Garman 1450 School Zones

First off, welcome to the site.

Depending on where you are, there are some POI files already here on the site for school zones. However I don't know of any way to take the data from the built-in school listings and convert them to a custom POI to create a school zone warning file.

As Box Car says, I also believe there's nothing that can be done with your built-in POIs.

However, you can do as I do with my nuvis. Download the schools POI file from here:

http://www.poi-factory.com/poifiles/us/schools

then download an icon and a sound to go along with them.

Here's where it gets tricky. The School POI file appears to ID the location of the school buildings--and they're far enough off the road that you usually won't get an expected alert as you pass them. So you will need to rename the school.csv file to make it a TourGuide; i.e.,

from Schools.csv to Schools_TourGuide.csv while remembering to rename the icon and audio file exactly the same except for the .bmp, mp3 or wav extension. Someone will need to let us know if your 1450 can play mp3 files. If not, you'll need the wav file and sox.exe

Finally, load the csv, bmp and audio file to your nuvi with POI Loader in Manual Mode and set a distance alert (which will be a radius since it's a TourGuide file). Too small a distance and you'll be on top of the school zone before the alert goes off--too big a distance and you'll get false positives for schools on adjacent streets. I find that 550 feet is a good compromise.

A lot's been said here so ask again after searching for info on TourGuides, POI Loader, and Sox.exe (as I think your nuvi can not play mp3 files, so your audio alert will need to be a wav file and loaded with the aid of sox.exe).

Whew, aren't you glad you asked?

The good news is that it can work for you. I use the Schools POI file from this web site and now get an audible warning when I'm within 550' of a school building reminding me to slow down, i.e.:

http://www.poi-factory.com/node/11630

Welcome to POI Factory. You will find many answers here and folks willing to help answer your questions, espcially if the 1450 is new and your first on-the-road GPS.

If you haven't already done so, now's the time to back up your nuvi to a computer hard drive, install and run Webupdater to check for updates to your 1450, see if you're due a free map update (log into mygarmin to register your unit and check for available map updates, etc.) Note that there's a 60-day window if you're due a map update so don't let that pass.

You can use Mapsource to pull schools listed on your maps.Pull up mapsource and click on find at top of page then find places.Under place category select community for place subcategory select school.Put in your city and state.Click find and the list will come up.Highlight the first one and click make waypoint.Next screen comes up click ok.Continue down the list until completed.Hit ok when finish.You will now see your waypoints listed.Click file then save as.Put in file name and select GPS eXchange Format(gpx)and save to your computer.Takes some time to do this.No one shot deal that I know of.

Use Extra Poi Editor to put your alerts in custom as needed. http://turboccc.wikispaces.com/Extra_POI_Editor

But you are making the assumption he has the current versions of Mapsource and maps installed on his computer.

I think that the 1xxx series does not play .mp3 files. There is no mention of them in the manual.

get a manual at
http://www8.garmin.com/support/userManual.jsp

1450 has to use wav see specs page https://buy.garmin.com/shop/shop.do?cID=134&pID=63932#specsT...