gitarmac

I'm so exited! I went from a venture, to vista, and now I will have the oregon 450! I'll be doing a lot more geocaching that's for sure. I mostly use my gps's hiking and hunting though. I'll be glad to be able to type in good notes, instead of using the weegee board! Can anyone give me any tips? I downloaded a manual and I've been searching for any bugs or other ideosycracies to expect. What new features will I be enjoying? The profiles option intrigues me, it sounds kind of confusing. I think that might be handy for the hunt club because my vista is so cluttered with waypoints. I'm also in charge of teh signs at the club so I have a waypoint for every sign and notes as to what it needs. I am assuming I can make a sign profile with all my sign icons, then have a stand profile with only the stands? That would be awesome! I gather from my readings that each profile has separate tracks? What if I want the track to be on more than one profile? Does the number of tracks in each profile have to add up to a total? I don't remember reading about the number of tracks I can store.

Did you get your problem fixed?

That's exactly why you want to keep batteries charged! It's really not that worrysome, thompsons has all these little battery holders you get free with every order. I have a lot of devices with me, it would be even easier to plan for only one device. I always have 8 fresh eneloops with me.

I got there for all my battery needs as well. I have an 8 battery maha charger and 2 4 battery lacrosse chargers. I like the lacrosse ones the best (that's why I got another). It starts off on low amperage chargeing, which is what I mostly use. The maha overcharges AAA's, even on soft charge. The lacrosse shows the voltage left on the battery when i put it in, which I like as well. I have used hicap sanyo 2700's and other batteries but some of my devices don't like them. My camera will not like a freshly charged 2700 but will last a long time on an eneloop. It doesn't make sense. I wonder if it's thinking it's a differant type of battery, I can't select battery type on my camera. My garmin venture only likes eneloops as well. From now on I am only using eneloops. I can still use my non-eneloops in my headlamps and stuff. Get a good charger, dont' ruin nice expensive rechargables with a crappy charger.

Whatever style you get, I strongly recommend the global needle! It settles quickly not matter how you hold it.

It irrates teh heck out of me when I give my friend my gps and she sticks it in her pocket! When I have to pocket mine, when it is off, I put it in the pocket of my backpack specially made for electronic stuff. I have the case for mine and clip it to a packstrap or waistband or something. I wish they made the case in a differant color than black, I have orange and glowcord on it for visibilty.

I edited it to choose only 450 caches to see if that helped. I chose the run once then delete method. I'll try choosing a day of the week. I only need it one time though.

I've had them mailed to me before. Is it because I just re-upped w paypal? I can genernate a query but it only saves it, I have to download each page separately.

I love hiking in the rain! It's important to be prepared for that however. Good shoes are a must, that's another topic though. I wear goretex or some other kind of waterproof boot that I have tested at home when I go out. I have a boot dryer at home as well. If its fairly warm it's not much of a problem, you will only sweat if you wear something waterproof. I have a variety of rain gear, a simple pauncho works pretty well. I also have a marmot precip and something similar by patogonia that works well in heavier downpours. Frogtogs work too. I try my stuff out at home when I go on day hikes or working in the yard so I know their limitations. More often than not it rains when I plan a camping trip, it's easier in the long run to learn to appreciate it. I think wet boots are the worst thing, you can't really dry them out very well on a hiking trip and they squish and chafe otherwise. Test your tents and stuff in the yard so you can seal any leaking seams.

I use eneloops or sanyo 2700's in my stuff. My venture is pretty picky, I need to top them off right before I use them, and they go down pretty quick. My vista hcx is simply amazing! I have left the thing on and in my vehicle overnight and IT WAS STILL RUNNING THE NEXT DAY!!! Battery life is one reason I am hesitant to upgrade from my vista. I also have 2 chargers, a maha and lacrosse. I mostly charge my batteries at 500ma or lower (the maha doesn't go lower). You can ruin good batteries with a bad charger. I got some off brand rechargables in the past that did not fit properly. They also didn't last long in the things that they did fit. I get reputable brands now from thompson distribution, which I learned about from this site. Not sure if this helps anyone but I thought I would contribute.

I have a vista hcx and venture hc and have been toying with the idea of getting the 60 while it's on sale. I do not need paperless so that is not an issue, although to tell the truth, I havn't had paperless so I don't know what I'm missing. I geocach some, but I do more hiking/hunting and just general messing around with my gpsr. I love the long battery life of the vista, but entering notes in the field is like typing on an ouiga board! I have recently started utilizing this though because I can put notes about differant hunting and hiking spots. I use the free maps from gpsfilesdepot.com, and have a cheap nuvi for my vehicle. My main concern is that the 60sx will not do anything that my vista doesn't already do.

tag for later downloading!

I got a refurbished vistahcx from cartoys.com. It was just like new, new box, new cords, new cd, I wouldn't have known if I was not told, except for the cheaper price that is.

Like someone else stated, you can't tell anything about the accuracy of a gps by geocaching. There is more to geocaching than using a gps to find the exact coordinates. Mark some stuff around your house, see how close it comes day after day. Also like someone said, you aren't going to get pinpoint accuracy. Just so you aren't shocked - the odometer may be off some as well.

When in mapsource you select "recieve from device", or something like that. There are 3 or 4 tabs, one for waypoints, one for tracks, one for routes, that might be it. You have to select the right tab to see whatever it is you are looking for, they don't all show up on teh same menu. Hope this helps.

