Motion X HD

[FishPOET]

Paper map

Motion X map

I had zero experience with Motion X HD prior to my trip to the San Juan Mountains of Colorado. I was pretty familiar with the area and I had paper maps for all the trails.

I tried to upload the .gpx files from traildamage.com via email per the instructions from Motion X and it did not work. I'm not sure If I need another app or what?

I downloaded 7960 map tiles from Motion X of the San Juan Mountains area before I left. It would not let me download zoom level 16 but as it turned out I never zoomed in that close anyway.

I had a passenger with me on every trail. The passenger spent quite a bit of time learning Motion X on the fly.

Day 1 while we were still in 3G range the program worked. Once out of 3G range we saw a blank map. I'm still not sure what we did wrong?

Days 2-5 the program worked in and/or out of 3G range.

Day 6 we were back in an area that we had been in on day 2 (thanks to a detour) and we could not figure out how to delete the bread crumb trail from day 2. We ended up resetting the program which the help menu stated would not delete the map download. It deleted the map download. We were not in 3G range long enough to download the map set. I think it was almost an hour download. We read about map caching and although I'm still not sure exactly how map caching works we did get some of the maps to cache while we were out of 3G range but not others.

Day 7 we downloaded the map set and the program worked again in or out of 3G range.


The program did not keep the vehicle centered on the map. We had to manually move the map screen to keep the map centered on our location?


I never saved any tracks. The program has that capability as well as the ability to download the saved tracks.

The program has many more features which we never got a chance to use.

The April 2012 issue of FJC Magazine had a write up on iPad, Motion X, Everytrail and Funtreks(Charles Wells) I do not have any SD cards from Funtreks but I did buy the Everytrail App and I had downloaded the Funtreks guides for the area before I left. I could not get Everytrail to work at all and I could not get Motion X to use the Funtreks waypoints or tracks as described in the article.


My first trip ever to the San Juan Mountains was in 2009 and by using Overland Navigator, traildamage.com .gpx files and paper maps I never made a wrong turn.
We only made 1 wrong turn this trip using Motion X.

 

[RobRed]

Well most of your difficulty seems to be knowing the program. For example if you pinch-zoom or pan the map the app assumes you want to look where you moved the view to... to recenter and keep 'you' there tap the caret button (between the + and - buttons). You can tap the caret multiple times to set direction up, north up, compass track.

You can load gpx files via email so I'm not sure what went wrong there. You can also (better) load them via itunes, enabled in the setting menu. You cannot get gpx files from other apps on board the iPad in real time.

There are two kinds of tracks in Motion X - Realtime (blue) and Recorded (Red). To clear the realtime (blue track) use the Layers | Real Time Track | Clear button sequence. To Show or not show the recorded tracks use this sequence: Layers | Recorded Tracks and then Show Hide what you want.

Bottom line is you need to spend an hour learning Motion X GPS HD.

Check out these links:

My Motion X Map Download Tutorial http://forum.tlcfaq.com/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=13

iPad navigation FAQ http://forum.tlcfaq.com/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=26

iPad Overland Navigation Primer http://tlcfaq.com/main/2012/08/ipad-overland-navigation-system/

 

[FishPOET]

Thank you for the assistance Rob.

I made the statement up front that I had zero experience. Linda was navigating and between the 2 of us we read through the help files quite a few times trying to figure out how to accomplish the simple tasks you described above.

 

[RobRed]

You are welcome Doug. Dont sweat it, I wasn't judging. Some times trial by fire is a good way to learn what you dont know. I think if you spend some time familiarizing yourself and Linda with the operation of the iPad and MotionX GPS HD you will find out very quickly how brilliant it is.

I recommend more than one app on board so you have option should MotionX fall short. As I mentioned in my Primer MxGPSHD is the most ergo of the apps to use on the fly.

 

[FishPOET]

I ditched the netbook because I had a hard time seeing the screen. The iPad screen is wonderful.

I waited until the last minute hoping Overland Navigator would be ready for the iPad and when it wasn't I had very little time to learn Motion X. Overall I was happy with the way Motion X performed and it seems to be a very powerful program full of features that someday I hope to be able to utilize.