Montana 610t

spower

Hi, I am wondering if I am able to use Mapsource US Topo 2008 with my montana 610t?

Thanks!!
SPower

Boyd

Yes, it should work. I assume you have the version that was provided on DVD? The only problem with this old map is that it uses very small segments. Segments are the individual "tiles" that make up the entire map, and there is no standard size for these. For old maps, Garmin used very small segments to make them compatible with old devices that had small amounts of memory. This will prevent you from installing the full map on your Montana.

Garmin gps units have a limit to how many segments you can load - this is completely unrelated to the overall size of the map - see this

https://support.garmin.com/en-PH/?faq=Qmuv3rlqmb7CIDul9G7HkA

Your Montana can only access a total of 4000 segments, and (IIRC) Topo 2008 contains over 6,000 total segments. So you would only be able to load part of the US. And the segment limit is the total of ALL maps you have installed on the GPS, regardless of if they are in internal memory or a card and regardless of if the maps are enabled.

BUT.... here's the part I don't understand. The Montana 610t already has the Garmin 100k US topo pre-installed (assuming that you have the US version). This is a new, improved version of Topo US 2008, and it has been changed such that only ~500 segments are used for the entire US. So I can't imagine any reason why you would want to install that old map, which is (frankly) very inaccurate and generally terrible by today's standards. The new topo on the Montana 610t has roads from HERE (Navteq) that are much more accurate than Topo 2008.

However, if you must install this map for some reason, be aware that the current version of Basecamp/MapInstall will not work properly. A year ago Garmin updated MapInstall in a way that makes it incompatible with this type of old map. If you try to install, everything will appear to be fine. But when you look on the GPS, the map won't work.

So, use Mapsource if you want to install it. And look on the map tab in the left part of the window. It will say how many segments you have selected. You will want to keep this number well below the 4,000 segment limit, probably around 2000 total segments if you also have other maps on the device.

spower

Thank you for the information....my topo 100k maps are not that great and don't provide route navigating. I think I will just go with the 24k topo.

Thanks for your help!!