RFtinkerer

I really love the Montana; I have the City Navigator, 24k topo, and Birdseye imagery for it. And the automotive mount. I use it for everything...for geocaching, I select a cache from the geocaching mode, car navigate to it through voice-guided prompts, take it off the the mount and hike the rest of the way, then log the cache after I find it in there. Navigate back to my car, off to the next. I also use it for city navigation, boating, and ranging for long range shooting. It plain rules. I don't mind the bulk, it still fits in my jeans pocket, though it is large.

Have you looked into a Nuvi 500? It's a true multi-mode unit.

Ha, I did that the first time too! Transferring it to the 300 is as simple as exporting the .gpx file from the ZIP to your drive when the 300 is connected...mine for example is E:\Garmin\GPX, but that may not be true for your computer. Should be good to go from then on.

Thanks for the laugh!

Of those 3 units, I believe that the GPSMAP 76CSx is the only one that floats on it's own. In the canoe that might be an issue. True, but it's bigger than the other units. Some people attach floaters to the lanyard with the 60 CSx, because they like the form factor better. Use the floater, obviously, when in the canoe and remove for other times.

I highly second the pocket query. Once you go to the pocket query and load up 500 caches without much work, you'll never go back.

Do you mean using the Colorado to auto-route to the geocaches using Navigator? That works for me. I just put it in Automotive profile, select the "Where-to" shortcut, geocaches, select the cache I want and it routes the roads I need to get near it.

Yes, exactly same with file I loaded from GSAK, but direct file was fine. I'm wondering if there's a format thing with the CO. I hope somebody smarter than me can determine the issue. I had the same problem yesterday with a gpx file direct from a pocket query. I did a reset of all user data (hold down both soft buttons and power on) and the problem went away. Hmm, good to know if I have problems in the field.

Double post.

I have City Navigator on my 300, mixed with Topo 2008 on an SD card. Works fine for me, but it's not as good as my C550. Touch-screen keyboard and voice prompting are very important for my car needs. I'd really advise forking over a little more cash for a Nuvi or some other dedicated car unit.

Yes, exactly same with file I loaded from GSAK, but direct file was fine. I'm wondering if there's a format thing with the CO. I hope somebody smarter than me can determine the issue.

Can't help you with an opinion, but you CAN view the maps in a preview fashion on the Garmin web site. Go to www.garmin.com, click on 'Maps', then select the map from 'Mapsource Map Viewer'. After the viewer pops up, pan and zoom to your favorite lakes and look around. Looks like there are depth contours, labels for marinas, area roads, etc.

Just drop the PQ .GPX directly into the \Garmin\GPX directory--I have had problems with GSAK and the Colorado that I cannot explain. Something about the formatting perhaps. Works fine directly, though.

Geocache different?

I'll repeat my observations--I tried to load a file from GSAK and found that I could only route to maybe half of them. Then I loaded the PQ file directly from Groundspeak into the device under the \Garmin\GPX directory and all seems fine...I can route to any cache. This is with Navigator 2008 and Topo 2008 on an SD card for a Colorado 300. So, my questions are: Does it not navigate to ALL caches? When you select a cache, you should see a pink line from your position to the cache in the map, directional arrow and distance. If you do not--the device is not working with the cache info. Also, did you load the file DIRECTLY from Groundspeak, or through some interface such as GSAK? I have no idea what's going on, these are just my observations.

How do you drop the results directly to the Colorado? And where do I find the "(folder)" on the device? Also, do I have to unzip the pocket queries? I'm sorry for the stupid questions. I've owned a Magellan, need I say more? Yes, you have to unzip it first (if you're on Windows XP or Vista it will do this directly, not sure about Macs.) Extract to the Colorado drive (usually E:) under Garmin\GPX, (E:\Garmin\GPX, again as an example.) Power up and go. This is the simplest way to do it--I've had trouble with GSAK exports, seemed not to navigate to some caches. Good upgrade from Magellan. Okay, First: I have Vista, I'm not sure if that's the problem or not. Second: As soon as I plug in my Colorado a window pops up (AutoPlay) it shows a triangle and next to it (Garmin Colorado (F): ) Then below it "Picture options": Import Pictures, View pictures using windows, View using windows media center, Import and view your pictures, or Create disk and edit image. Thats it!! Nothing else pops up and I can't find anything that says Extract to the Colorado Drive. I'm not a computer wiz by any means, So maybe you could explaine it a little better for someone that's not so great with a computer. Thanks for all your help so far. Sorry I wasn't clear. After you plug in the Colorado, close the window that appears a apersson states. Okay, this is how it works in XP, hopefully Vista is similar. Double click on the zip file you got from Groundspeak, a window should open. Right click on the main .gpx file, select 'Extract'. A window should pop up where you can select the path. Navigate to the F:\Garmin\GPX and click 'Extract'. You may verify a big .gpx file is in the Colorado using the file explorer.

