Capitalpete

Ok, Need to draw upon the vast experience of the group here. Have not been able to make a desktop PC running Win98 to communicate with the Vista. There is NO Palm pilot or other device running on the computer, the Com port appears to be working when you check in the system and troubleshoot it. Auto detect does not seem to find the GPS sitting on the seriel port. Finally gave up and loaded the maps from another computer using WinXP, worked fine. Need some advice here on what to look for, likely is a simple fix, but darn if I know what needs to be done. Thanks all. Pete

Hey THANKS!! We appreciate the comments! Just for fun sometimes I go shopping around for GPS units there and some of the other chain stores...... LOL, some of them do not even know how to turn them on let alone use them! And you know, it is not just the stores that hire kids to work there that are like this. Try going to a West M***** Store, it took 3 people, and one was the manager, just to get some information on comparing a 76S to a 176C...... Yes, perhaps sometimes our prices can be a little higher than some "Big chain" stores that choose to blow them out at a loss leader (though not by much), but in all fairness our people do NOT work for minimum wage, many have been there for years and years. We have had the same store location for the past 70 years, pay taxes, and are part of the local community. We are also there for you when you have questions on using your new GPS, we handle the warranty, we help your spouse figure out which one you really would pick for yourself for a surprise gift, and we try to carry ALL of the Garmin accessories that you may want for your old or new GPS. I suggest to try to shop local wherever you are, and whenever you can, those same people are spending their money in YOUR community, which is likely why YOU have a job. Just a thought.

Unless you NEED the tide functions, and the audible alarms, base your decision on the size of the GPS that you are willing to live with. With you having owned a Legend, you would be very comfortable switching to a Vista and all your accessories would work. You MAY find that the 76S is too big to pack comfortably, or you may not. My wife loves our 76MAPS, but does not like our Vista. Her argument is that the 76S is easier to use with the buttons all on top, and the screen is much easier to read. I like the reception that we get with the 76S, with my very Unscientific tests, the Vista MAY lose satellite reception sooner than the 76S. I have found this most applies when hiking in very heavy underbrush. Both have pro and cons. I think we can all find things to do better if we were planning the units ourselves but that is human nature. I get my new 60C this weekend, and am sure that I will find things to complain about with that model as well. Hope this helps. Pete

Seems to work just fine, nice to have all the coverage in the "non-urban" areas.

Well, they say that you have never really been offroading unless you have gotten stuck. Needing heavy machinery? Well stuck........ Nice job guys, glad you were safe. Nice thing about having the GPS, is you exactly WHERE you are stuck!

Hey Zoom Zoom, that is just a bad rumor........... It does not snow here in Victoria remember???? LOL

Ok, just for fun I went and checked your profile wickedspirit. As a USAF OFFICER, I would expect that you would at least have a good understanding of geography, and know where Canada was. After all the USAF even flies up to Canada for airshows. And the snowbirds, (you know, the airshow demonstration teams, not the real birds) the ones that you guys put on airshows with, they are from Canada. Please tell me that you were just joking about the previous post. I would hate to think that you were serious about this AND are in control of a multimillion dollar airplane and guns.

If you care to look at a map, you would see that we have a very high number of active geocachers right here in VICTORIA BRITISH COLUMBIA CANADA. And if you did look at the map, you would see that we are less than one hour away from Jeremy Irish himself. And there are plenty of GEOCACHERS that live in Seattle Washington (you DO know where that is don't you?) who come up here to geocache in events. They are 18 miles away across the water, there are ferries that cross back and forth many times each day. Getting from Canada to the USA is a pretty common occurance. As a matter of fact, Garmin thought that Canada was important enought that they created yet another version of their mapsource for us. If you have a mapping GPS, you would probably be able to even find us on your GPS unit, it is that big area just north of the USA. Perhaps maybe you have us confused with Bhutan, one of the worlds smallest and least developed countries according to the CIA world factbook. So yes, I did think that someone here may want to buy it. I do not want to ship it that is why I posted for local pickup only. Go figure...........

Did I mention that this price is CANADIAN???

You mean you couldn't actually hear them scream? Question: If trees screamed, would you still cut them down? Answer: Yes, if they were screaming for no apparent reason.

Yea, that is great! They could put that right next to the Umm Errr..... function, between the "you just missed it" and go ahead, back up" option. The other option would be: "Just keep backing up, and stop when it sounds expensive" function. Seriously, I am not certain that I would really want one that is built in. The ones that I have played with in the friends Mercedes is rather limited and he cannot easily or cheaply upgrade the software. I prefer to use my GPSV, and so does he....LOL I bought a 1984 Camaro Berlinetta with the "new fangled electronic dash" and it crapped out on me 4 times in two years. Just went blank, no speedo, no info, no nothing! They tried to charge me $3800 for the last replacement, that was the LAST time I ever bought something like that. I would likely recommend some sort of aftermarket product. That way it is not tied into your tail lights or ignition system or something.

Ya, whatever. You say toe-mayto, I say toe-ma-toe...., make ONE SMALL spelling mistake...... What? Are they all different? Can you turn it off or not? Or is it just the Sport trac units that have this option? If it is busy searching for a WAAS Signal, it would be using more power than if the WAAS circuit was turned off.

