whats the difference between them all?? i use my garmin for off road only....i dont use it for road so dont need to be 'guided' as such for next turn left etc....
which is the best way to plot an off road route? i wouldnt mind a beep every trackpoint? (do you get trackpoints on a course file? or is that just .gpx?)....
when i used to use .gpx before on my last one, the maps would have little markpoints at every point i clicked on when plotting, thus it would beep every so often to tell me im at the next point...
is saving it as a track not the same? would i get beeps all the way around on a .tcx track route? or is it just simply a line to follow?
sorry for the boring question, just getting confused with them all now 🙁
a route is sort of a linked set of waypoints. you can plan them on an online tool, with points at major turns, etc. and export to gpx.
a track is a recorded track of where you have been, usually with a point every so many seconds.
a course is some slightly more proprietry garmin thing? don't know anything about them.
you can follow either a route or a track. with a route (on a garmin etrex at least), you get a warning as you approach a route point, and big arrow poining towards next one. with a track, you have to follow the squiggly line.
ahh so the routes are more indepth? i only ever follow the squiggly plotted line anyways on the gps itself, even when i have done them as .gpx routes i never had the bleep on nor the guide telling me to head west or straight on etc?
so id be fine just plotting as a .gpx tracks then? basically like following a route ive done before as a track....i guess it will still track all my data and when you start the route and finish the route on the squiggly line it will know?
routes only work on road with right mapping like OS. Like a car satnav very handy if you do a lot on the road. In garmin setup map orientation as 'automotive' very handy.
"routes" work *anywhere*. I use them offroad. They'll work anywhere that you can put a waypoint.
"routing" (usually) only works on road, depending on the mapping installed on the device. hack the right openstreetmap maps on to an etrex (etc.) that has mapping capabilities and you can have (limited) off-road routing too.
For "routes" all I do is use gmap-pedometer (plus a plugin javascript thing to generate gpx file), create the route on a google map, export it to a file and transfer to the etrex. Can do this in other services too (mapmyrun, everytrail, maybe wikiloc, ...) depending on what level of Web2.0 you want. Some have OS maps, some have openstreetmap, some just google maps/satview.
For "tracks" (if i'm not using my own), I download from everytrail, gpsies, wikiloc etc. and transfer to the etrex.