synergicity

More likely the bandwagon effect and being the biggest player in the market.

The Mapcreate software requires the reader, or at least that's what they say. Most cards should work. Check for a thread by Lee Rimer on how to get around their 5 card limit. I have no idea where to plug in headphones. Could it be the little hole on the front bottom which I assumed was the mic? Hmmm. Oh, maybe you need an adapter to plug into the bottom which has an input for a headphone jack? I bet that's it. We have to buy an adapter.

Second Battery Test Batteries: Brand new PowerEX 2500 mah, charged in a Maha MH-C204F charger. These batteries will probably improve as they go through a few discharge/recharge cycles, but these are new and all the tests will be on new charged once PowerEX 2500's. GPS settings: Backlight off, compass on, altimeter on, WAAS on, 1 Gb card loaded, overnight was on window sill at home, average of 5-6 satellites, then in my office window like the first test, sleep mode off. Results: 14 hours 23 minutes. I wasn't there to see it shut off but the track had 5175 points collected one every 10 seconds. Edit to add that the screen settings were: - contrast: center position - brightness: center position - display mode: normal - light delay: Continuous and that sounds were off in both tests.

Sportrak Map Forerunner 201 Lowrance Expedition

I think that the comparisons I am making aren't the "meat" of my posts. They are more the "wow, what a difference a few years makes," sort of thing. It isn't really a comparison but instead more a look at my new GPS and what it can do. I guess I felt that was clear in what I had written. Certainly I was never so stupid as to assume that my 3 year old Sportrak map is all that Magellan has to offer. My Mapsend Topo is the version I got 3 years ago, patched and updated as Magellan allowed. Again, I'm not really comparing and contrasting. P.S. The Expedition is still running at the 12 hour mark.

I am a Lowrance Expedition C owner. I have posted before about it because I love it and I could have afforded an Explorist XL or the 60/76 CSWXT or whatever and chose the Lowrance. First of all, the Brunton is just a rebadged Lowrance H2O for more money. Stay away unless you like to spend more. Here's what I like about my Expedition. * Fast lock, great accuracy, SIRFIII chipset * 1000 waypoints per file, unlimited files can be loaded on the SD or MMC card * 10000 points per track, 100 tracks total, but you can save tracks to the card and start again. Total track points is around 60000 in the unit's memory. * Incredible color screen with quarter VGA resolution. * Electronic compass and barometric altimeter (as in the "S" version Garmins). * MapCreate software (comes with the Plus pack along with a 64 mb SD card and a cardreader. Far superior to the Magellan Topo software I had with my Sportrak Map. * Capable of 1 gb (I have one) and I hear 2 gb SD card use. I have most of N. Cal., Oregon, and Washington topo maps in mine along with 3 files with waypoints of around 500 each. * $320 plus shipping. * 11 hours battery life with 2 AA 2500 mah NiMH batteries, with backlight on, compass/altimeter on, WAAS on, coffeemaker on Here's what I don't like. * It's big, I still haven't gotten used to it. * No turn-by-turn capability (autorouting?). I hear that I need this, but can't figure out why. * The rubber cover over the bottom connector and the external antenna connecter aren't very solidly attached. They could have come up with a better solution to cover these areas. * It's too shiny and makes me paranoid about scratches. I have a neoprene case and an invisibleshield on their way, but it makes me nervous. * Everyone says, "What?" when I tell them what GPSR I bought. Not really a problem. Hope this helps confuse the issue even more! Edit to add link to screenshots: http://www.flickr.com/photos/gtinseth/sets...57594063528727/

Sorry Airmapper, but I figure Lowrance deserves a fair shake on these boards. I am having such a blast with this GPSR after upgrading from the Sportrak Map that I can hardly contain myself. I have gone out bushwhacking the last two days just to see where my tracks end up on Google Earth. And the display and the satellite lock on this unit are just phenomenal. Not to mention the MapCreate software compared to the Magellan Topo I had before. Night and day difference. Did I mention I am pleased with my purchase? Heh. I'll report back as soon as this thing shuts down with the backlight off.

