basecamp database, and you find a shopping trolley or a bank appear in that left hand pane. It is one of the many waypoints or Points of Interest that come with Basecamp.
nb - at the bottom of that pane is a set of icons (not shown) which allow
you to filter the list to show just (eg) routes, just tracks, just waypoints.
You would normally have that set to show everything.
Why does the name matter ?
On the face of it, it doesn’t. It’s only when you are in the middle of a Trip in an area that you don’t know that it could become an issue. It is to do with situations when the name is displayed on the screen
- and it presents you with a name that you do not recognise.
This may happen for example, when using the 'Skip' function or when you are asked to 'Select Next
Destination' at the start of a trip. When it happens, if it matters, it really does matter.
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The information on these pages has been acquired from personal experience of using and testing the behaviour of Basecamp and my Zumo XT. I have no links with Garmin, and these pages should not be regarded as instructions. They are presented for interest only. The contents of these pages must not be shared, copied, transmitted, redistributed or re-published in any form without my permission. (C) JHeath 2021.