Custom POIs on my 750

It's important to understand how the proximity alerts work on Garmin auto units.

The alerts do NOT function as a radius, but rather they function as an "along the road/route" alert (files created as TourGuides not withstanding).

In order to get an alert several things must be true.

1. You must set an alert either through information in the file or via POI Loader being run in Manual Mode and an alert being manually entered.

2. Alerts must be enabled on your unit.

3. You must be traveling on the road on which the POI is located and traveling in the direction of the POI.

4. The POI must be sufficiently close to the road (typically 50 feet or less).

MM: Thanx for your response.. The documentation isn't particularly clear on that issue, methinks (or I'm blind).

I went through the POI loader in manual mode to set the alerts I wanted. We'll see if that works next time I'm out and about.

How would I set an alert in the files I'm loading? Currently the format of the files I have is Col1 and Col2 are coordinates, col 3 is the name of the file I'm loading (or, rather, its currently equal to that, but it might not BE that.).

-Michael in Houston

Check out Phil's great guide for more information about alerts.

Hornbyp's guide to setting alerts with POI Loader
http://www.poi-factory.com/node/6764

If the POI locations are too far from the road so that you still don't get an alert (as is so often the case for School Zones), search this site for TourGuide info. Renaming the files with "TourGuide" in the file name, then activating alerts for a specific distance (don't go too large or you'll start alerting for POIs on adjacent streets), you will then finally get the alert and bmp icon that you want appearing on your unit.

[Edit] Sorry, as I was writing this, MM gave the link which includes TourGuide alerts. If you truly want an alert as you pass near each POI location, then the TourGuide mode might be best for you. For me, it was the only way I could get alerts and icons working for School Zones.

I too had this problem because of the inaccuracies of geocoding the poi's. I've noticed that the Garmin NA 2009 map is not exactly the same as Google or Yahoo maps. So if you geocode using Google or Yahoo, you have a good chance that the point will not be on the roadway in your GPS. On my poi's, I've changed the lat/long settings to account for this difference. Since I've done that, my poi's are alerting properly.

I'm still playing around trying to get things to show up the way I'd like.. Apparently this isn't as trivial as it looks..