On the map page, click the options button, then 'change data field', rocker button to what field you want to change, click it, the CO will bring up a menu of data items, select 'Time to Next', or 'ETA', or whatever you were intending. Experiment and be happy. I had time for a bit, but found I preferred the distance anyway...easier to gauge turns.

How do you drop the results directly to the Colorado? And where do I find the "(folder)" on the device? Also, do I have to unzip the pocket queries? I'm sorry for the stupid questions. I've owned a Magellan, need I say more? Yes, you have to unzip it first (if you're on Windows XP or Vista it will do this directly, not sure about Macs.) Extract to the Colorado drive (usually E:) under Garmin\GPX, (E:\Garmin\GPX, again as an example.) Power up and go. This is the simplest way to do it--I've had trouble with GSAK exports, seemed not to navigate to some caches. Good upgrade from Magellan.

Not my experience. I have both City Nav and Topo 2008 loaded, along with the base map, on my 300. I can have all selected and see the Topo DEM shading with Navigator streets and routing, or deselect Navigator to see the contour lines and Topo streets, etc. Works a treat.

Some of my geocaches do not show the data or the arrow when I click on them. I have tried reloading them but to no avail. All of them have shown this data before, but not now. When I go to full screeen compass view, I get no arrow or data. I am completely updated, and these are files that were entered by clicking on the Send to GPS button. Thanks. Saw this when I had used GSAK to export the .gpx file this weekend--several times I could not navigate to a cache. Reloaded with the file direct from the Pocket Query, and lo and behold I could navigate fine to those same ones. Something about the way GSAK is formatting the file versus the Pocket Query file? I don't know.

Just do a Pocket Query, and load the .gpx file directly under Garmin/GPX. Nothing special necessary. I've got 500 caches in my Colorado this way with a few steps, some people have more. Way more.

Are you serious? The current method takes two presses on the Enter key, as well as a few clicks of wheel turning, but that's so easy to do that I don't count it. Then you are at the coordinate entry screen. How much simpler do you think it could get, without getting in the way of the most common thing, i.e. store a point here? Yes, I'm pretty serious. Maybe you don't do many multi caches, where you have to determine the next coords based on the previous coords, and based on the cache description and maybe you want to refer to the hint now and then for each stage? It is, in fact, a lot of key presses, to switch between waypoint gotos and the geocaching description field or hint. Let's say you are going to stage 2 of a multi. As described above, you've created a waypoint, and did a Where to? to go to it. Let's say you are on the compass screen. To see the hint for stage 2 and then come back to the compass screen, you have to: You have to [Press]Shortcut-> [Wheel to]Geocache[press center]-> [Wheel to]<The cache you are on>[press center]-> [press]Options-> [Press]Show Description-> [Press]Options-> [Wheel to]Show hints[Press center]-> (read the hint)-> [Press]Back-> [Press]Back-> [Press]Shortcuts-> [Wheel to]Where to?[Press center]-> [Wheel to]Waypoints[Press center]-> [Press]{Stage 2}-> [Press]Go-> [Press]Shortcuts-> [Wheel to]Compass[Press center] That's 22 total UI interactions to read the hint and get back to the compass screen. (Rotating the wheel, and pressing the center button are two separate UI interactions.) If the geocaching mode had a "Update coords" under the "Options" softkey, you could read the hint in 6 UI interactions and be back at the Compass/Map combo screen, which is the screen I like to use while searching. Not to mention that you'd have to go through that sequence a bunch of times, if it had multiple stages. Just editing the geocache coords instead of creating a new waypoint or editing an existing waypoint would save you a bunch of UI interactions as well. Personally, I'd like to see "Update Coords" and "Project New Coords" in the geocaching mode, although not very many caches use projection, so that one could probably be left as a special case where you would have to use a waypoint. --Marky Sheesh. That may be accurate but it didn't seem THAT bad to me on the multi-caches I did this weekend. Mark waypoint, edit location, go towards waypoint, select cache for the description en-route. It WOULD be easier to modify the cache directly. But it was no ordeal anyway.

Are you serious? The current method takes two presses on the Enter key, as well as a few clicks of wheel turning, but that's so easy to do that I don't count it. Then you are at the coordinate entry screen. How much simpler do you think it could get, without getting in the way of the most common thing, i.e. store a point here? Regarding the USB cable, I don't really see the benefit? The only thing it will do is that you don't need to remove the cable. Pulling a USB cable out is about as much work as flipping a switch. The rest would be the same anyway. You could loose millions... The Colorado should scan the clue with the coordinates, perform optical character recognition and transfer that data to the new waypoint. I don't think that's too much to ask.

I think he's talking about the synthesized elevation modeling with actual hills, mountains, not just the flat roads with the slanted eye point. Navigator does not have the data for it.

I just bought my wife her own. Hmm...wonder if they'll sell a pink shell for it someday?