gitarmac

Do you have hide user waypoints turned on? I havn't found this choice on my units but it's my understanding it's there on some units.

Hmmm, I got one of the oregons on sale, and soon after I got an astro 320, which is supposed to be based on the 62. I had read a lot of reviews that stated the oregon is slightly less accurate than other models but so far I've been very impressed! I've used it side by side with the astro and the astro sometimes will jump around when the oregon remains stable. Wierd considering the astro has that fancy schmancy helix antenna. Do you have another unit to compare it with? Maybe a friend has one? I wouldn't worry as much about the shift in waypoints. Mine varies quite a bit from day to day. Even my tracks will shift. I've had better performance with my eneloop rechargables then with alkaline batteries. I use a nice charger, it makes a differance. The other rechargables have given sporatic results. Sometimes they won't work fresh off the charger, even with a confirmed full charge?!?!? I don't know enough about this kind of thing to come up with a theory but I assume it has something to do with the way the unit sense them.

I was pleasantly surprized with my oregon. I agree with getting the most advanced unit you can afford. There are other features besides the paperless caching that are featured. I didn't think I would like the touch screen and it's true that buttons get touched inadvertantly but sometimes I don't like to lock the screen so that's really my fault. When I got my million dollar astro for tracking my doggies I thought about selling my oregon, I had just gotten it on sale from rei so I could easily recoup the cost. I have found I love them both! I really like the big screen on the oregon, and it's so much easier to type notes and names. I sometimes use the oregon to mark and modify a waypoing and send it electronically to my astro! The astro is supposed to be based on the garmin 62 but my oregon seems more reliable. Sometimes the astro compass jumps while the oregon remains steady. I got the astro to track my dogs with but it does paperless geocaching as well. I also use it while hunting. I keep a differant gps with me though.

Have you updated the software on the unit? Have you tried it since then? I have not noticed my units behaviour changing over time. My first vista jumped a lot at first but I updated the software and it was fine. My astro 320 jumps more than my oregon for some reason. The astro is supposed to be based on the 62, I thought it would outshine my oregon. How often do you calibrate the compass? If it was just one cache I wouldn't worry about it, like one poster said, they do this sometimes. Keep us updated.

I discovered another quirk. I again tried to send wirelessly, with gps on, and it didn't work. Eventually I discovered the profiles have to match. Then it will work even with gps off. I have my recreational profile set up to share stuff. I don't have wireless sharing in the menu of the other profiles so it won't be cluttered.

welp, as usual it was just user error. There is a problem with the gps saying "near" when the collars are near, they just display an inaccurate reading. But once past 100 feet they seem to work fine. Not sure what the deal was with the compass calibration. I suspect I didn't have the card seated properly. Once I had enough dog tracks on the unit I could use the map button to toggle the tracks. The problem before was not having enough tracks that were not overlapping. Anyhoo, I think there are still a few quirks but I am really liking it now.

I have a venture, it's pretty easy and quick to load the parts you need. I have the SEUSA map from gpsfiledepot.com and do this all the time. Now I have other units but the venture has served me well.

So i guess I will have to ask my question here. I suspect most folks here dont' have this series, the gps part is supposed to be based on the 62 but the buttons and software are differant so most of it doesn't really apply. But I'll roll the dice and take my chances. I got my astro and set it up the other day. I tested it more extensivly today with both the collars I got. I will list my issues as they occured. Problem 1 was getting the compass to calibrate. The gps was not showing the dog collars where they were supposed to be so I tried to calibrate the compass thinking that would help. It would not perform the final part where you roll it. Eventually I decided to take the card out and try it and it worked. I later repeated it with the card in and it worked that time. I had calibrated it with the card in before, not sure why it didnt' work at first today. I even changed the perfectly good batteries. I don't know why it decided to work the next time I tried it with the card in. Actually the first problem was the inaccurate collar readings. I don't expect pinpoint accuracy but when the collars are in front of me, with me between them, I don't think the gps should tell me they are 100 feet behind me and together. My latest issue is the dog tracks showing on the map. They show wheather I tell it to not show them at all, or show them for 5 minutes. If I tell it to turn dog track log off, it should turn it off. All this stuff cost me almost 900 bucks and I am not more likly to be able to track them than if I didn't have the stuff at all. I have already done an update. I swear, when I first got it I did a short test and it seemed to work fine. It hasn't been dropped or hardly moved from my desk. Garmin is closed now. I guess I will continue to test it and make a list of my problems. Hopefully this will be resolved.

