Garmin beeping when off course

[Bianchi Boy]

I have a new Garmin eTrex 30 and I got my old Vista HCx to beep when I went off course. I use tracks and set up the marine setting to beep when I was 200m off course. I have set this up on the 30 and when off course to see if it would work - it did not. As a bit of a day dreamer I found this feature very useful - mostly at night.

Is there a way to get the Garmin to tell you when you are off course when following a track?

BB

[Ningishzidda]

If you go into the 'Voices' menu, you can configue for a "Turn around when possible!" message.

[Euan Uzami]

I have a new Garmin eTrex 30 and I got my old Vista HCx to beep when I went off course. I use tracks and set up the marine setting to beep when I was 200m off course. I have set this up on the 30 and when off course to see if it would work - it did not. As a bit of a day dreamer I found this feature very useful - mostly at night.

Is there a way to get the Garmin to tell you when you are off course when following a track?

BB

The etrex 30 is, as far as I am aware, mute I'm afraid!

[BikinOn]

I'm having the same problem with my Oregon 600, my edge 705 would beep automatically when I was off the track I was following.

[BikinOn]

The best advice I've come across so far is from Feanor & frankly frankie in this thread:
https://yacf.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=77840.0

Not so much jump through hoops as do a half pike and a back-flip while you're at it! Way more work in setting up than my old Edge 705 

[Bianchi Boy]

The best advice I've come across so far is from Feanor & frankly frankie in this thread:
https://yacf.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=77840.0

Not so much jump through hoops as do a half pike and a back-flip while you're at it! Way more work in setting up than my old Edge 705 

Maybe I am mis reading but I could not find the section that described the beeping when off course. Interesting that you have the same issue with the Oregon as this shares a lot of software with the eTrex. The Garmin support said I should hard reboot the device and install the latest software. I have done this and it has made no change. They said that if this did not work return the unit for replacement. Mmmmmm funny fault that just impacts one software feature.

I have not heard of anyone else who used this option and frankly I find it so useful I wonder why not. Maybe I am just going to have to stop day dreaming when out riding.

BB

[BikinOn]

The best their suggestion will produce is beeps at turns, useful but not what we are really after. I too have always preferred just putting down a track to follow and getting a warning if I mess up. I've found the routing thing on the Edge a bit irritating, as after showing the turn it would zoom the map out to about 5 miles. The couple of times I've tried car type routing on the Oregon and it seemed a bit better, but it's a lot of effort to get it to follow a set route rather than just "take me to this point and I don't care how you get me there"

Not sure I believe that Garmin tech, I've had them talk out of their ass to me before 

I've done some more reading and have had one thought that I have no firm proof for yet, the Oregon supports Tracks and Routes. The Edge supports Routes and Courses. A track seems to be just a picture of a course shown on the map, nothing more, the whole "Go" thing when selecting might be a bit of a red herring.

More research required 

[frankly frankie]

Tracks and Routes are a GPX standard.  Courses are a Garmin proprietary thing.   
Courses are fairly similar to Tracks but require timestamps for each point.  Tracks can just be made up of points without timestamps.  Courses also have an embedded concept of 'laps' - which I suppose in theory may make them better for circular routes*, which is what most people do on their bikes.

* an oxymoron - a route by definition is something that takes you from one place to another.

[Ningishzidda]

There's a Chubby Brown voice for the TomTom which 'bleeps' when I go off-course.

[BikinOn]

Following on from frankly Frankie's thoughts, I think the Wikipedia article below is pretty much confirming my supposition:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GPS_eXchange_Format

I also note that while eTrex and Oregon units are very popular with the users of this forum, no one has said, "my eTrex beeps!".

[Ningishzidda]

Thought.

The Garmin might bleep when it is in Autorouting after it has recalculated and created a ‘U’ turn to get the unit to the closest Viapoint which would be behind you.

[frankly frankie]

My distant memory of the E30 is that it was generally a bit lacking in beeps.  It will beep when routing but AIUI that is not how the OP was using it.

I've done some more reading and have had one thought that I have no firm proof for yet, the Oregon supports Tracks and Routes. The Edge supports Routes and Courses. A track seems to be just a picture of a course shown on the map, nothing more, the whole "Go" thing when selecting might be a bit of a red herring.

You don't need to press 'Go' to follow a Course (or a Track that has been converted into a Course by the GPS).  You can just colour it and display it on the map and follow it that way, exactly as you can on an Etrex or Oregon.  You lose some bells and whistles but not everybody wants those anyway.
It's possible (I don't know, not an Edge user) that you need to press 'Go' to record your progress - but navigation and tracklogging are two completely separate things.

[T42]

A chum of mine uses a CompE that beeps when he gets off-track by quite a trivial amount. Drives him crazy.

[Ningishzidda]

IIRC, with Topo GB and a Route loaded through Mapsource, to start the ride, I had to load the route through the ‘Saved rides’ menu and press the ‘Start’ button. Along the Route, the unit would bleep some distance prior to a direction instruction, and then again immediately before the turn.
If I went off-course, recalculation would happen and the unit would bleep to inform me the next instruction was a ‘U’ turn.

[Bianchi Boy]

Maybe I used the wrong term when starting this thread - All I want is a Garmin unit that will beep when I am more that 200m off a track.

Is that so hard?

[BikinOn]

In short - Yes 

The eTrex and Oregon units are not capable of that function when displaying tracks, in fact they don't appear to think of tracks as tracks on the map, just some lines representing an old route that was previously followed. It's a matter of supreme indifference to the GPSr whether you follow those lines or not.

They only way you appear to be able to get a beep out of the thing is to jump through the hoops, do the back-flip and create a Route   I'm a bit disappointed too, I've found the warning extremely useful over the years.

[Ningishzidda]

Maybe I used the wrong term when starting this thread - All I want is a Garmin unit that will beep when I am more that 200m off a track.

Is that so hard?

"With Garmin, young Jedi, hard, everything is."

[Bianchi Boy]

I am in email discussion with Garmin support. My new 30 also does not beep when I go off track with Marine Off-Course alarm set or off route when created with way points - just recalculates silently.

I will update when I get a response.

So far I done a hard reboot and reset all the settings.

Steve

[BikinOn]

Ah, so it won't beep when routing either? In that case it's some sort of problem with the unit.

Just another thought to cheer you up, else where I've documented my battery life woes that may be linked to firmware 3.5 - Danger Will Robinson, Danger!

[fuaran]

Go to Setup menu -> Tones, and check all of the tones are switched on. You can set it to beep on each keypress. Or try setting the alarm clock.
If none of this works, then it sounds like the speaker is broken.