Tahoe Skier5000

Well the market will correct the price over time and I think we'll see the 62 fall inline with other comparable units like the PN-60. The first release is always going to be expensive, but once Garmin gets a feel for how many they are selling, they'll adjust the price accordingly. Obviously, if we don't feel the value is there then Garmin will know to lower the price in order to sell more. So really, unless you're dead set on buying it day one and have the dough to burn, you've got nothing to worry about.... unless you absolutely NEED the bragging rights, lol

After all is said and done, the difference would be negligable relative to the cost of the GPS. Truth be told, the only reasons the 62 will be priced so high is because 1) It's new. and 2) Garmin knows it will sell like hotcakes. You can't really break it down by technical elements here because it's not telling the whole story. This is all about marketing and price strategy here.

Well in my case, I use GSAK because it is the only way my Delorme PN-40 will show all of the info fields for the geocaches I store on it. If I just upload a GPX file directly to the unit from Geocaching.com (well not exactly "directly", but through Delorme Topo 7 software), it won't show the cache size and last logged fields. GSAK fixed that problem for me by reformatting the GPX file so the PN-40 could read in all the info fields. As for the 9 million other features that GSAK has, I don't use them

I bought some cheapo knock off brand screen protectors from Walmart and cut them to size. Works great.

Caching with a smartphone just isn't worth it to me because of many reasons, this being one of the big reasons. Not to mention being dependent on data for mapping. Its just all around sketchy at best. I know from experience too as I own a 3g iphone with the Geocaching app. Compared to my stand alone gpsrs, the iphone sucks horribly. Do yourself a favor and get an outdoor GPSr. You can get them for cheap these days and you'll find that geocaching is much funner with one.

^^ this is good. let them know, email them. Don't just complain about it on here, otherwise they may never realize how much it annoys the geocaching community.

You should atleast tell people to check gpsfiledepot first to see if they have what they need before recommending it as the end-all-be-all source of topo maps. I personally found the map selection horrible for California. A lot of individual maps for specific areas and one state wide topo. I tried the statewide topo and its far worse than the ones Garmin sells. No labels for anything. Just blank points and contour lines. Bottom line, check gpsfiledepot first before deciding not to buy the maps from Garmin

USB to RS232 Serial 9 Pin DB9 Cable Adapter PC/Mac/GPS Serial to usb - $4.95

I would recommend the PN-40, but based on your criteria, I think the battery life is a wee bit lacking, and the screen is on the smallish side. Both issues are not that big of a deal though and easily workable from my experience. Just throwing another option out there for you.

If you don't need the camera, you can purchase a Garmin Oregon 450, or Oregon 450t for less money. Plus, there is a $50 rebate from Garmin right now. Given that there are 24k topos available for free from gpsfiledepot.com, I would recommend the 450 over the 450t - the extra $100 or so for 100k topos just isn't worth it. The caveat to that is that the topo maps on gpsfiledepot suck... atleast the ones I found for California. Maybe the ones for the back east regions are better, but the one I installed was terrible. It doesn't have labels for anything, no city names, no feature names, just contour lines and points. Check gpsfiledepot first and make sure they have what you need. Their selections is very limited for certain areas... not every place is covered. If it were my decision, I would get the 450 and buy the Garmin topo maps. That way I would have a spare copy of them for if and when I decide to buy another GPS.

I used car wax (turtle wax) on my etrex legend and it worked great. Wax though, not polish...

Exactly. The L1 C/A band will still be functional on the new sats, and will be for many years to come given the high reliance on it by civilian aircraft and ships all over the world. The new sats will offer the L2C band, however its use by civilians will be optional. The new band needs to be used in conjunction with the L1 C/A band by the GPSr. Using just the L2C band alone would result in even worse accuracy than we currently have using just L1 C/A. I have a feeling that Garmin will try and milk the L2C for all its worth and make us buy new GPSr's in order to read the new signals.

Thanks for the suggestion. Tried it without success. Figure I'll leave the batteries out overnight and give it another go in the morning. Maybe I'll dream up a solution in my sleep. Still didn't work. And didn't dream up a solution overnight. Anyone else have any ideas? Thanks. Sorry to hear about that. There are only two other things I can think of for you to do. 1. Try reinstalling the firmware. Instructions 2. Call Lowrance. From what I've read on the unit, there is only one way of resetting them, and that is by using key commands on the screen (which you can't read). Wish I could be of more help, but there isn't a whole lot of discussion regarding these units. #1 may be your best bet though.

