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The 60csx needs to be able to show "gps elevation" and ignore the barometer for the times when you are flying in pressurized cabins (or anytime you would rathers see, on a updated basis, the GPS elevation). You set your gps to barometer mode you you get the pressure of the cabin, not altitude. How would that be different from setting your altimeter to barometer mode? [Note that they cannot call it airplane mode. For personal electronics, that has come to mean the mode in which all RF oscillators are turned off. You can play games or use the PDA function in your cell phone, for example, but cannot transmit or receive.]

I've noticed no differences with the new updates. I'm sure they're there but the fit and feel are the same to me. Anyone else have this update and find it made an big difference in the way they use/like there GPS?

I'm a 60csx owner and I dont do alot of geocaching so I could loose the compass very easily. I would miss the real pressure/altimeter but its a blessing and a curse and you have no way of displaying the GPS elevation (without going deep into menus each time). Sucks for pressurezed airplane cabins. If I had it to do over agian I would choose to loose the sensors since I actaully lost my ability to see elevations while flying. If I was an avid outdoorsman hiking the wilderness then I would probably choose the keep the sensors.

Beter look on ebay. They are selling used for between 80 and the highest was 120 bucks. (plus shipping). For the money its a good unit and was the best for a while. My gps60csx is arguably better in every way and I would never go back. Some one here still love their V's so to each his own. If you dont know how good a 60csx is then the V will be a great unit for you. The GPS V came with a serial cable connection to the PC, not a USB connection. Generally this should not be a problem, but the transfer rates are much slower via serial cable. Make sure you get the CitySelect software for autorouting. The maps are unlocked to the unit so you will continue to be able to download maps to the GPS once you install the software on your PC. For reference, these units were selling second hand for $125 a year ago and the technology is even more dated now. It is odd that the face plate says GPS III and the start up screen says GPS V. Another good reason to expect a lower price. I have owned a GPS V since 2000 and it has performed very well for me. I use a 60CSX for hiking and autorouting now, but the ol' V is still my first choice when kayaking.

These things are really limited by thier poor built in antenna. I know FRS does not allow antenna modifications but maybe the GMRS version does? Does the Garmin allow external antenna? With the poor built in antenna and low power line of sight is about as good as it gets. We're talking at best a mile. Also, if these radio are "hearing' CB and other transisions from strong nearby "off band" traffic then they front ends of the radios are poorly designed and get leakage those strong signals. If you could add an external 5/8 wave antenna to both vehicals you could probably get 5 or more miles unless the terrain is too mountainous.

I have had good luck with my sextant and pendulum system. I think it was made by Galileo. Magellan, whos that? :-)

I agree on the powerEX's. They are gerat. Also, energizers from walmart so suck. Not all batteries are created equal and the mainstream rechargeables suck as far as I can tell.

I think alleged would have a negative connotation here since what he is saying is that "I would have to check out what you said before I agree with it". Its not overtly derogatory but I can see where one might feel slighted. I use alleged in a humorous way sometimes. In any case I think this one should slide on by. I see. Thank you for your clarification.

Yes, its a known fact that Magellan is a strong supporter of SATAN. Thats why we hate Magellan because we hate SATAN.

Can you point us to the hate messages? I dont remember anyone bashing magellan around here. I know Garmin has a much larger following on here but that doesn't mean we hate the other units. I used to own a lowrance..it was fine for what it did.

I own a 60csx and love it. I would like the ability to mark anothers position as the Rino's do, however. I would have to have an actual rrequirement for the rino gps location marking feature for me to consider it. I would not want to give my my sensitive SIRF chipset of the 60csx. Police radios operate in the higher frequencies (as do gmrs and frs) and the line of sight thing is true but is overcome by raw power which is something a handheld will never have much of because of size constraints. What I'm saying is that the gmrs and FRS frequency band is not inherantly bad and that the only real solution to the "line of sight" problem is increasing the power. Police and emergency radio use something called repeaters (a fixed tower that recieves and rebroadcasts the signal) to ensure reliable communication. There are many reasons that FRS and GMRS is a better choice for personal communication and the limited range is really a feature since it eliminates noise and interference from far away stations taht can actually limit your range when trying to communicate locally. CB radio operates in the longer wavelenghts (27Mhz) and it goes farther, in fact it goes so far that it is just about unuseable in the US because of the noise level. CB can skip off the atmosphere where a signal from ohio can reach me in IL.

I guess it depends on your situation. For work I travel to sunnyvale CA, Clearwater FL, Boston, Joplin, MO. Dallas TX, Huntville AL, White Sands NM, and other surprise places. I like to have the whole US in my GPS just in case. I suppose I can live with just putting in the KNOWN places I go to (thats what I do now) but I would just as soon have the whole thing in there and not have to worry about it. Sometimes I go to weird airports in transit and might get stuck there and need maps for that area. I'll get a 2 gig when they get cheap enough and load my whole City select ver 6. If you think about it how often will you travel the entire usa? Just my 2 cents worth... What a true statement - in fact, it is not like I am going to wake up one day and randomly decide to travel to some far off state so I can always adjust accordingly. I think we will start with the 1 gig and then expand from there if we end up wanting more maps (i.e. topo) or if we are taking a cross country trip. Thanks for all of the advice.

