Cross Routes and Old Routes

[Himself]

I'm still in the early days of working out how I would like my XT configured, and after a trial run yesterday I came up with a couple of oddities.

Having loaded GPX through Garmin Drive and converted to a track, I only received partial voice commands. I could see on the map an upcoming left turn that was the route I'd programmed, but the display line at the top was saying straight on to the next roundabout?

No voice telling me to turn left, but I turned left anyway and continued on the purple line.

The next turn was subtle right and I missed it. In the absence of any voice commands, I figured the route was "follow the road". I watched the purple line go right, while I wandered off in the wrong direction.

I followed my nose for a while and rejoined the purple line, but once again no voice instructions, until several miles later they came back into action.

My only thought was that the route was figure 8 (the route crossed itself) and this confused the XT as it could see the later waypoints earlier than expected. I did have to reroute turned off.

Any ideas why I might get only partial turn instructions?


The second oddity is hopefully much easier - Is there a setting for the XT to only show active routes being followed? Having decided to follow a few roads that I knew, I turned navigation off and just had the may display. As I crossed some of the routes I had loaded into the XT, they were showing up on the may display. Not really what I want. Can I turn it off?

Thanks for the help.

Himself

[jfheath]

Turn on auto recalculation. it might reveal what is happening.

Only one route is ever displayed, although the Xt can display many tracks at the same time.

I suspect that what is happening is that you have missed a Via Point and the satnav is trying to get you to go back to it. Or you have missed the start point - eg you were ahead of it and it is still trying to get you to visit it. When autorecalc is turned off, when you have ignored the satnav instructions, it stops talking to you until you get back onto the CORRECT magenta line. The coorect line is not the one taking you to where you want to go, but the one that the satnav is plotting to the point that you have missed.

Stop at the side of the road, and press the Skip button. that will delete the next point that the satnav is trying to take you to from its list.

You may need to skip a few points until it starts heading you in the right direction. it depends how many you have passed while it was still trying to take you back to the first one that you missed. If you only have one via point - ie the start - then skip that, and as soon as you rejoin the plotted route, all will be well.

pm me with an email address. I'll send you something.

[electro_handyman]

There is also the option to stop the route, then restart it at the "closest entry point".

[rbentnail]

Most of us learned long ago to use two separate routes- one out, one back- if a route is going to loop over itself. Common knowledge for a long time. The only way around that that I've found is many shaping points & recalculation off so it can't be done but it's so much easier to split the route into two.

One problem I had that jfheath refers to is the starting point. This causes problems if the starting point is where you are. Try putting the start point about 1/2 mile down the road you will be traveling and give the device plenty of time to find satellites and calculate a route to that start point before you take off.

[jfheath]

There is also the option to stop the route, then restart it at the "closest entry point".

And this works really well. But make sure that you allow U-turns because when you are stationary it cannot possibly know which way you are facing.
If it thinks you are facing away from the closest entry point, and you disallow U-Turns, you wouldn't believe some of the routes that I have seen it produce.
It took a long time to work out what was causing that (apparently random) problem.

[Rofor]

One problem I had that jfheath refers to is the starting point. This causes problems if the starting point is where you are. Try putting the start point about 1/2 mile down the road you will be traveling and give the device plenty of time to find satellites and calculate a route to that start point before you take off.

You're right! I Think this is the most common error when using routes. As the 'normal' starting point is a ViaPoint (real Waypoint) and must be passed, i've seen so many problems with this at our yearly motorbike-holidays in Southern Tyrol! Bad gps reception and choosing the parking place in front of our hotel as starting point, and bang - you've missed the starting point while driving away on the pre-planned route as the gps didn't have enough satellites. After, let's say, 500m they stop, because the navi wants to get to the starting point...

Can't remember, how often i have talked with other gps users there and described this problem!

About cross routes - interestingly i've never had any problems with this, on the Zumo 59x or now with the Zumo XT!? Every year in the Dolomites we drive the 'classic' Sellaronda - this is a route which crosses itself four times and it works perfectly every time! Don't know why, but we didn't have any problems with this route.

I will add the gpx file here...

[jfheath]

Cross routes.

If you have just shaping points forming your route, then the XT and 59x Zumos behave in a similar way to the old 660s.

The stanav will instruct you to the next shaping point which is to (say) go straight over the cross-over point. Follow the instructions and all is well.
If you turn right instead of crossing over, you are still on the correct route. You haven't missed any Via Points (which insist that you visit them) and the satnav is quite happy - it will navigate you to the next shaping point heading in that direction. Realise your mistake, turn back and take the road you were supposed to take at the crossing, and you are STILL on the magenta route, you still haven't missed any Via Points, so it navigates you to the shaping point in the correct direction.

This is a game you could play all day. If there are missed Via Points, however, that is different. It will always insist that you visit Via Points.

Now if the crossing isn't as clear cut as a plus sign + where you simply cross over the other leg of the route. Instead the crossing shares a short section of the same route. SO when you meet the crossing, you have to turn (say) right along the shared section and then turn left leaving the shared section. I've never tried that - I suspect it will work out OK, but I can understand how it might get confused, thinking that you are on the other leg, and start navigating that.

I remember people complaining about mis-behaviour at crossovers when the 660 was the device to have. Allegedly it didn't do the right thing at crossings. I tried to force it to go wrong and all it required was a bit of forward planning. "Oh look , I'm about to cross the same route - maybe I should check which road I need to be on rather than blindly following the first magenta line that I see."

It was after this that Via Points and Shaping points were introduced. Whether or not this was related to the many complaints I can only speculate. But it took them a while to realise that this 'solution' needed a Skip facility to be added.