Dakota 20 capacity

I'm planning a vacation and want to set up my Dakota 20 in advance for
offroad walks. To date I've only used it for a day's worth of walking at
a time. I'm not clear on what the limits of the device are in terms of
stored data because the user guide and other stuff on the web appears
ambiguous to me.

Please can anyone confirm the limit values for me and clarify the other
queries (or provide pointers):

- Waypoints/favorites/location capacity: 1,000
? These are separate items from the waypoints and trackpoints contained
in routes and tracks?

- Routes: 50
? How many waypoints per route?

- Tracklog: 10,000 points
? Presumably that refers to the active track only?

- 200 saved tracks
? How many trackpoints per track?

- Routes versus Tracks
? I understand that I create a route whereas the Dakota logs a track for
me which I can then save, and that I can then set the Dakota to follow
either a route or a saved track. My mapping software (Mapyx Quo) allows
me to create and export saved tracks as well as routes. What are the
pros and cons of using tracks versus saved routes for pre-planned walks?

- SD expansion memory card
? Can I use this to provide any increase in these capacities? If so, how?

On 20/09/2011 08:56, Nemo wrote:

Looks like I've stumbled upon some gaps in the collective knowledge of
mankind. Garmin support hasn't responded to my emails either.

I'd try to discover the limits experimentally myself but I'm concerned
about 'bricking' the unit if the error coding in the firmware is
inadequate - which may well be the case as the limits are apparently not
well-defined and documented.

Ho hum.

Must ahve missed this the first time around...

On Tue, 27 Sep 2011 10:14:28 +0100, Nemo wrote:

Yes, these are separate.


Of yours? 200, IIRC. The practical answer is "you won't get that high
unless you're using it wrong."


Yes. Well, kind of.


10,000 IIRC. Basically, that's how many the track manager can handle to
display.


Tracks don't dynamically update. It's a series of dots connected by
lines drawn on the map and it's up to you to make your little current
postition indicator go along it. Routes point you in the direction to
get to the next waypoint marked or next chunk of routable data if you're
using a routable map, using the obviously sensible definition of "next"
for the direction you're going.


No. Cards increase the amount of map data that you can store on the
unit. track and route managers don't look at the cards.



--
"Meet it is I set it down
That one may smile, and smile, and be a villain"

Thanks for your response Peter, it's becoming clearer. Especially the
difference between routes and tracks.


However, I'm not clear why you say that. For example, the Pembrokeshire
Coastal Path totals about 186 miles, which I doubt can be adequately
represented in just 200 waypoints. The version I've downloaded from the
web has 642 waypoints and still doesn't follow it closely when compared
to a 1:25000 OS map.

Also, the difference between the 200 waypoints per route limit and the
10,000 waypoints per track is huge - I wonder why?

Sounds like I'm still missing the point - care to explain?

Nemo wrote:

That's easy - you are supposed to set up the waypoints in advance and then
follow the route from one waypoint to the next. If they are so close
together then you need a robot to follow the route because it would be so
boring! Whereas trackpoints are meant to be set up by the device
automatically (following some rule like a %age deviation from a straight
line) so the track as a whole shows where you have been after the event.
It's much more interesting for sailors!

Mike.
--
If reply address is Mike@@mjcoon.+.com (invalid), remove spurious "@"
and substitute "plus" for +.