I love the idea of a Rino and marking others locations on your gps but no VHF/UHF radio will go very far on 5 watts unless its line of sight. (you can get through trees and buildings to some extent but ground terrain will kill you). Police and community service radio uses something called a "repeater" to get huge distance. A repeater is a radio on a tower (as tall as possible) to recieve the mobile/handheld signal and retransmit it. Everyone is line of sight to the tower so this works very well (50miles still depending on terrain). Most vehical mounted radios put out 50 watts. Most handhelds put out 5 watts. 50watts gives you only 2X the coverage of 5 watts (not 10X as my might think). Now that Rino is transmitting the corrdinates on GMRS you are allowed to set up a repeater on the GMRS radio but the repeater would be fixed so your operating area would be fixed also. Some emergency folks set up portible repeaters out of their vehicals for temporary emergency use. This works well for limited search areas where the terrain is hilly.

For you SAR guys, I'm surprised that there's not a more powerful version of the Rino's. I would think that having position automatically marked for everyone would be such a great advantage and time saver. Last I looked Garmin is now allowed to use the GMRS frequencies (previously just FRS I believe) which means that you can now set up GMRS repeaters. The truth is, with handy talkies, if your in the hills and hollars you ALWAYS need a repeater for reliable communication over miles. The fact is that VHF/UHF equipment is pretty much ""line of sight" and no matter what power your are pumping from your tiny handheld your going to be limited onrange.. I was thinking of getting my kids the rinos for when we take vactions in the mountains. I've seen too many horror stories of kids getting lost. If you kid had a rino and was transitting and someone in a chopper or aircraft had one I think your kid would be found in short order. I would like to entertain this topic so may start a new thread on this. Any comments are appreciated and welcomed.

I just posted this but I see you bought an ADATA. I purchased a 1gig ADATA transflash for my wifes cellphone and it would not work (her phone is a samsung D807) ...so I pulled the 1gig sandisk out of my garmin and tried it in her cellphone and it worked like a charm. I then put the maps on the ADATA card but not all the maps that fit on the sandisk card would fit on the ADATA card. I lost about 50megs as far as I can tell. BUT the card did and does work in the 60csx. I dont know if my Adata card was just a funky one or all Adata cards are slightly smaller than sandisk????? Anyone have any ideas on this..

I have a comment. My sandisk 1gig held at least 50meg more than a 1gig ADATA microSD card that I recently purchased. Stick with Sandisk it seems is the best plan.

I'm interested in getting rhinos for my kids when hiking. Can I set up a rhino radio to always transmit location AND lock that function in so the kids cant accidentally turn it off?

I'm interested in getting rhinos for my kids when hiking. Can I set up a rhino radio to always transmit location AND lock that function in so the kids cant accidentally turn it off?

For what its worth, I find that for short time periods (1/2hour) if in poor sat reception conditions the auto calibration should be OFF as it will cause variation that would not be there normally. Also, yes you have to keep in mind the inaccuracies and what can cause them (pressure change by opening car windows, weather patterns and so fourth). Even the altimiters on airplans have to deal with this. You set them before you go and reset them when you get where your going. You reset all the time for barometric pressure. Anyway, for best accuracy when I run I set autocalibrate to OFF, set the track to update as fast as possible and turn off lock on road. quote name='Hertzog' date='Jan 4 2007, 12:24 AM' post='2644678'] Yours for one Look for an "Auto Calibration" selection somewhere. On the 60/76 series it's on the Altimeter Setup page, but on my old (pre Cx) Vista it's on the System Setup page, under "Altimeter"; so it may still be there on the newer Vista models.

I should also mention that the various display fields where "elevation" can be displayed still show the barometric elevation, and on the Altimeter page the elevation displayed at the bottom of the page when the elevation profile is selected is still the barometric elevation; however, the elevation profile shown on the Altimeter page will be the GPS elevation, and if you use the toggle switch to move the cursor on the profile the elevation at the bottom of the page will will switch to the GPS elevation. So viewing the GPS elevation during a flight will still be pretty limited; but at least you can end up with a track log that shows the GPS elevation. Thanks, I'll give this a try..

I upgraded from a V to the 60csx. I love it Advantages: enough memory to hold all the maps you need for a whole route pick up sats INSIDE Fast reroute calculations that are actually ready before the next turn (no way on the V) Finding POI's is actually usable (allows search on parts of names) This still sucks, just not as bad. USB connectivity so maps can upload fast if you ever need to upload new maps which you wont since you will have a 1 or 2 gig card installed. Last's longer on only two AA batteries. I'll add more if I can think of other stuff............ Disadvantages: You loose the "add via" feature with the 60csx....(crazy ommision IMO) You loose the reorienting screen. Dont get the "S" model if you hope to use your gps in pressurized airplanes.

Gonna get expensive renting that plane just to test out your GPS... :-) (or did you buy your plane?)

Congratulations!! I dont know why you had such poor performance before (older firmware) because I didnt see that as a common issue. You must have had a unique situation. Glad your back running with the big dogs again!!

Was autocalibrate on or off for this hike? For short term (1 or 2 hour) walks I turn mine off for the most accurate elevation. Seems like yours was off by quite a bit though...

One sat enables the gps to know how far away it is from that one satellite (valid points are on a sphere of that distance). Two Sats define a second distance away from that sat so now the only valid places the GPS could be is the intersection of the two spheres (this is a circle, 2 dimensions). The third satellites sphere now will intersect that circle in two points and so with three sats there are two possible points the GPS could be. Usually one point is non-sensical (like 30 miles below the surface of the earth) leaving only one that can be the true position. A fourth satelite eliminates the ambiguity of the two points. My 60csx seems to always require 4 to get a good lock. I think my older units did it with three.