Dan_Edwards

I had the same thing happen to me with my XL only few months ago. After the run around I faxed them a polite but stern letter explaing that I felt they were dropping the ball and felt I deserved a coupon for Topo 3D for my troubles. That way I could unlock from the DVD they gave me with the unit. Next day I got a phone call from a nice lady with the code and I was told a unit would ship very soon. They sent me a new unit rather then my old one but I got it back a couple of days later via priority fedex. Long story short. If your really upset and having trouble, a written explaination of your problem and details about what they can do to make you happy work well. No problems with the new unit, and the Topo 3D maps are very nice on the big XL screen.

When you unlock DR V.3, information is written to the Magellan registry. Well I just got my Explorist XL back from repair and they sent me a new unit. I had to change the serial numbers for Topo 3D and DR. I did not understand the process at first, so I just tried entering the serial number by hand when I went to generate a new map. It told me that the new serial number was not correct one and that I needed to load the Manager software to edit my profile. So I loaded the manager and had to change the serial number for each program. The manager went to the internet to login to my Magellan account (it asked for account name and password) and updated the serial numbers. While I am sure it keeps a copy of the current serial number in use in a local key, I think it uses the internet to verify that it is the valid serial number to use. So editing the registry may not have any help. Dan

I think just about all GPSr units that can route have some kind of issues. At least your not being routed next to a 100 foot cliff on a 4wd road.

I have to agree about email. Takes a long time and they may get around to ya. I did want to say I called to check on the status of my RMA for my XL and I was shocked when I got through within 1-2 minutes. After wait times this month of 45-77 minutes I nearly dropped the phone when the tech picked up!

Well I went ahead and bought a XL and it's already in the shop for basemap issues. I call tech support to keep track of the RMA and it's 45-77minutes on hold each time. Athough I have only owned Magellan units in the past, its only because I thought they were the best option for what I wanted to do. But I think this will be my last Magellan unless something really changes in the company. I hate to say this, but Magellan really reminds me of Commodore. Fantasic hardware engineering, screwed up by the rest of the company.

I know this is mostly for the other eXplorist models, but I thought I would post a narley bug I found in my XL about a week after I had it. I had not realized I left the unit on with rechargable batteriers, so when I turned it on it said "power extreamly low, shutting down", but it locked up at that point. I pulled the batteries and put in fresh and it said "NAND corrupt, click ENTER to repair or ESC to cancel (either option caused unit to reset). So I did a XL reset of Goto-IN-power and it rebooted, but nothing was in the basemap on screen. If I tried to route with a direct route map, it would start to route and then say "checking media" and then reset. So my week old unit is off to Magellan for reflashing... So letting the batteries run all the way out, then turning unit on, bad on eXplorist XL with version 1.05 firmware. Sigh.

Yes, yes it does... I got a response to my email. It was very short and to the point. They said they are working on the issues listed in this group in a future update. Nothing about dates or anything like that, but they did acknowledge this list and the need for a update. I would post a copy of the message but they put a lot of scary legalese at the end of the message. Now I just need to start talking my wife into the need for an XL :-)

Here is something I noticed about my thinking of the bugs. In my mind Major #4 and Minor #4 would annoy me the most. Why? Basicly because they would happen to me in the field. If something happens during a sync I really don't mind as long as I don't lose any data in the end. A GPS freezing while transfering data is only a minor annoyance to me, but slow topo data or strange waypoint info while hiking would drive me completly bonkers and it would happen when others were around me to hear me complain. That said I have been looking at how I use my GPS and I know I could not live without a memory card... So now I am thinking of waiting for the XL. One reason being it's later ship data may mean a newer version of the firmware, but the main being screen size and memory card access slot.

Well I wrote a email to Magellan from the website requesting some info on the explorist series and noted my concerns about the bugs listed here. I specificly pointed to this group and stated this is basicly make or break if I should get a eXplorist or not. I am planning on getting a new GPS for Christmas. My wife has hinted they I may get to have my pick anyway. Problem is I can tell by this list I will be annoyed with the potential of the explorist for Geocaching, but I also know don't want to live without a memory card. I am choosing between five units. eXplorist 400, XL, Two Rhinos, 60C, & the Garmin Palm unit. *IF* I hear from Magellan some of the issues listed will be address in a future update I will get either the 400 or XL. Otherwise I will problably get a couple of Rhinos so I can keep track of my kids in the future and *GULP* live without a memory card... Can't believe I even typed that. Anyway. I will post whatever I hear from Magellan about firmware updates here.

Did you modify the 300 with the USB hack? I thought the 300 had no way to upload/download data.

Acuatlly I think it is a bug in GSAK because Thunderbird got all the messages, but GSAK would just keep looking at the same 400 headers and then quitting. Thunderbird downloaded the first 400, then paused and continued downloading the messages, then paused and continued downloading. GSAK is the only program I used for POP access to Gmail. The I like the web interface for everthing else. But your suggestion to setup a special Gmail account just for that does interest me. When I first started sending PQ's to Gmail I did not have any invites to spare, now I got bunches.