Don't even go all "Starbucks" on me - haven't set foot in there in years. I typically carry a load of AA batteries in my pockets when out caching. I'm the guy you go ask when YOUR batteries run out. Anyway, I really LIKE the fact that I can plug my iPhone in at home, in the car, and at work and almost never run into power problems. Again - WHY OH WHY can't the GPS companies "get it"??!?! I would much prefer the convenience and self-sufficiency of AA batteries over rechargeable packs... especially the iphone. You said yourself you carry an extra set of batteries when you go out, therefore why is this an issue? Even with just 2 extra AA batteries (which EASILY fit in any pocket) I can go out the entire day for caching and still have some power left over after. Yes you could recharge the iphone while driving or whatever, but what about those long hikes where you don't have access to a charger? Also, you neglect the fact that the iphone gets far less battery life when you use it as a GPS compared to a stand alone device... less than half the day I would imagine. AND, the dadgum thing has a sealed battery which degrades over time. I hardly see any advantages to sealed rechargeables.

Apparently there is an internal timer that resets these Endura's. Pull the batteries and leave them out for just a little over an hour. Press the POWER button and hold it for two minutes while the batteries are out. After an hour, put the batteries back in and try it out. There is no guarantee this will work. I found an article that lists the above instructions. How to reset an Endura

Thanks a bunch Pax I got GSAK and everything worked; all caches now show all information fields.

So after 7 years of caching I finally gave in and bought Premium Membership The reason I did it initially was for the "caches along a route" feature to create a PQ for use on our summer trip. Anyway, I created the 500 waypoint PQ successfully and transferred the geocaches to my PN-40, however, I noticed that the "cache size" and "last logged" fields are not filled in; they just have a " -- " in them. The cache name and difficulty/terrain stars show up alright, but not the other two fields. If I read the comments page, the cache size shows up in there, but just not the main page showing the cache information. Any ideas? I uploaded the PQ file through Delorme TOPO 7 and have the latest firmware installed, 2.6. Thanks!

Ideal for me would be improvements to the current PN-40 (some of these already exist, but i would like to keep them for future generations): -Form factor/build quality of the Delorme PN-30/40 -Included 24k topo maps for the entire US -altimeter/pressure plot -Larger screen than the pn-40 -more durable battery springs -ability to use AA alkalines, lithium pack, or NIMH batteries -map screen that didn't "draw" all the time while moving around -battery life 18+ hours -terrain shading -built in XM weather integration (shows radar, visible and IR satellite overlays on map and weather conditions/predictions) -built in ELT for emergencies (im not talking about SPOT, just a basic ELT) -voice activated auto-routing for less manual key inputs -faster auto-routing and re-routing, detours, and ability to set faster or shorter routes Thats pretty much about it for me. The PN-40 is almost perfect... just add these features and it would be golden.

There are 3 ways to send geocaches to your GPS that I know of. 1. Send each one individually (the way you've been doing it) 2. Send up to 20 at a time. Goto your geocaching.com/my page, then goto Search Options. Select a search option, then on the next page, scroll to the bottom, select "Check all", then download waypoints. 3. Create a PQ to download 500 geocaches at a time. Geocaching PQ

Can anyone back this up? Might we not get a better quality product if it was made in the USA. The quality is already pretty darn good wherever these things are assembled. I'm not sure what it is you're disappointed about. I believe all of the engineering teams and corporate offices for the major brands are located here in the states (except Thales/Magellan which is in France).

In general the Endura's are pretty stable units. You have to take those comments on Amazon with a grain of salt because a lot of the people who wrote them probably don't know how to use their GPSrs to their full capability. I can just see people turning it on, not knowing exactly how to do something because they didn't bother trying to find out, then just giving up and saying they got a lemon! A lot of people are just impatient (and ignorant) with electronics. I got to play with the Endura several times at Best Buy and they are pretty sweet. No crashes, weird issues or concerns that I noticed and I played with everything. I LOVE the map panning and rotation the best. It is more fluid rather than the choppy motion you on other brands. I guess the bottom line is, don't judge the Endura too harshly based on some mainstream reviews. There are definitely some quirks like the one Briansnat brought up, but in terms of stability and functionality I would say they are 95% there.

They are highly sensible. lol awesome

bleh

the violent disagreement was kind of a joke ... i saw one of my friends use it on facebook the other day and I got a laugh out of it.

In the case of the PN-40, I completely agree that the way Delorme designed it is ideal. I can choose whatever type of battery I want. This is perfect. My complaint was more aimed at the trend of electronic devices moving towards using proprietary battery packs or built in batteries etc. This is where I draw the line and say no. As long as manufacturers give us the option, I am all for it. And hey, if you choose to use the CRV battery in the Pn-40, then by all means go for it, but lets keep it flexible and not lock us ALL down to using rechargeable packs.