macnerd

Okay, that last link works for me in Safari 3.03.

My Garmin Vista HCx kicks butt in the forest. I haven't dropped lock once and I've been in very heavy tree cover with it. It even works in my house. You can't go wrong with it.

I only have 8 caches under my belt but I haven't run into anyone. I did see someone caching a couple weeks ago while I was on my bike. I was going to stop and say hi on the return but they were gone already.

I'm manually entering mine into MapSource running under VMWare. I tried using Topo! but when I uploaded the waypoints I would get duplicates so I had to only upload the new points. MapSource only uploads the ones it needs to so you don't have duplicates. I might have missed something in Topo!, who knows. I'm also interested in hearing how others are doing it.

I ran Map Source under VMWare and it worked fine for converting my maps. Parallels will work fine as well.

I just tried on a Mac here at work running Safari 2.0.4 and it doesn't work either. It did work with FireFox though.

I have it on my Mac and it's good but not outstanding. For $10 you can't go wrong. The navigation is horrible. They have what they call a navigation tool, not a hand for panning around the maps. It's basically an arrow that you put to the edge of the screen and click to scroll the map. It sucks, no other way to describe it. To top it off there's no keyboard shortcuts to select the different tools. The maps do look a lot better then Garmin's. I can't even figure out where some peaks are with Garmins software. The Topo! maps look like the topo maps you would buy from your local ranger station, good quality. They are very responsive with their tech support as well. I just wish they'd program a hand tool to scroll the maps!

Did anyone on the Mac get a lot of crashing with the WebUpdater? I have the beta installed, launched it and it said there's a new version and it's not beta anymore. Installed the new version an I kept getting crashes. I finally got it to start updating my unit and then it crashed again. Weird. It did update but I can only tell because I have the compass calibration warning page now. Where can you find the firmware version? I looked all over in the menus and couldn't fine it.

Yea, it's awesome they're coming out with this stuff. I'm not complaining at all but I'd also love to have one less reason to use VMWare or Parallels. Then there's all the people that aren't on Intel Macs yet.

The plugin is a beta for a new API so it's my understanding that we need to wait for Geocaching.com to take advantage of the new API. I did install the plugin and used in our a test page of Garmin's and it works. It doesn't work in the Safari 3 beta but does in Firefox. I'm too lazy to uninstall the Safari beta so I'll leave that test up to one of you guys. In the link the OP provided the developer linked to a test page to try, it's in the comments section.

Has Garmin said they'll release a Map Source program that is equal to what is on the PC? It appears to only allow one to send maps, not manage way points, etc.

I have this question too, is there a plug in that will allow me to send a cache to my GPS?

No problem. Drop me a private message on here and I'll reply via email.

kwikitti, I don't know how the HCx will do in the TWA canyon and I don't have a hike planned for there until September. What I can tell you is I had a solid track the whole way up Tree Spring Trail when my original Vista would have lost lock in a lot of places. I have a good feeling the HCx will work just fine in the canyon. Have a look at my gps file from my hike last weekend. In the upper part of Tree Spring where you join up with South Crest Trail there is heavy tree cover, it never lost lock once and I was even carrying the GPS in my pocket. You can open the file with Google Earth or whatever other program your using.

Yes, the Topo 2008 software transfers the maps for you.

The Sandia mountains, basically Albuquerque, NM. This was in the east side of the mountains. The west side is a desert until you get up to about 7500 feet. I got 3 caches yesterday one was in about the same area as that picture.

Got it working. Groundspeak was parsing my Groundspeak folder with a capital G. Weird. Renamed the directory to gs and now it works. Edit: I typed the second Groundspeak name above with all lower case and it capitalized it.

I didn't loose lock once on my hike yesterday. Here's a pic of some of the stuff I was in but I didn't look at the GPS to see how many sats there were. My track was solid the whole trip, no dropouts at all.

The Icom radios allow external antennas but I'm not sure about the Garmin. People set up repeater systems with GMRS so I'm sure there's not limit in antennas as long as you stay in the effective radiated power (the amount of power coming from the antenna) limit the FCC has. I have no idea what that limit is. Shivia, if the Garmin GPS antenna sounds like it would be a GPS antenna only, not a UHF antenna which is what's needed for FRS. I should have said this in the earlier post but I got the Icom radios because my girlfriend and I are always going on rides with the local Mini Cooper group and I got tired of getting an 1/8 of a mile away from them and not being able to talk to the lead car. Now my problem is 2 of us have good radios but the other guys don't so they hear me but I never hear them. One of the other group members got some Icoms so it'll be better on the next ride. -Brad

I carry around an icom just for the simple reason that other "bubble pack" radios suck. Yes it's another thing to haul around but the payoff is worth it IMO. I guess you can't see your buddies position though......

Watch out when you save your track log. Garmin units will strip the time stamp information when you save the log so you can't use saved logs to geotagging, only active logs will work. On the new Vista HCx a .gpx file gets saved to the SD card doesn't ever get the date/time stripped from it even when you save your track log. This works perfect if you have one of the new Garmins with the SD card.

I'm using a Mac so I'm not sure what's out there for Windows. On the Mac the best program I found is HaudahGeo. You basically drop your photos into the program window, open up the .gpx file and then write the EXIF headers back to the pics. Aperture and iPhoto cache the EXIF data so process your photos with HoudahGeo first then import them into Aperture/iPhoto. If you don't use HoudahGeo first then Aperture/iPhoto will show that your lat/long isn't there but it really is.

Thanks for the replies about the batteries, I'll pick up some of the Eneloops today. Brainerd's 5 hours with one battery bar missing will work perfect for my hikes since it should last all day and then some. I should have added earlier that I have the WASS bug but everything else seems fine. Coming from the original Vista I'm loving the speed of the HCx, longer battery life and the fact I can keep the GPS in my backpack and maintain sat lock. I'll finally be able to take it with my snowboarding and log the whole day. The original Vista would choke when I went into the trees. I also like how I can store a daily .gpx file to the SD card so I plan on taking the Vista whenever I shoot photos so I can embed the lat/long when I get home. The file that gets saved to the SD card doesn't ever get the date/time stripped from it even when you save your track log. The log that is stored to the internal memory is stripped from the date/time when you save the log. Just an FYI for you guys looking at using this GPS with photo shoots.

How long are you guys getting with the Sanyo Eneloop batteries? I had some cheap Energizer batteries with my original Vista and would only get about 2 hours out of them. I want to pick up a long lasting set to go with my Vista HCx.

Amazon.com has it for $76.