Crid

Well so far (touch wood) 2.7 on the Colorado hasn't given me any drift issues. In fact, in a recent woodland mapping expedition with two GPSRs, there was one point where the Colorado was doing much better than my 76CSx. A 90 degree turn was involved and the 76CSx took a while to get on track after the turn (it was a fair way off to the side I had entered from for a couple of minutes). I think it's an averging thing, and I did upgrade the 76CSx whenever the last firmware update was released (probably a few months ago now, but I'm pretty sure I'd had the Colorado for a few months by then). As I've said previously, it may just be due to the reduced leaf canopy at this time of year. But right now I'm actually starting to gain confidence in the Colorado's ability to get me to the right spot in a forest.

One thing I don't think anybody else has mentioned - a gardening glove. The kind that stops you getting pricked by rose thorns and stuff. Very handy when feeling around for a cache. I only bother with one glove personally.

I will wait....... Wow, that's HUGE progress! They've actually recognized and admitted to a problem! Here's hope for us Vista HCx owners, too (although I've had reasonable success with 2.70/2.30). Yeah, until the next person contacts Garmin tech support and is told they've never heard of the problem. I fear we've been down this road before. Rinse, wash, repeat.

And I believe the very first geocache was a bucket sunk into the ground too.

While I understand the reasons, does their use to PLACE the cache still hold if the land owner has expressly given permission to make a hole to sink the cache into? Or what if the landowner themselves actually makes the hole for the purpose of placing the cache? I'm not trying to nitpick here, but I'm currently in the planning stages of a multi where the land manager has approached me (rather than the other way round) with a view to placing a cache to help educate visiting cachers about the site itself. We haven't decided on the final cache location yet, but one option was going to be a sunken cache with a camouflaged top. No digging required to remove it, but it would keep the visible surface area reasonably low and (hopefully) reduce the chances of being discovered by muggles.

Yeah, works fine for me too. I have an OSM map and the base map on the internal memory and UK CN map on the SD card. My automotive profile uses the CN map and my geocaching profile uses the OSM map. No problems with it forgetting which maps are on which profile.

A friend of mine borrowed my spare GPS last week when he went paragliding in southern France. Last night we loaded his tracks into Google Earth so that he could see how he'd done on his various flights. I knew Google Earth could plot GPS tracks onto the ground, but I didn't previously know you could get it to show the altitude. (I knew the GPS tracks contained altitude information though). I suspect my friend will be buying a GPS soon. I've already introduced him to geocaching, and now he has a second reason to buy one.

Having done several woodland walks with 2.70, it does seem to be better. Apart from one instance of 100ft+ EPE for no reason (and no similar deviation in the same area on the return journey 10 minutes later), it's looking good so far. The cynic in me wonders if it's because there's less leaf canopy at this time of year, but so far (touch wood) I've not had any big drifts. Murphy's Law says it'll probably do it now.

Thanks to everybody who has taken the time to reply. I think I now have all the answers I need.

Very odd. It timed out after 45 seconds when I made the original post but I saw the post appear so I figured it had done it after all. I'm looking for guidance on the saturation rules. Specificially where they do and don't apply. For instance: - Does the rule apply to stages of a multi? Does it make any difference whether they are answers to be found or micros containing parts of coordinates? - What about that start point of a multi/mystery cache? - Can you place a cache near an Earthcache, since that doesn't have a physical container? I think the previous poster answered some of my questions.

Sorry, but from the original post that kicked this topic off: High EPE is one of the symptoms of this problem. I've been following this topic for some time and have posted some of my experiences previously (one with over 600ft of drift with the EPE up in the 100ft mark). If the EPE showed normal, how would you know you were experiencing the problem at the time and know that you needed to cycle the power (unless the area has been mapped, I guess)?

Thanks for the tips GO$Rs. I've been struggling seeing paths in woodland on my Colorado and I'll probably set up an extra profile like you suggested. Land Cover works the opposite way round to how I'd like really - if I set it to a specific zoom level the forest disappears when I zoom OUT but appears if I'm zoomed IN. I'm sure there's a reason why it works that way around (speeding up renders when zoomed out I guess). But two profiles will probably be good for what I want.

My results from yesterday are a bit inconclusive. I did a short woodland walk during my lunchbreak (about 20 minutes) and certainly got the old problem of EPE suddenly climbing and refusing to come back down. At the worst point it was 110ft after less than 10 minutes in the wood. I had the Colorado on for 15 minutes in the car while I drove to the start point, although it looks as though it hadn't acquired all satellites. On the walk back (along the same path, but obviously in the reverse direction) the EPE was better. I took a second screenshot at roughly the same point as the first screenshot for comparison. After work I went for a longer woodland walk in different woods (ones that have previously given me drift issues). Strangely, the Colorado behaved itself even though I was under tree cover for the best part of 45 minutes. EPE didn't go much above 30ft the whole time, and in places it was as low as 19ft (admittedly I was towards the edge of the wood at that stage). One thing I did notice during the evening walk was that the Colorado seems to be doing some pretty hefty averaging. At one point I walked down a path and took a 90 degree left turn. The track on the map screen was lagging behind and then showed me cutting the corner, even though I didn't do that. I'd say at a guess that it was lagging about 15 seconds behind, presumably because it has to wait for future points before it can work out the average of the current point). I've noticed my 76CSx do this to a lesser extent when out caching - if I keep walking until I reach what the GPS says is the right spot, I will have overshot because of the averaging. I don't recall it being as noticeable though.