My first charger was the lacrosse. I also purchased a maha about a year or so ago. I use rechargables in my gps, headlamps and cameras. I love the eneloops but also have hicaps, like the sanyo 2700's. The good chargers aren't that much more, and thomson distribution sells them along with battery packages. I don't like the idea of ruining my good batteries with a crappy charger.

Do they get as upset about the march of death, the comfort women, or the millions of chinese and philipinos that were killed? What about all those medical experiments, you know, the ones where they disected people alive, froze their limbs, then aputated them, and continued until there was nothing but a torso left, then did biological experiments on them? You DO know that the japanese where more sadistic and killed millions more than the nazies did didn't you?

I also like easy gps more. I use my gps for more than just geocaching and easy gps is more useful. I frequently back up my gps, and organise differant folders. this worked out great when I lost my gps and reloaded all my information onto my new one.

I always thought that there was a magnetic compass in it but the moving part has sensors. You go in circles to calibrate these. Is that how they work?

dadgum, that's a lot of work! My brain hurts!

I lost my vista hcx, and replaced it with another vista hcx. The first one was factory refurbished, but you wouldn't have known it, it even had the screen protector if I remember correctly. I had to do an update and reset but after that it worked fine. There was a backlight flickering problem but it never got any worse and I got to where I didn't notice it. It was considerabley dimmer than my venture but I figured that's why the batteries lived longer. The new one is as bright as my venture, and still has a long battery life. Haven't noticed any flickering either. My new one has a flourescent orange lanyard, and a reflective cord lanyard. Also has a caribeener on the garmin lanyard. I may put a floaty thing on it as well.

I have the venture hc and the vista hcx. The vista has the electronic compass so it doesn't bounce when you stand still. This has proven invaluable when trying to show people directions and stuff on the gps. They have high sensitivity recievers too, which is much improved over the old ones. It will also hold maps, with it's little memory card. Oh you say you don't want them, that's because you have never had them! I see you are in NC. You can get free topo nc maps from gpsdepot.com!! Or you can just use the southeastern us one and meander through the states!! We dont' have mountains in this area, I had a blast when I went to hotsprings this past fall! I only mention this because your budge allows it and you sound like you are using an antiquated gps that loses it's signal in the woods. This will not stop the bounceing when you reach your destination but still cool things to have. There are other models, and brands. Lowrance makes a model that has a good following.

Yes. They sugggested I perform a hard reset. I haven't yet done so because it will delete all my waypoints and I'm skeptical that it will work. But I may yet have to, in order to convince them that there's a real bug. backup your gps with mapsource or easygps. Then you can send you stuff back to the gps when you are done resetting. I back mine up regularly. That enables me to save more tracks as well. I have differant "tracksets" depending on where I am going. I have not noticed this date error phenomena with any of mine, I didn't think they could make date mistakes!

I use rechargables in all my headlamps, I like being able to use them as much and as long as I want. I use both eneloops and sanyo 2700's and they both work good. My headlamps are the princeton tec apex (130 lumens!), princeton tec quad, and pretzel tikka plus.

I added a factory refurbished vista to my collection last fall. I had (and still have) a venture at the time. It was awesome!! After I called to trouble shoot some buts which required udateing (you would think they would have done that at the factory). I used the clip and button with my venture, but I got a case for the vista. I used a button on it for awhile but it would break or come unscrewed. Wierd cause I never had a problem with my venture. We were hunting a few weeks ago during what around here is considered a cold snap, and I got a doe. She went about 20 yards into a dense undercover and briars. There was a good blood trail so I plowed through the briars to follow it. I lost my cell phone (and almost my jacket) in the process. I actually went back in and found my phone. I had to clip the gps to my pocket because I had no straps at the time to attach it to. In retrospect it was a dumb idea. We had to finish dragging to doe out of the swamp with a game cart and somewhere along the line I lost my gps, the vista. We have scoured the area to no avail, in spite of knowing the .5 mile stretch it lies. It must be buried in the mud that now covers the road. So I ordered another. I just got it a couple days ago! This vista is much brighter than my other one. And I have not noticed a flicker. There is some slight play when the computer cord is attached. The plug looks to be tight, just to look at it and touch, but when the cord is attached there is play. I thought about putting crazy glue on a toothpick and run it along the edges but thought that would create more problems than it solves. In the interim I have been using the venture and am amazed at how quick it goes through batteries. I thought the old vista was made dim for the purpose of battery longevity but the new one seems fine. I havn't had it turn spontaneously off when I touch a button while it's starting like the old vista but I hadn't purposly tried to reproduce the effect. Every GPS I have ever purchases had had some kind of bug or defect. My first one was a rino that did not get all the channels, it simply hissed when it was on them. I probably should have just overlooked that channel but I sent it back. I got a legend or venture next. It would turn off by itself, when I needed it to be on. It was practically useless. I quit geocaching then and didn't need one to hunt so I did without. Then the hc recievers came out and there was a sell in the paper and I got a new one, the venture hc. If you use it with gps off, you have to turn it all the way off, if you try to select gps on, it will lock up so you have to remove the batteries to make it work again. It also had old version OS and I had to update and do a hard reset to get rid of a few bugs that I can't remember. This one has a wiggly plug. Does anyone ever get a perfectly working gps? We still go back to try and find the lost one, I have hope we will see it when the water level drops. Hunting season is over and we use this as an excuse to hang out in the woods. We are going back today to plot a part of the club we avoided during the season. Why do they make the case black and gray!!!! I wish it were bright yellow like the venture!! I tied an orange lanyard and a reflective lanyard to the case on my new one. The one on the gps is the stealth black one it came with. Wierd about the differant brightnesses. I read in a differant thread where someone else noticed the same thing.