I have a Lowrance Expedition C. I love it. Here is the first battery test I did. Batteries: Brand new PowerEX 2500 mah, charged in a Maha MH-C204F charger. These batteries will probably improve as they go through a few discharge/recharge cycles, but these are new and all the tests will be on new charged once PowerEX 2500's. GPS settings: Backlight on, compass on, altimeter on, WAAS on, 1 Gb card loaded, was in the window at my office, average of 8 satellites, often locked on WAAS (PRN 122 which is Garmin number 35?), sleep mode off. Results: 11 hours 2 minutes (actually at 10 hours 52 minutes the backlight turned off and the low battery warning sounded, so the last 10 minutes was with the backlight off). ------ Next test: exactly the same as above but with backlight off. I will report tomorrow how it did.

It is from John Galvin, username rwcx183 at the yahoo group ifinder_gps. Here is the list he provided: iFinder = SiRF IIe iFinderPro = SiRF IIe/LP iFinderH2O = SiRF IIe/LP iFinderHunt = SiRF IIe/LP iFinderM&M = SiRF IIe/LP iFinderPHD = SiRF IIe/LP iFinderExplorer = SiRF IIe/LP iFinderHuntC = SiRF III iFinderExpeditionC = SiRF III iFinderH2OC = SiRF III iFinderGO/GO2 = Antares or SiRF III (can't remember for certain) As you can see I should have told you it was the H2OC and HuntC not the grayscale versions. I think his email is lgalvin<at>yahoo<dot>com so you can ask him if you want more info. Easier might be to join the yahoo group and post the question. Either way, fill us in if you find that the info is not accurate. That would be great news, but I can't find any mention of it on the Lowrance website or in the owners manuals for those models. There was a press release a couple of years ago about using the SiRF IIe set in some models, but nothing about the III chipset. Where did you find your info?

I like flickr.com In fact they sold me with unlimited storage and 3 gigs per month upload with the premium membership. Without premium the upload limit is low.

Except the Lowrance H20, Hunt, and Expedition. They use the SIRFIII chipset, have lots of internal memory, and accept MMC and SD memory cards. Right now I have a 1 gb card in my Expedition and it is full of topo maps and tracks and waypoints. Also regarding your question why EPE might vary between different makes and models of GPS, the algorithms that each manufacturer use to calc EPE are different. Some are conservative and others are more agressive. My Lowrance tends to never get below 15 ft, but I am usually right on top of the caches I search (within 3 feet of the last 3 with repeated approaches and more than one day on each). So EPE is something you take with a grain or two of salt.

Remember that the Plus version includes Topo software that you won't get with the 210. Add 80 bucks to the 210 price. That said, the 210 is certainly the easier unit to use. If you have trouble programming your VCR, you should get the 210. If you are techweenie like me, the Lowrance units are great. Let me tell you what I did today. I went on a hike to try to find 1947 blimp wreckage. I set my Expedition to set a track point every second (I can have up to 10000 points per track and aroun 60000 points total I think). When I came back, I saved the data to my card from the unit's memory, and then dumped the data file to my computer using the LEI cardreader. I used GPSbabel to convert the usr to a GPX formated XML file. Then in Google Earth Plus I opened the GPX file and was able to overlay my track on the Google earth display. I also use the 3dsolar addons kml for Google earth and was able to overlay a semi-transparent topo map over the photo and my track. It rocks. Lowrance really lock on quick and don't lose lock easily. I am not going back to my Magellan Sportrak Map. Plus I have almost a gigabyte of good quality topo maps on my SD card in addition to over 600 geocache waypoints that are processed via GSAK. You can have as many different files of caches as you want as long as each one is less than or equal to 1000 waypoints (although if you have the Hunt, you can have 2000 waypoints). I am totally happy with this. It isn't as user friendly as the gargellan offerings, but it outdoes them in other ways.

The 60csx advertises 12 channels, so who knows. It's marketing. All I can say is that side by side with my Magellan Sportrak Map I get faster acquisition and better lock with the Expedition - and way better performance under tree cover. I just did a hike in the woods (redwoods) with track points every second and it didn't lose lock once, over 3645 points with zero outliers, most of the time I had 6 or more satellites, 2-4 on the Sportrak. It sounds like the Hunt C below was broken or he didn't properly initialize. Beware that there are bad anecodotal stories about every brand and model of GPS. Take them and mine with a grain of salt. If both of these units use the SirfIII chip why would one outperform the other as reported above? Why does Lowrance state their unit has 16 channels when the SirfIII chip supposedly has 20? I finally got a reply from Lowrance regarding the sensitivity of the Expedition and here is what they stated: Sensitivity Tracking -150dBm Reacquisition -147dBm -141 hot/warm acquisition 135dBm cold acquisition

Excellent points, but at least I have the equivalent of a base map. I can fine tune the detail as we go on trips.