Turn off the basemap. On the map page click the Options button, scroll down to the bottom (Select Map) and the base map (on my Colorado at least) is at the bottom. From what I've seen, it looks like it doesn't use the base map in automotive mode anyway.

My Colorado can pretty much be relied on to drift after I've walked in the woods continuously for 1/2 hour or so. I've upgraded to 2.7 and hope to go walking in the woods after work this evening (provided the weather holds). I shall report back once I have results, although to be honest I don't expect the problem to have disappeared (firstly because it's not a GPS firmware update - which many people think is the source of the problem, and secondly because if the firmware fixed the drift issue I'd expect Garmin to be shouting it from the rooftops)

OK, technically this isn't really a geocaching question but a car GPS question. I've currently only got handheld GPS units, although I do use them in the car with City Navigator maps. But I'm contemplating buying a car GPS, and while looking into the matter I discovered RDS-TMC. As I understand it, it uses data broadcast over RDS on existing radio stations to identify snarl-ups. Having recently had a journey from hell back from the west country (traffic jams on the M3, M25 and then part of the M20 being completely shut), the idea of the GPS automatically routing around these kinds of things has a certain appeal. Can anybody comment on how good or useful the feature is in practice? How extensive is the data? Is it of benefit or do you just get routed off a motorway onto an A-road that's also crawling along?

I have to say, my Colorado is booting up a lot faster with 2.7.

I haven't given them a good enough workout to say for certain yet, but I reckon they should be. The fabric seems to be similar to the outer fabric on my Gore-Tex jacket (not the Gore-Tex itself), and that (the jacket) hasn't been damaged by thorns yet.

Thank you to everybody who suggested Craghopper trousers. Thanks in particular to Birdman-of-liskatraz who suggested Trago Mills for them. I've just returned from my holiday in Cornwall. While I was there I visited Trago Mills in Liskeard where I picked up two pairs of Kiwi trousers for £17.99 each. I've already used them while caching and they fit the bills nicely. Very comfy.

100% in agreement. I'd add that the 76CSx is equally rock solid (since it's basically the same innards as the 60CSX, and also because I own one and love it).

What bizarre behaviour!

I'm one of the people who has been complaining about drift issues on my Colorado 300. My previous GPS was a Garmin GPSmap 76CSx which is fantastic in "difficult" conditions such as woodland (so I'm not simply Garmin-bashing). Yes, accuracy is not as good as out in the open, but it handles the conditions very well. I bought the Colorado to replace the 76CSx (so I could go caching with a friend and they could use the 76CSx). This means I had a few preconceptions of how well I expected the Colorado to perform in woodland, which unfortunately it hasn't lived up to. It's still a very nice unit and there are lots of things I like about it (although the lack of waypoint averaging is baffling). Having the geocache details, hint and last five logs at my fingertips is great. Features like that seem to aim the unit squarely at geocachers. But the drift/accuracy issue sours the thing for me. I've done quite a few parallel tests with my 76CSx and Colorado both tracking at the same time, and the 76CSx outperforms the Colorado in woodland on many occasions. So I end up taking both units with me and trust the 76CSx over the Colorado. Which almost demotes the Colorado to PDA. And let's be clear about this - I'm not talking about being a few feet out. I'm talking about being 300ft+ out at times! You're unlikely to find a geocache if you're that far off course. It doesn't do it all the time, but if I am in woodland for more than about half an hour it's pretty much a given that it will start drifting. If the Colorado had been my first GPS, or if I'd upgraded from an earlier Garmin unit (my dad's old Legend gives up completely even under fairly light tree coverage), I'd probably be totally happy with the Colorado because I wouldn't have a decent basis comparison. But the 76CSx gave me a certain level of expectation. And unfortunately the Colorado so far has failed to meet it. I'm still hoping that Garmin will be able to sort out the problem with a firmware updated. But I keep reading posts from various people who say that Garmin keep claiming to know anything about the problem (despite it being reported numerous times). This doesn't fill me with confidence that Garmin are even working on a fix.

Details, details. Personally I don't use that site. If they tied it to gc.com a bit more (like earthcache) perhaps I might.

Having done a bit of caching in Central London and also downtown Toronto, I think virtuals are better suited to places like this. They don't require you to look suspicious because many seem to point you to a plaque on a wall or something similar, where looking and jotting down an answer doesn't look dodgy. What a shame Groundspeak decided to do away with them. But I guess that's old news.

Not in my case. I have been using the Colorado pretty extensively in a variety of conditions. Pretty much every time I've experienced drift it's been while out in woodland under tree cover. The only times I've experienced it in the car (twice) has been when I have switched the unit on while in "difficult" conditions, and the EPE was much higher than expected even with open sky. But that's not the same as an EPE of a hundred feet or so with the track being 600ft+ off. Sometimes I can walk in the woods for half an hour with no (detectable) problems. Other times (as the other day) it an start wandering after as little as 10 minutes under cover. Having done side-by-side tests with my 76CSx, I can confidently say that the 76CSx has outperformed the Colorado under tree coverage many times. It's a shame because I like the other things the Colorado has to offer (except the lack of waypoint averaging).