I am taking time out of my busy pre-Christmas schedule to answer more of your questions.  It might be a surprise to most but today's question is about the zumo 550.  It's a good thing too, I wouldn't want to neglect this product.  Here goes:

Q:  How do you get to the compass page on the Zumo 550?  I have set it to off-road and the screen doesn't come up. Do you have to have a certain area of a map, or a topo map loaded?  I just recently purchased one, and am trying to learn all the screens without going out in the car or bike.
Thanks...

A: In order to get the compass page to come up on your zumo 550, there are two requirements.  The first is that you have to be in "Off Road" mode.  To do this, go to "Settings > "Navigation" > "Route Preference" and change it to "Off Road".  The second requirement is that the unit is in a route.  This means you need to go to "Where To?" and set a destination.  Once you have done this, you can press the page button (the button on the left with the square on it), or tap the arrow on the map screen.  This will take you to the compass page. 

Well, I'm off again.  Keep those comments coming in about things you'd like to see here on the Garmin blog.

Comments

[Clive]

I currently use Tomtom on a Palm PDA, but am thinking about going to a motorbike specific solution.

Does the Zumo give an Estimated Time of Arrival? Distance/Time to Destination?

Thanks

Clive

[fxk]

Hi Chet,

Just took the ZUMO on a 1700 mile trip - I loved it. I especailly liked the ability to load "routes" - I can't imagine why the expensive auto-type navigators do not have this feature, yet the lower price units, like the earlier streetpilot series do.

The guys were skeptical of the unit. I must say, it came in handy a number of times.

I was surprised and a bit disappointed in a couple of aspects -
1. The bike was not wired, but I was using the bike mount and the internal battery. Features like the fuel gauge (that is motorcycle mount only) did not work. One has to ask why that is limited to the motorcycle mount only in the first place. It would also be useful in the car...
Same thing, the big keyboard for cyclists wasn't automatically activated. I wish Garmin had thought of the Zumo querying the mount type even when on batteries...

2. I was trying to send someone to a place I had been and wanted to use the coordinates of the point I had in favorites. Although there is a "coordinates" page to enable navigation to a specific point, and when a "favorites" is created, the coordinates are displayed, If I go back to a previously saved point, there is no way to bring up the coordinates. Ummm...

It will be nice when I upgrade the unit software to get the bearing indicator on the compass...

final wish - with the third button down, I can scroll from 3d map to dashboard to the compass and back, but the on screen buttons (more) does not have the same functions. They are similar enough that it gets confusing when the results are different.

thanks

frank

[Jim Corbett]

Hi Chet
I'm a huge fan of Garmin products, now using a GPSMap60CSX, my 3rd Garmin GPS. While I've happily and successfully used the CSx as I drive long-distance bus trips i.e. Toronto - NYC; wilderness canoe trips; airplanes; cars etc., the one question I have arises from riding Amtrak from Chicago to Seattle. Using City Navigator NT, the railway tracks appear on the CSx screen (at 200m magnification), and as long as the tracks are located in the countryside, the CSx indicates that we're 'right on track' so to speak. However, when there are roads adjacent to the track, the indicator keeps jumping over to the road and back to the track. In real life this would be a bit of a disaster of course! Could you offer a solution to enable the train to stay on track, or must I learn to enjoy the imaginary bumpy ride?
Thank you
Jim