I wanted to supply GSAK with all the caches I might want to search for on all the road trips that I might be taking in the next year or so. So I did the Pocket Query shuffle. I searched for all cache types I wanted to look for in the area that I would travel through. It took a week's worth of 5 queries a night, but using the find by date and place method, I eventually retrieved all the unfound active caches within 350 miles of Salem, Oregon. Now using GSAK filters/search, I can find a radius around some point, or a bearing in a certain direction, or all caches that have the word Happy in them. Then I export the data to a usr file for my Lowrance Expedition (up to 1000 waypoints) and to a cachemate file for my Palm m500. If I am in Seattle, I am loaded for what is there and if I am in Grants Pass, the same is true. Thank you GC.com for this cool feature.

Let's see: 10000 points in active track - check Storage of multible tracks, waypoints, maps, routes - check (on SD or MMC) Excellent and accurate trip computer page - not sure what this means 240x320 large screen - check (256 colors TFT) View multiple saved tracks with different colors - check (and patterns) Use of PC or Laptop to store converted garmin tracklogs, and waypoints to Explorist mem card - huh? why? Lowrance Expedition or H2O C meet these specs. No auto-routing though.

I put up some here. http://www.flickr.com/photos/gtinseth/sets...57594063528727/ They should be visible to everyone. I took them at night with the backlight on, no flash, so pardon if they aren't the best. They should give you some idea of the resolution of the display

I asked the same question over at the ifinder yahoo group. Here is the reply from one of the knowledgable folks (rwcx183) over there: "iFinder = SiRF IIe iFinderPro = SiRF IIe/LP iFinderH2O = SiRF IIe/LP iFinderHunt = SiRF IIe/LP iFinderM&M = SiRF IIe/LP iFinderPHD = SiRF IIe/LP iFinderExplorer = SiRF IIe/LP iFinderHuntC = SiRF III iFinderExpeditionC = SiRF III iFinderH2OC = SiRF III iFinderGO/GO2 = Antares or SiRF III (can't remember for certain)" But from your description, maybe you need a higher end pro-type GPS (i.e. Trimble or the like). My Expedition does better in the woods and ravines (and I'm talking redwoods, not the little midget trees you all have elsewhere) than my Sportrak Map did. But I have no way to directly compare it to one of the newer Garmins.