I think I found a bug in the pop download with Gmail. Took me a while to have the time to figure this out. Pocket Queries had stopped downloading from my Gmail account. Only the first 400 messages would download and the new PQ's started at 407. I configured Thunderbird to download from Gmail to see what was happening. Just like GSAK it downloaded the first 400 messages. So I was sitting there looking at the screen trying to figure out what I had setup wrong in Gmail when all of a suddent the next 50 started to come down. Then another 50 about 30 secs later. In between I did not tell Thunderbird to get more email, they just would come down every 30 secs or so. The first time Thunderbird said downloading X out of 400, then it would say X out of 450, and later X out of 500. But I never could get GSAK to do anything other then the first 400. So I got the attachments from Thunderbird and reconfigured Gmail to only download messages from today or newer. Found a article on the gmail help that might explain what is happening. http://mail.google.com/support/bin/answer....13291&topic=194

And/Or a "Cancel and start GSAK later. I have a large database and a 2 year old who thinks the off button is just a hoot!

Clyde, Love the program! I noticed that the behavior of the popmail download changed in the latest update. I have a macro that downloads pocketqueries via pop mail, then does a lot of exports to a SD card. With earlier versions of GSAK the macro would run without stopping, but now after the popmail download the macro stops and places up a window like "query import completed" and just waits for me to click "OK" and then it continues. When doing a large export for Cachemate (5000 records) after 5 minutes GSAK puts up a window saying that it has not heard from the cachemate export program in 5 minutes (understandable, its still busy writing to the SD card). Not really a bug, but it always startles me when it pops up and confused me the first time I saw it for a minute. Can't wait to start playing with the new macro commands! Thanks

Sounds like you have not installed your Palm software or that you installed it to a different place when you redid your PC.

I got to play with a Cobra 500 for a few minutes from a co-worker who got one used as payment for a debt. Wow was I unimpressed. I have never used a GPS that bad before. Poor interface, screen res was horrible. We went outside in a open area with just some short buildings providing the only possible signal block. It took forever to get a lock and when it did have a lock it would lose it easily. The only good thing about it was that it was built like a tank, and I imagine it was built that way because they were afraid people would try and smash it, then return it. Seriously, I would not even use it if I got one for free. That bad.

How about "Geocaching: Geeks having fun in the woods" or "Geocaching: Use a multibillion dollar navigation system to find McToys"

Quick question I mentioned in the explorist "is it a drive" thread. Does it store the GPS settings as a file in memory? If so then it should just be a matter of dragging that file to the PC to backup all your customizations. That would be way cool.

This is the best feature of the new explorist. Having it be a drive means that it can easily connect to Mac's, Linux and a lot more. No special software needed, no needing to save the file and then upload it, just save it to the drive. Makes backing up info a breeze too, just drag that drive to a burnable CD and boom, your GPS is backed up. Quick question are the GPS setting just a file in memory? If so you could backup the eXplorist settings! Super sweet!

Quick, not possible You have to remember there are dozens of programs they could be using to keep track of the waypoints. Probably the easiest option would be to get Cachemate and GSAK and download the GPS plugin for Cachemate. Then just have GSAK export everything to cachemate, sync and your done. I kept about 10,000 geocaches on my palm at any one time, complete with description, hint, and past logs. My first GPS was a Handspring/GPS combo, but now I use a Meridan as my GPS and just use a TunstenT for paperless caching.

So will this system use the same channels as GPS? If so then there would be a great reason for 14+ channel handhelds. If not, will any of the current handhelds be able to use the Egnos data?

Sweet! This should allow many programs to directly change the waypoints, basicly allowing a hi-speed sync. Hold on I had to wipe the drool from my chin...

I looked at the index on the amazon site and it at least covers firmware hacks for the lawyer screen, but does not sound too detailed. I am curious how the antenna section is? It talks about making your own for various units but how well written is it? When I was reading the index for playing with waypoint data it mentioned G7toWin but never listed GPSBabel!? Not a great sign there.

I would love to see some screen shots of the unit. I am really interested in seeing pictures of what I would see in the field trying to find the details for a geocache I happened to notice was nearby. How the icons look. Is there a Geocaching icon? Some stated they had cut and pasted the cache description data into the hint field. Is there any limit to how much you can paste there? If not, then GSAK could create a custom export that included the cache description with the hint. I have never been much of a fan of color screens because here in Colorado under the bright sun all but the best are useless. So far though the comments have been very good about the screen? Has someone tried this under bright outdoor conditions? I noticed on the magellan site they quote the 400 as having the same battery life as the 500 & 600. In the past B/W screens have always had more battery life then color, but maybe that has changed.

Hmmm, I am without GSAK at the moment so I was going from memory. But I thought you could tell it to only use your GC ID number to count cache finds, but I very well could be wrong. Guess I should refrain from trying to be Clyde when I don't have access to a PC with GSAK