I have an oregon and an astro 350 which is supposed to be based on the 62, my waypoints show up. What do you have the map setting on? You can change how you have to zoom to see them, or something. THere should be a gpx file in one of your garmin folders that waypoints are stored in. Are they in the wrong folder? I used basecamp to transfer my waypoints that I had stored on my computer to my new units when I first got them. I had a couple of duplicate waypoints, I fixed it but I don't know why it happened. I usually use easygps. It doesn't have some of the special icons though, so when I downoad them into the new ones the symbol is differant. I don't know how to use basecamp to just download new waypoints. Maybe I will get used to it but right now I don't care for it. I like to clear my gps's sometimes and load region specific waypoints and geocaches. Of course my vista didn't hold as many so I had to do that.

I got it to work. This time I tried it with the gps on. Herp Derp. When I tried it before it was in the house in demo mode, I was just getting to know the screens and setting them up. I went outside and remembered the issue with the wireless transfer thing and remembered that I was in the house. When I tried it again it worked!! Awesome!

Both my oregon 450 and my astro 320 (supposed to be like the 62) has a wireless sharing feature but my units couldn't find each other, they kept "searching". Did I not wait long enough? I wouldn't think it would take too long.

I wish I knew that before I got an oregon on sale! I was thinking of selling it but I like the idea of having another gps so I think I will keep it. I don't have it yet, it should be here in a day or so though. I got it to keep track of my doggies. It's my understanding that the handheld gps is like the new 62, so I'm pretty exited! Apparently it's just been released, I've only found a few reviews. I downloaded the instruction manual, it's as useful as the other ones. I can't figure out if you can save the doggie tracks. I think it only saves them till you clear it or select new hunt. I've already subscribed to birdseye, now that I have 2 birdseye friendly units I'll get more of my moneys worth. From what I have skimmed it looks like it will be very similar to my oregon 450. Except it will have the joystick of my vista. I can do paperless geocaching too!

Some of my waypoints have a day of the week in parenthesis after the name. The day does not show up when you are editing the name so I can't backspace and delete it. I think this happened after connecting to easy gps. I know this last time I consoladated the gps files in easy gps and uploaded all of them as one. These were waypoints already on the gps, there were no double names, at first I thought that was it. All of them don't have the day, I can't figure out what is differant with some of them that they have it.

Those things take awhile. I just sent mine this week.

It's out now!! I don't know weather to get the astro 220 or the astro 320. I just got an oregon 450 on sale. It would be about 200 dollars more to get the 320 package and by package I mean the gpsr, 2 collars, and extended antenna. I went to the garmin site and compared them to try and decide. The 320 gives you the ability to save 200 tracks, paperless geocaching, internal memory, differant display. I heard something about these new ones being ecollar compatible but now I can't find it. That would be worth it to me if I needed to use one someday. I wonder if I should save the money and just get the 220.

I've been using easy gps to backup and send files to my oregon. I got used to it using it with my vista. I've used basecamp to put birdseye on my oregon and to back it up when I first got it but that's about it so far.

I have found that the oregon loads gpxfiles according to date. I wonder if there are too many files. I had read on another board where somebody backs up all the files then reloads them as one gpx file. I was wondering if I should do that as well.

You missed a good sale on the oregon. I just got one. I usually use my vista and I actaully still use it. The battery life in the vista is pretty awesome and to me it seems more rugged. I use my gps's mostly for non-geocaching so unless I happen to be geocaching and want the paperless caching features I think the vista is superior in many ways. I do like being able to save the 200 tracks like I can with the oregon. It sounds like you use yours much in the same way as I do. I have mapped out 3 hunt clubs! I save my files so the 20 track limit isn't as much of a factor. I like to save my tracks and go to gpsvisualizer.com and superimpose them on satilite images. You can find refurbished units that come with the same warrenty as the new ones. The one I have now is refurbished. I lost the other one hunting. I don't know why they make everything black and gray. I have reflective tent cordage on my new one. I don't know if you can use easygps with the other brands but that's what I use to save my files.

