The Friendly Ghosts

I regularly do winter caching using my Oregon's touchscreen with gloves on. I have to say, it sure beats the GPSr models I've used that have the regular manual buttons, which are generally pretty small. The Oregon's touchscreen "buttons" are fairly big, and they are sensitive, and I've had no problems getting the unit to do what I want it to do even with gloves on. I've found my Oregon to be quite practical. I really enjoy using it for caching and the paperless features are really the best out there. I've had good accuracy with mine. While I've done no scientific study on it, I seem to be finding caches quicker with less "bee dance" than previous units. I haven't noticed coords to be really far off on vary many caches I've tried. I usually get down to under 10 feet. If the coords have been way off, this is usually true of other cachers trying to find a particular cache when I go back and read the logs, so I could make an assumption it's not my unit and more of a general cache placement problem. Remember, if your GPS is way off in accuracy when finding a geocache, it could be the cache owner's GPSr used during cache placement which is at fault as much as the unit you're using to find the cache with, so determining accuracy by how close you are to a cache placement is at best prone to a LOT of variables. You have to take any comments like this with a grain of salt. I have heard many negatives about the CO and some rumors that Garmin may be dropping support for them, so I'd check into those threads and find out if this is fact or not before buying. I rarely hear any negatives about the 60CSx. From what I could see, it is a real workhorse and what most geocachers around here use, and they all seem to love and have good things to say about their units. It was the other device I had narrowed my choices down to besides the Oregon of all the ones I looked at when making a buying decsion. I actually had one sent out and tried it before deciding on the Oregon. End use for me (mostly geocaching) dictated which one I chose, because the Oregon really kicks the 60CSx's butt on paperless geocaching. Now, on the other hand, if I was only doing a little geocaching and more regular hiking, hunting, etc., things might have gone a completely different way for me. I'm not necessarily pro-Garmin, because I think pretty much every GPS manufacturer out there these days has some devices which are great, some good but not great and pretty much all of them can help you find caches. I looked at pretty much everything before narrowing my choices down. But I'm on a Mac, and Garmin has the best Mac support which made a difference to me, plus a number of other factors. BlueDamsel Perhaps the touch screen wouldn't make a difference with mittens on... have you had problems with fogging? How cold have you used it- -40? Now on the Magellan side- IS it possible to transfer cords to it like the Garmin? I don't quite understand the whole thing, so dumb it down for me, eh? I seem to be able to find more Magellan where I live and cheaper too, and I liked ours.

Thank you all for your insights. We are thinking possibly the Colorado or 60CSX. They are the same price ($300) on amazon.com! Any other places that sell GPS units cheaper? And where's the best place to get accessories for it? Now a question about the Colorado and 60CSX- has anyone tried using these with mittens on? Odd question to you southerners maybe but, something I hadn't thought of until now, which is why the touch screen one is OUT of the running now, it's simply not practical for us!

Hmmm something to think about- we had just thought of getting touch screen, for ease of typing... but if there are other Garmin models that are just as good but NOT touch screen I think we may be open to them... We need good reception, I am sick of having to find a clear spot to get an accurate read... which I suppose is any of the newer models. Seriously, we know very little about the Garmins and it seems there are SOOOOO many different ones out there, we are overwhelmed. Maybe we just need guidance, because as you said, the geocaches get sent to the gps with a garmin anyway. Paperless caching would be fabulous. What is CO/OR? I am guessing OR=Oregon? What are the features to look for that make it paperless? I think I may be more confused with all the new features than I was when we bought our GPS!

We are looking to upgrade from our Magellan cheap-o 210. We are hoping to stick around the $300 mark (or less of course!). Touch screen, Garmin (because I am SO sick of typing in all the info myself!), and the handheld rugged type. I've done some searching and I can't seem to find the info I want so I thought I'd ask the experts here! Advice on where to buy to get the best deal would be great too- I see amazon has TONS of GPS units and now I'm just overwhelmed with choices! Thanks everyone!!!

A friend is hoping to get into geocaching and is looking at a cheap Garmin eTrex (yellow) from WalMart for $99. He just wants basic functions, to try out the sport. Has anyone used this personally? How is it? We have the Magellan eXplorist 210, and it appears it is quite similar (except for obviously the GARMIN name!), and I find it works fine for geocaching. Thanks for any insights!

Thanks for the replies. I was just wondering if there was something WRONG with it... obviously not. Definitely it will be helpful for finding the smaller roads etc... I was just confused when looking at the caches I had already found and I KNEW they weren't in that spot... then the ones we couldn't find- they were WAY off from where we were looking- I was starting to get concerned maybe my GPS was wrong! Glad to know it's not just me!

We are very new to geocaching... 3 finds so far. I just downloaded the cache finder for google earth and wanted to check out some caches- ones we found and ones that eluded us. I looked and the "pushpins" are WAY off course. In fact, as I sit and look around the area- it moves once and a while. It was more than 50 feet off in some places. How is this all that helpful? Is there something wrong with my download or is this how it always "works"?

Glad to see I am not the only one with this problem. We JUST started caching... this week actually. We went out with a shovel- dug about 4-5 feet on some and gave up. It WAS an ammo box we were looking for, but even with poking the shovel into the ground completely, we still didn't hit bottom! The snow is DEEP here in some places(this was in a ditch!). There SHOULD be an icon that says "BRING A SHOVEL"!!!