BRAND Newbie

[McNan]

Good day, and grateful to all who run this place.  Stumbled across it today and very happy I did.

A little about myself; I am a retired 62 year old in northern Maine.  My Arctic Cat ATV 550 has less than 200 miles on it.  My partner in crime is also retired, 60, and we both love the outdoors.  Both of us are considered "from away" by the local Mainers, which is fine by us; they are are warm and welcoming and very, very nice.  We feel right at home here.

The problem lies in getting places on the Cat.  If we don't go with someone, we don't know where to go.  Yes, there are clubs we could join, but to be honest, that really isn't our thing.  We'd prefer to explore on our own, and that's why finding this place is so exciting.  Some trails are clearly marked, others (most) are not at all.  Personal directions usually consist of things like "You know where the Smith barn burned down four years ago?".  We already own a Garmin for the car, and absolutely love it; it gives us TOTAL freedom when we go someplace we've never been before. Tried it on the Cat, and while it does help some, it's not made for this kind of travel I fear.  We've been told about hand held GPS's by some friends, and now I am VERY curious about the Montana 650t from Garmin.  Read some if the posts here about it, and it sounds like where we want to go.

Can we really get trail maps in detail?  Will the 650t take us places like the Garmin for the car will?  I am SUCH a newbie to all of this, any help would be greatly appreciated.  Does it "track" you and then take you "back" if your on unknown trails?

I guess I'm so new to all of this I don't even know what questions to ask!

Anyway, hello, thanks for the ease of use and joining, and I hope to be part of your community.

Mac Randolph

[Boyd]

Welcome Mac!

I've had a Montana 600 for several years and it's a very nice device. The 650T adds a camera, which by all reports isn't especially good, and Garmin's US Topo 100k map, which has never really impressed me. Are you familiar with the old paper USGS 1:100,000 (100k) maps? They show a large area but without a lot of detail or accuracy. This doesn't completely translate to Garmin's digital format, but the concept is the same. It will give you topo maps of the whole US, but not very detailed. This may be fine for some people, I used them myself for many years because "back in the day" they were about the best you could do for a Garmin GPS.

But today I don't think they are such a good value, and I would suggest saving the money and getting the Montana 600. You could then try the free maps here and see how you like them. If you do, then you're all set. Otherwise you could consider purchasing a Garmin map, like their 24k Topo Northeast.

Garmin actually just announced an upgrade to the Montana this morning by the way. They have added the ability to receive more satellite signals (GLONASS) and it may have an upgraded screen (hard to tell from the published specs). I don't know that these improvements warrant the higher price. Will be interesting to see if the Montana 600 price drops. See: http://forums.gpsreview.net/discussion/29933/garmin-montana-610-680

The rest of your question seems pretty subjective. You will have to be the judge of the map quality here. Many different authors have contributed maps and their styles can be different. I suggest you download anything of interest for starters. It's free, so why not? http://www.gpsfiledepot.com/maps/

Next download Basecamp here (Windows) http://www8.garmin.com/support/download_details.jsp?id=4435 or here for MacOSX: http://www8.garmin.com/support/download_details.jsp?id=4449

Now follow this tutorial to get the maps into Basecamp: http://www.gpsfiledepot.com/tutorials/how-to-open-maps-in-garmin-basecamp/

Next, just spend some time studying and comparing the maps, This can be done on your computer without purchasing anything.

You should be aware however that most of the maps on this site CANNOT provide directions for navigation. They will only show your position on the screen, so they won't "take you places" like your Nuvi does in the car. The Montana is capable of doing that, but it requires a special type of map that is more difficult to create. So there are not very many maps of this type at GPSFileDepot.

It certainly can show where you've been, and you can name and save these tracks for future reference. You will also find websites that allow you to download tracks created by others.