........You say your giving them away in your subject line but you actually want to sell containers. If you need to get rid of them they are probably recyclable. He/She has to sell them because they are getting out of hand! I wonder what they are doing? Are they jumping on the furniture? Or maybe they are peeing on the floor.

I guess I'm all set then. I thought I read somewhere that one of those programs either can't send waypoints to the oregon or can't recieve them from the oregon. Now that I found the easy gps version for the oregon I seem to be able to do both. I have also read about the problem of duplicate waypoints which is a more serious problem. I would hate to have 1000 waypoints, then have them duplicated. I am using both my gps's, the vista and oregon, and want to be able to exchange data. I know the vista has more limits as to how long a waypoint name can be, and maybe the comment but I'm not sure. Thanks for all the info. Eventually I will settle on the best way to manage my data.

OK, I found that I can download a version of easygps for the oregeon so at least that issue is resolved. I still would like to figure out basecamp. On easy gps I can open it, then open files I've saved, all without hooking up my gps. On basecamp, I get nothing. I have to hook up my gps to see stuff. I cannot seem to filter my data. When I go into view, then data filter, everything is grayed out except "all data".

Just as a test I made a list of tracks at the hunt club and added teh tracks. Is it copying the data or simply making a database? If I delete a track out of that list do I lose it on in my collection? Just trying to understand.

Easy gps doesn't really work with the oregon. I found an "add gps" in the program when I was on my netbook but for some reason I can't make it work with my netbook. gsak seems to treat everything like a geocache so I am hesitant to use it on my oregon since it keeps a file of all caches loaded. I must be the only person that tries to manage my waypoints and tracks. I made several "region files" so that I can clear (after backing up if needed) my gps and load it with just the data I will need for that area. Why do you do that? you ask. Well for one thing it makes it easier to use the same names. Lets say I frequent more than one huntclub or park. YOu can only use the word "stand" or "trail" once, then you have to make it unique. As long as there is only one area in the gps it doesn't matter as much. I might have to designate between 50 or more deerstand. Some of them dont' have names, I just use the icon and let it use it's own number. This worked fine until I used basecamp to manage my files. A lot of my waypoints are named very similar names which for a reason I don't fully understand, became duplicate files with even more similar names. But the main issue is I have read warnings about using programs other then basecamp to load files. I am told you can't send to the unit on mapsource. THere is even a warning, I think in the wiki article, about using other programs. So I already have a problem with duplicate names for the same waypoint, not sure what program did it. I don't want to chance more problems. I'm glad I got my oregon on sale. In many ways it seems like a step backward from my vista. The paperless caching thing is pretty cool but I use my gpsr's for uses other than geocaching. The birdseye satelite images are nice at first but they don't display very will on the screen, they look rather washed out. You don't really get any useful information, believe it or not, from the sat images, just busy screen. One nice thing though is the SEUSA map from gpsfilesdepot - it's absolutly beautiful when shading is turned off! Another useless feature, who uses shading anyway, everyone complains about it. It's nice that it holds 5000 waypoints and 200 tracks. THere seems to be no way to organize them.

So what use is the total odometer reading? Does anyone actually use that statistic? For instance, mine says 550 miles. But what does it tell me. I've driven some of it, but not all of it because I"ve turned my gps on and off. I've walked some of it,who knows how much. It seems like a meaningless feature, I can't figure out why garmin put it there. All it seems to have done is confuse people. I've already searched the threads. People dont' seem to know the differance between trip odometer and total odometer.

back to top. I am also interested in this before I mess up my new oregon. I am having a lot of trouble trying to figure out the purpose of basecamp. Is the purpose to install maps and make backups? Cause that's not really useful.