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[Product information screen.]

Tips and Tricks, and Bugs

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What is astonishing about the RoadMate 360 is how badly its finer features are documented. All of these features are built into ROM, but the manual doesn't say anything about them. None of these will hurt your RoadMate, so have at them. Some of these tricks may apply to other RoadMates, although I have not tested them (the RM300 seems especially likely).

This page is current as of version 1.81, the most current available firmware revision. You can see your machine's firmware under the OPTION menu, User Options, Diagnostics, Product Information.

Resetting the RM360

Under most circumstances you can forcibly power off the RM360 even if it ignores you by holding down the power button for about 10 seconds. Naturally, if this fails, just yank the power.

Getting Altitude, Heading and Speed Data

[GPS Status screen 2.] The RM360 collects full 3D lock data, not just the latitude and longitude it displays in LOCATE. To see the altitude, select User Settings, Diagnostics (use this fast sequence: down arrow three times, ENTER, minus button twice, up arrow once, ENTER), then GPS Status and press ENTER (i.e., hit ENTER twice). You will then see all the GPS statistics.

Note that altitude is given in metres, just to give us a headache in the USA. Recall that a meter = 39.37 inches = 3.28 feet.

If you're curious about what all the other information is, there is a terse explanation in the manual under Appendix A.

Using the RM360 as an Atlas

The Lowrance units and some others have an incredibly useful feature where you can punch in an address and then arbitrarily go and look at the location on the map as if you were there (like having Google Maps in your car). Although the RM360 doesn't let you do that per se, I came up with a kludge to do almost the same thing.

Although this is a bit convoluted, it's quick to learn, and makes the RM360 quite handy as a handheld map. Probably not so useful now that many of us can get maps on our cellphones, but you might appreciate this trick when you're out in the boonies with no cell reception.

Using Simulator Mode

The manual talks a little bit about this (the .pdf on CD has it on page 81, although my Mac gives it as page 87), but what it allows you to do is to preview your route at up to 2x "typical speed" (presumably speed limit). Quite useful if you're unfamiliar with the area, or don't trust the RM360's ability to route. You could also use this as an alternative way of turning the RM360 into an atlas, although if you're in California and trying to view an address in Maine, you might be waiting awhile. Anyway:

You can just leave the simulator option on unless the prompt really bugs you. Note that every time a new route is generated, you will be asked this question (that means wrong turns as well).

The routing crash bug affects simulator mode too (see below).

Routing Directly To Lat/Long

You can't directly punch in a latitude and longitude, but if you know roughly where that particular coordinate is and can get close, you can route to that first, scroll the cursor to the desired coordinates with the touch screen or the arrows, and press ENTER. A screen asking Route To This Address? with the coordinates will appear. From there you can go straight into routing, or save it to the Address Book for later.

You can also use the map trick above, but you can't directly route to the coordinates straight away because the GPS information is fouled. Save it instead, set your GPS back to the correct location, acquire a lock (or it will hang the unit!!), and then route to it from the Address Book.

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