michaelnel

The 600 and 650 come with a "world basemap" that only shows really major roads and highways. If you want topo lines of elevation yes, you need to add some kind of topo map. But you can get excellent free topo maps from http://www.gpsfiledepot.com. The major difference is how close the topo lines are spaced. You can more accurately judge elevation and contours with a 24K map. In the Garmin versions of these maps, the 24Ks are routable, but the 100ks are not. Depends on how you use your GPS. In the back country I would say topo maps are really useful. For urban use, not so much. I have 2 different 24K topos and one 100K topo installed on my Montana 600 and seldom use any of them. I use Garmin's City Navigator map the most, but since purchasing that I discovered the Open Street Map project and their routable maps. If I were going to get routable street maps today I believe I would skip the City Navigator maps and go with the OSM free ones. Yep, except for bugs involving the camera. The 600 wouldn't be affected by those.

Use BaseCamp instead of MapSource.

I really didn't like my Oregon 450 (lots of bugs, but mostly the display was too difficult to read in bright sunlight). I loved the 62S I had, never should have sold it.

Check the Magellan eXplorist 310. Looks like they are available for around $160.

Count on paying a stiff "out of warranty" service charge of $110 (in the US, not sure about the UK but it will still be a large charge). https://www8.garmin.com/support/outofwarranty.html With a fee that high it's probably not worth repairing it.

And the second most popular one is "That will be fixed in the next release", but it seldom is.

It's funny that Garmin can confirm the bug, but they can't reproduce it?

Yes, I would like to drag my Montana behind my car and then drop it in a dumpster.

Google maps will usually allow you to zoom in closer while still holding better image quality than BE.

Sorry, can't help you with that. I live in California and don't use any of those maps.

Yep, for me, finding something that "just doesn't look right" results in more finds than anything else. And my DNFs are from NOT finding whatever didn't look right. ;-)

That's why I have them set up the way I do, so I can enable whatever I need at the time. Garmin's "combined in one file" scheme is lame and as with most Garmin software doesn't really work well when you get out in the real world and actually use the product.

Unfortunately, geosense is the best tool for finding caches, and you can't buy that.

My 62S didn't do that. Sorry, dunno why yours does.

You're not paying attention. Reread what we have posted.

It would be great if Garmin would supply a decent map download tool, but since they don't I just keep a window open on M:\Garmin and rename the file at the end of each transfer, and then delete all the segments from the map list, choose the next map and repeat. I swear, I think the developers at Garmin must never use any of the stuff they write.

I download each map type separately. It will create a file in <device>:\Garmin called "gmapsupp.img" or something like that. I rename that, to say "topo2008.img", then do the next map, etc.. At the end I have separate .img files that show up as separate maps and can be enabled separately.

Yep. I have a backup of my Montana 600 done prior to making any changes or updates, and it has several Wherigo mentions in the GarminDevice.xml file. I believe it had FW 2.40 on it as shipped.

Those lithiums AA cells are NOT rechargeable. Batteries will recover somewhat just by sitting with no load on them, but the charge will go down rapidly from there.

I would recommend the 62S. The Garmin 100K topos in the "t" models aren't worth what Garmin charges for them, especially with the availability of the excellent and FREE maps you can get from http://www.gpsfiledepot.com and http://garmin.openstreetmap.nl. The camera on the "c" model isn't worth the money because the screen on the 62 is too small for a decent picture viewer, the lens is too small, and the sensor is too small to have any kind of decent low light performance. IMO you're better off with a cheap digital camera.

Not "better", but the 62 has more features and is easier to use for geocaching. The performance is about the same as a 60 (which is to say "the best"). More weight, more bulk, less accuracy under many conditions and MUCH buggier firmware. ;-)

... and if you load new PQs into GSAK (without using the "Clear the database" option) it will accumulate more logs over time. Then if you configure it correctly to transfer to your GPSR, it can send all the logs it has accumulated, and the GPSR will display them all.

Better yet, download and use Garmin's Basecamp program. Mapsource is outdated and doesn't always work correctly with some of the newer units. http://www.garmin.com/garmin/cms/us/onthetrail/basecamp Basecamp is what you need to really take advantage of the 62's advanced features such as paperless geocaching and the truly mediocre Garmin Birdseye stuff (satellite imagery you can display on your 62). I don't imagine much further dev work is going into mapsource, basecamp is the new one.

When you plug the 62 in, I assume you are using the USB cable that came with it? Does the 62 show up as an additional drive letter when you plug it in? The computer has to recognize it before mapsource can.

It would be useful to know if the used csx comes with maps that are keyed to it. But even if it doesn't, there are lots of excellent free alternatives to the pricey Garmin maps.