Garmin GPS Pilot III 'Waypoint Abbreviations'?

[cptcollins]

Hello all,

Being stuck back in the 90's when it comes to GA I still get great pleasure using my Garmin GPS Pilot III to assist in navigation. The only grief I have with it is when inputting a new route.

For example, one of my waypoints is Cirencester, however this is too many characters (8 being the max) so Garmin have renamed it in the GPS Pilot III database as 'CRNCST'. No problem, however to find this out I had to scroll along the map with the curser from my current location, hover over Cirencester and hit enter to see what it was called in the database.

Is there an easily accessible database somewhere that tells me this information readily thus making plotting a route a little easier?

Best regards

Simon

[Johnm]

The menu has user waypoints listed and you can scroll through them

Just bring up the main menu and select waypoints and scroll through the tabs at the top. If I remember right you get a sequence something like:

airports runway comms VOR NDB Int (for intersections) user wpt user list

Hope that helps

[cptcollins]

Hmmm not really. What you just described is a way of searching your own user waypoints. What I need is a way of searching the factory waypoints provided by Garmin.

SC

[Johnm]

Ah. I think we may be at cross purposes, the way points are all listed in the tabs but it seems you are using geographic features as waypoints. I think you'll find that Garmin waypoints are in the user list too unless they are in the "official" list of VOR, NDB, Airport and Intersection

Cirencester isn't a way point but if you hover over it and click enter it will create a waypoint with the label you describe and if you hit enter again it will save it in the user list

[cptcollins]

Thanks Johnm,

However my original grief was exactly as you say "hover over it and click enter it will create a waypoint with the label you describe and if you hit enter again it will save it in the user list". I just find this a bit of a hassel for waypoints that already exist. I was just wondering if Garmin, somewhere, had created a list where I can search for 'Cirencester' and next to it see Garmins abbreviation 'CRNCST'?

[Johnm]

However my original grief was exactly as you say "hover over it and click enter it will create a waypoint with the label you describe and if you hit enter again it will save it in the user list". I just find this a bit of a hassel for waypoints that already exist. I was just wondering if Garmin, somewhere, had created a list where I can search for 'Cirencester' and next to it see Garmins abbreviation 'CRNCST'?

The one's that already exist are in the tabs, there isn't anywhere else. The Garmin specific one's are in the user list and are few in number.

[tinpilot]

Bit convoluted but this might work:
download & install the freeware G7ToWin (http://www.gpsinformation.org/ronh/g7towin.htm) (Windows & Linux)
use it to download the waypoints from your Garmin
click on a column header to arrange that column in alphabetical order and then save as a .csv file
you should be able to open that .csv file in a spreadsheet program and edit the list to your heart's contentHopefully you will have ended up with an alphabetical list of waypoints and their Garmin abbreviations.