So... more on the Oregon.
Yesterday was the Christmas WARTY for which I had a track duly loaded on the Oregon.
Before I left home for Chelmsford I was faffing around a bit with downloading some more OSM maps (I'm trying to find a good one of Germany and Benelux for my tour next May). Anyway, I realised I was running out of time so stopped what I was doing and set off in the car to the WARTY.
I had this fab plan of parking near Chelmsford, marking a waypoint "Car" which meant I could find it again, and then heading to Chelmsford Station using the waypoint I had previously created "Chelmsford Station". All grand.
However, when I switched the Oregon on after parking the car and reassembling the trike I discovered that I had accidentally disabled the UK map (it was on the SD card but no longer in the 'Garmin' folder as I was preparing to put the Europe map in there to check it out). So no maps, no auto routing to Chelmsford station.
Fortunately the station was easy to find, but it meant that I was following the track all day without actually seeing any roads or fields or points of interest. It also meant that I had to rely a bit more on my memory to find the car.
Today was a non-bike day but I decided to take the Oregon in the car to see how it worked in Automotive mode. I had loaded a Europe map from Cloudmade, plus AndyGates' UK map, and thought that would be interesting. I had already used the 'Where To' feature previously when cycling and using a different UK map but discovered when trying to use these maps that the unit got into a circular 'Calculating Route' and beeping mode and couldn't make a route for me at all. The only way to stop it going round in circles trying to calculate was to switch all the maps off, at which point it would stop trying and I could then get it back to normal. Even switching the unit off didn't stop its circular routing. My husband and I tried lots of different variables but it kept getting stuck. Since returning home I've re-enabled the previous UK map I used and that can do the routing, but if I use AndyGates' map only it doesn't; if I use both maps then it seems to work. Odd, but I'm glad I found it out before I needed to use the routing feature in anger.
Still think it's a brill gadget, had great fun playing with various options today and used the calculator feature yesterday.