Question about my new GPS ?

[araucano]

Hello and many thanks for your replies!
I have just acquired mu Ist GPS (Garmin nuvi 255 W).I've learnt most of the basics,but I have come to the following problem:
I'm in Fl now, when I try to set up a trip to only sixty miles away from home it shows as "no matches found".Are there any proper way to put in the address,or any other mistakes I could be doing?Do you know of any forum where I might be able to post my ?.Thanks again!araucano.

[RVThere]

The street address is very often not the exact location on the Garmin map. Here are a couple of tips I use with my Garmins:
- call the place you are trying to find and ask for the nearest cross street. On my Garmin, there is a feature where you can put in cross streets instead of an address
- download Garmin MapSource on your computer. That will allow you to look at the area on your computer, find where you want to go, and right click and get the street address where Garmin thinks the location is. You can then enter that 'garmin address' into your GPS.
-Once you get to your location, you can set it up as a Waypoint so that next time you can just navigate to the waypoint
- MOST IMPORTANT - set your home location in your GPS now so you can find your way back from any location (and realize that your address may not be where your house actually is on the Garmin map...)

Good luck!

[Ken-55]

Great source for GPS advice:

GPS Review Forums

[John H...]

Another tip. For what it's worth. When you put in a home address, Just put in something close to your home address like a restaurant or something close. If you were to lose your GPS, someone could find your location and go right to it and it might not be someone returning it.

[paz]

One thing we have found with our Garmin Nuvi is they are not always constant in how they name the roads, especially if it's a numbered route. For example, in one case they call a road Hwy 24, and sometimes they will call it Highway 24. Someplace else, a road may be called SR (state route) 18. In yet another location, a road may be called Route 89. To add to the confusion, in other instances they will use the road name (Main St.) instead of the route number.

As a work around if Garmin can't find the address I'm looking for, I select browse map if I know about where the location is. You can also use something like Google Maps to find the location. Once you zoom in on your Garmin, you can put the cursor on the road, and it will give you the name. That way you'll know if it's called Route or Highway or whatever. Once you know what Garmin wants to call it, there's a better chance it can be found.

[Elkhartjim]

My Garmin doesn't want road, rd, hwy, etc, just the number. Interstate Highway 45 I simply enter as 45.

Now back to the op's question. Make sure you have the state entered correctly. I sometimes forget I started in Texas (I know, hard to believe) and now I'm in Arkansas. I type in Little Rock and no listing...not one in Texas. Hope this helps some.

[Arch Hoagland]

Give us the two addresses and we'll try it or tell you what you did wrong.

Also you can try it on google maps and see if it works.

[araucano]

Thanks once again for taking the time to reply........

Point A 10063 State Road 78 West.Okeechobee.Fl
Point B 6128 South Congress Av.Lantana.Fl

[ernieh]

Are you entering the number then "done" before you try to enter the street name? Also, you have to select the proper (according to Garmin) town or use the "search all" feature.

[araucano]

Thyere is only one way to do it,right.?... spell city......enter house #..done,Enter street....done"No matches found".......Thanks for your time.

[hdossett]

Quote:

Originally Posted by araucano Thyere is only one way to do it,right.?... spell city......enter house #..done,Enter street....done"No matches found".......Thanks for your time.

Make sure you haven't changed the "state" somehow. I doubt that you have, but I can do thing like that and forget it.

Harold

[paz]

Quote:

Originally Posted by araucano Thanks once again for taking the time to reply........ Point A 10063 State Road 78 West.Okeechobee.Fl Point B 6128 South Congress Av.Lantana.Fl

I tried finding both addresses on our Garmin Nuvi 750 with the following results:

Point A - When I type in Okeechobee, FL, the address of 10063, then State Route 78W, it says "no matches found." When I type in SR 78W, it lists several ranges of addresses, but the highest is 9999. When say "show map" for the address of 9999 and then move the cursor closer to Okeechobee, the Garmin gives descending addresses. When I move the cursor farther away from Okeechobee, the Garmin only reads "Hwy 78" with no addresses shown. For some reason, the data only goes up to 9999. 10063 must be too far out of town, but if you use 9999 you will get very close.

Point B - My Nuvi could not find South Congress Ave. in Lantana. When I checked our DeLorme mapping software on our computer, it showed South Congress Ave. does not pass through Lantana. The area around the address in question is shown by DeLorme as being in Lake Worth. Lake Worth is north of Lantana, but the area to the west of Lantana where Congress Ave. is located is also Lake Worth. When I put 6128 S Congress Lake Worth into the Garmin, it found it with no problem.

One thing to remember about GPS - they are not perfect. I always check our route with our DeLorme mapping software before we travel the route in the RV. I'm not as diligent when traveling in the car because it's easier to get out of trouble (like a dead end, a road that doesn't exist, or a dirt road) in the car. Something like DeLorme, Mapquest or Google Maps can also be used to verify a location that the GPS can't find. It's easier to scroll around and to see things on the bigger computer screen.

[Arch Hoagland]

I tried google maps and it didn't like point A. It offered several suggestions.

I selected:
State Road 78 W, Okeechobee, Glades, Florida 33471

and it took that. Said it was 87.3 miles.

So something is wrong with the point A address as far as GPS things are concerned.

[Ken-55]

Point A:

I found it in Google maps under their suggestion of "Florida 78" for the street.

When I tried it in my Navigon 5100 GPS, I just entered "78" for the street and it offered several versions that all seemed to be State Road 78, I just selected "SR-78" and that worked fine!

On to my Garmin Nuvi 855 . . . again, after selecting Okeechobee, Florida, I had to enter the street number first, then street name . . . I entered "78" as the street name and it found multiple addresses along "Hwy 78", none of them actually street #10063.

Last try . . . Microsoft Streets & Trips . . . not even close using the "Florida 78" address from the Google map window that I still had open . . . it was trying to send me to a random spot on Florida's turnpike in the Fort Drum Wildlife Management Area?? Changing it to "SR-78" yielded better results, just a mile up the road from where I think you want to be, based on Google maps.

Point B:

I found similar results to PAZ (nothing under Lantana, but fine as Lake Worth) . . . just curious, where did you get these addresses??? Are they legit mailing addresses that you and the USPS use? Most businesses these days are aware of potential differences between what they've traditionally used for a mailing address and what customers find in their GPS units . . . if there's a discrepancy, they often say . . . for GPS use, enter ____.