Garmin GPSMAP 76S for the record Now that is impressive! Obviously, someone with exquisite taste in electronics and the finer things in life! LOL

So THAT is where our garden Gnome got to! Get him out of the snow before he catches a death of a cold! Nice and warm here, wearing shorts too! But outside it is cold and snowing,,, this sucks.

I guess it really comes down to if you NEED to know every rest stop, coffee shop, gas station, ATM, movie theatre etc, etc, etc for miles and miles and miles of area. Nice to know, yes, necesary? Maybe? The maps really are very detailed. And yes they take up a lot of space if they have a LOT of detail. No, an island on the west coast will not have the same amount of memory requirements as a portion of Toronto, but then it does not have the same density of Starbucks, etc etc. My point was that it did show all the roads, parks, features and services that are on the islands and places that we visit out here in our travels and we find it adequate for what we do. I guess even if they made made a GPS with 30 Billion Terabytes of information, someone would complain that they cannot get all of the North America, Central America, South America and Australia & Micronesia without an expansion card. You may want to just use a laptop in conjuction with your unit to give you the best coverage. At least the screen would be much larger and you would not need to buy a new GPS.

Wow, just how much do you need to load in at once? You can fit quite a bit in, for example all of the Victoria/Saanich area is about 1.06Mb (or there abouts). I have all of the islands as well as Vancouver and all up the coast including Whistler, PG, etc etc etc in my GPS76s with room to spare. Certainly much more than I ever need but I was just messing around. If you want to load it up and drive all day in one direction then you will run into problems, but why would you need all that detail along the way? Mostly you need the detail of where you are going (for example load Calgary if you do not live there and are driving there, and then just some of the area along the way) or just bite the bullet and buy a new 60Cs that still will not fit all of Canada in it. Realistically get yourself a used laptop and run it live in the car if you do need all the info, and then load just what you need handheld into your Legend. GPS units seem to be just like computers, make them bigger and faster and people just make bigger software that needs more room. You will never own the ultimate computer or GPS, and it is likely outdated before it hits the shelf. Buy what you can live with right now or you will be forever chaseing the elusive upgrade or ultimate unit.

so that is where it comes from!

You can walk. Old folks like me enjoy driving there in style, so I'll stick to my F-350 lariat diesel crew cab full-box with duelies on the rear. Okay, I use it for more geocaching, but man I love my truck with the GPSr mount on the dash! A truck is a truck is a truck........lets see that GPSr !!!!! LOL

Very nice folks! Nice to see a local presence in the Geocache scene. Now I have two great places to spend time on the web at!

Yup, then you can get stuck further off road.......LOL. Best off to get two winches, one for your truck and one for your buddy as sometimes that is the ONLY way to get out. Helps to be real inventive too, carry lots of ropes, pulleys, and even a good folding anchor, as well as at least one Jack-all. One thing that really helped was to mount the winch on a trailer reciever so that you can mount it either in the front or the back of the truck. If you drive into something and get stuck the front mounted winch is not so helpful in getting you BACK out, if you want to return to where you were not stuck......

"Finger print or faceprint! Either way we are gonna track you!"

Why would he do that? If you cannot do this Actually, you can turn it off. But there is a specific sequence of keystrokes that I cannot remember to get to the hidden menus to turn it off. I think it was hidden sub menu #3. Great case in point as to why I do not own a Magellen. Why would you need to know a secret hidden code to turn off your own WAAS reception and extend your battery life. I guess that they figure Magellen owners are not to be trusted to make such hard decisions as "WAAS on or off?" The WAAS signal is really only useful when you are in within sight of the two (one east coast, one west coast, only #'s 33 and above) satellites. It does not matter if it is tree cover or highrises blocking your reception, you either get it or you don't. When you are navagating where you really need the WAAS accuracy, such as aviation or marine navigation, you can see and recieve the WAAS signal as there are hardly ever trees overhead blocking reception when I am in an airplane or a boat....... if there were there would be bigger problems than the GPS accuracy. If you feel you NEED WAAS all the time, then get a remote antenna, mount it on a pole and raise it ABOVE the tree canopy like the surveyors do. Of course you need a unit with extrernal antenna capabilities and pretty darn long pole for some areas......

I think a $60,000 SUV is cheaper than a $500,000 House in Vancouver! But, who would want to live in Vancouver anyway? Think that the housing is expensive now, just wait until we get closer to the Olympics...........No CANADIANS will be able to afford to rent an apartment there. You will all have to live in Skookumchuk and ride the bus into work everyday! LOL

That's it, I am staying home........

Garmin eTrex Vista, 4 months old, in excellent shape. Used very little, trading for a different model Garmin GPS with autorouting. Comes with -PC Cable -Cigarette adapter cable -Suction cup windsheild mount -Ram mount backing, only the unit holder included. Asking $350 *please note that this unit belongs to a customer of mine, he wants to sell this and get an autorouting GPS. Please contact me if you are interested and I will put you in contact with my customer. The unit will check out to be in good working order and complete. Garmin will transfer the warranty, I can answer any questions. The price is very reasonable, and I wanted to post this here so someone here can take advantage of this. Please note that I will not ship this unit, you must be here (Victoria BC) to handle the sale. Pete.