Creating or viewing Itinerary Files

[greenwoo]

There's a cracking free program called TYRE - trace your route everywhere. if you google tyre + tomtom it'll come up. Now it doesnt just work with TT, it def works with Garmin and probably other sat nav devices ( so worth downloading and trying to see if it'll work on yours).

Why is it so special? well it allows you to plot a route, the route that you want - not what the device chooses. It's very easy to do on the map link ( which is essentially google maps ) and moreover the files can be shared with others. When running in a group having the back up of the route as opposed to relying on keeping up with the guy infront is quite handy!!

Once you have downloaded the program you will be able to view any ITN files that are on the site or that are sent out to those who pop their name down for a run out - on the main skcc website there is a dedicated section that has a raft of routes available for download. These will aid a 'newbie' in terms of making up a route for a drive.

To make a new route is very simple. Once TYRE is open on your pc you'll see a map of the world, on the left hand side of teh page about halfway down is a magnifying glass icon, if you click on that and type in a place it'll come up in a dialogue box with the option to zoom in - so do just that zoom in, you'll then need to zoom out a little bit to find the exact road you want.

Right clicking the mouse gives the option of adding a 'waypoint' - this is exactly what you need to do to plot a route. So pop in waypoint 1 ( wp from here on in )......we suggest that you place the 1st WP a little along the road from where you actually want to start, this avoids any confusion in case you are a few hundred yards out in placing it!
Work out where to pop the next WP to make the sat nav follow your intended route, to do this you need to think that teh settings for your device will be 'fastest route' - therefore you need to pop the next point at a logical point near the end of the biggest direct road that you would want to travel, and the 3rd WP around the corner from that junction. This forces the device to go through those points and it cannot decide to take a short cut!

A TTom can work with a route that contains up to 48 wp's. Typically for a a 50 mile drive i would expect to use 12-15 ish WP's, bear in mind you MUST zoom in on each one that you place to check that you haven't inadvertently placed it in a cul-de-sac!

One you have created your route then just save the file as something relevant and memorable. It is possible to email these files to other members for them to load into their own device. Details about loading itineraries ( they're called itn's ) can be found in other sections.

[David T]

Morning Mark,

If I recall correctly Tyre does not support .trp files that are used by CoPilot. So instead I use RouteConverter. I also use it to convert .itn files produced by TomTom owners into the .trp format that my sat nav can read. And vice-versa if I'm authoring a route.

Just in case anybody else had the same issue.

My tip for locating waypoints is to place them 100m or so after the turn into a new road. That helps ensure the correct road is used by the sat nav and if any 'recalculting' message is displayed temporarily, as it can on mine sometimes, then you don't get on the wrong road.

[greenwoo]

yep good shout David!