This will be pretty freeform as I wanted to get something before calling it a night. I received the Expedition C (which is a silly name because there is no other kind of Expedition) this afternoon. I threw 2 freshly charged NiMH AA batteries in and turned it on. The very first thing you notice is the display...it is spectacular, 2.25" x 1.70" at 320 x 240 pixels, 256 color TFT - that's 140 dpi if I did my math right. It is real nice or as my daughter says, "Tight!" which means really good I guess. I told it where we were on the earth and then left it on the window sill for a while and let it get settled. It acquired 6-8 satellites within a few minutes and was able to maintain lock on some of them even in the center of our building (old, wooden) about 30 feet from the window. Walking outside I was able to get WAAS lock once the sky was available and EPE stayed around 19 feet. Without WAAS it was around 30 ft. I went after a cache I knew of nearby and it placed me within 4 feet but told me EPE was still 30 feet. I hunted a second cache I hadn't found yet nearby and was able to find it under thick tree cover but was only able to get within 20 feet of the spot according to the Expedition. I will do a lot more testing when I have more time and can bring my Sportrak Map with me for comparison. One thing I didn't miss at all was the overshoot I had gotten used to with the Magellan. The magnetic compass is nice and the barometric altimeter performed well under pressure. Both are new features to me and I haven't yet figured out how important they will be. I can see the compass being handy, but I always carry an old-school compass when I am hiking or caching. Before I went out I loaded up a new 1 gb SD card into the supplied LEI card reader and fired up MapCreate. Granted that my version of the Magellan topo software is a couple of years old, but Mapcreate really is superior to what I had. The topo data is much more detailed, and the road and POI is way beyond what Magellan provided. I made four map sections starting around Fresno, to SF, then No. Cal, then the western 2/3 of Oregon and the same portion of Washinton. The map chunks are 87 mb, 160 mb, 256 mb, and 320 mb. They fit on the card along with the closest 500 caches to me which I processed from a geocaching.com GPX file to a USR file using GSAK. I didn't expect it but the GPS smoothly transitions from one map section to another without me having to do anything. I had to manual tell it to load the waypoints from the card to memory, but now they are there. There are 6 screens, but one is the mp3 playing screen which I turned off. The five left are the map, the compass, the goto (which is compass-like but shows your track and the approaching waypoint marker), the satellites, and the status which shows pressure in the top half and your choice of 6 data items. The goto and map screens allow you to view 8 data items or 4 items and current coordinates. The compass screen has the battery meter plus 6 data items or 2 items and current coordinates. I would love the status screen if I could get the pressure off the top half and add more data instead. I will have to get used to this. The map and goto screens can be zoomed manually or you can choose auto-zoom so that the zoom increases as you get closer. I haven't tried this yet but will soon. Again, I will do more testing in the woods and with another GPS along. This is just the first impressions. Oh, yeah, it's big, glossy black and clear plastic which takes fingerprints easily. It's comfortable in my hand, but might not be for smaller hands (I'm 6'2"). The buttons are OK, all are above the surface of the face except the power/backlight and the Pages button which switches screens. And the display -- wow is all I can say about that. Edit: I just found that the up/down arrows cycle the pressure window on the status screen to altimeter history and then to current coordinates which is what I wanted. Yippee!

I will have an Expedition C tomorrow if the UPS truck gets here. I will report in as soon as I have a chance to play with it. Already have a 1 gb SD card ready for duty and mappage (I ordered the Plus pack from LakePowellMarineElectronics.com for around $320 plus shipping). I will be comparing it to my old trustworthy Sportrak Map.

The website confused me as well... why would the XL have the same resolution as the 500? It would be like the "big print" edition of the 500, and offer nothing additional. I contacted Magellan about the resolution stated on their website. It took me a while to get through to someone who knew what they were talking about. They responded that the website it wrong (and even the XL manual), and that the resolution of the XL is indeed 320 x 240. Thanks for the clarification. It didn't make much sense, but there is was on the website. Nice review by the way. Detailed and no punches pulled. Thanks.

The limit is 5 cards for Lowrance, but you can unregister each card once I hear. And there is another thread in this forum that shows how to get around this limitation completely. So it's not really an issue as I understand it.

Do remember to add the price of map software and any accessories to the base price of whatever GPSR you decide on. For example, you can get the Explorist 600 for $300 or so but you will want to add in the $70 or so for the Mapsend topo software. And then you will want an SD card (there is a 1 GB PNY card at newegg for $35 after rebate right now). Add it all up and decide and ultimately remember that there are people with multi-hundreds of finds with Garmin Geko GPSRs and they are as happy as clams and find what they are looking for.

Just a bit of clarification. The Explorer XL display is big, but its resolution isn't 320 x 240. From the Magellan site, it is: Specifications : eXplorist XL North America Display Resolution 220 x 176

Just an added plug for the Lowrance models. The Hunt, H2O, and Expedition all use the same SIRF III chipset as the new "X" series Garmins. Plus the Expedition is color and has a resolution of 320 x 240 (i.e. 1/4 VGA). They all support SD or MMC flash cards and the MapCreate topo software is top-rated compared to the Garmin and Magellan offerings (althought the POI database only holds 2 million entries and there is no auto-routing). The H2O and Expedition will hold 1000 waypoints, the Hunt will hold 2000. Lowrance is known for quick acquires and holding on to the birds through all kinds of cover plus a big bang for your buck. The Expedition color with MapCreate software, 64 MB SD card, and card reader is currently going for around $320. Ask me if you want to know where. If you are a Chevy or Ford person, go for the Garmin or Magellan, but if you are willing to venture outside the mainstream, consider Lowrance.