pklong911

I have had the Oregon 300 now since the beginning of the month and LOVE it. I love the paperless function and use the GSAK to transfer the PQ's to my unit. I still will have to add street maps to get turn by turn though. I have not had a problem with battery drain. My 8 year old was messing around with it and still had enough juice for caching. It's small, light, accurate, and the touch screen works great with my 8 year old, easier to use for him. My vote...Oregon.

I got the Oregon and haven't looked back...I LOVE IT!!!! Thanks everyone!

I don't notice an issue with the touchscreen and I have a screen shield installed. I do notice that when the backlight is off, you have to tap it once, and then you can use it, sort of have to wake it up. I have used it with gloves and in the rain and no issue. You do have to press a little harder then say the iPod touch / iPhone. The Oregon does not average waypoints

For the unlock code, can you install the DVD, and use it, on multiple computers? Say install on a desktop and then on laptop to use while on vacation etc. and still only using it on one GPSr.

What is the largest size card you can use, or that it recognizes? What are people's average card size? And...Loading ALL of the street maps and part of the US topo, understand you can't really put it all on the card, what size card is recommended? I have the Oregon 300 to fill the picture out.

To join in on the battery thing, I had fully charged energizer 2500's and last 10+ hours...For what ever reason I have had no problem with batteries...Set batter type to the correct type?

I LOVE my Oregon, had it about 3 weeks now, gone caching with it and it works great. A plus is my 8 year old can work it a lot easier then the etrex vista we were borrowing. My vote, Oregon!

First you need to make sure your receiver is in WAAS mode...setup -> system -> GPS -> WAAS Once you do that, go back to the main menu and press the signal strength bars to go to the sat. page, once there and a clear view of the sky, look for the "d" to start showing up at the base of the green bars, then you have WAAS.

That's was my first impression of v2.86 and it turned out to be a dud. I went on a walk, similar to g-o-cachers, I saw WAAS at first but with a few tree branches and a clothes line in the "way" I quickly lost WAAS. My tracklog was also jumpy jumpy jumpy but I'll do some more extensive tests to see for sure. And still... for the ump-teenth time, no native Waypoint Averaging. On further testing I too loose WAAS very quickly. I had placed my GPSr down for a little bit, sad I know my hand felt naked , and when I picked it up and moved (still in clear sky) I lost the WAAS. Accuracy still appears to be better though WAAS or not, though I haven't taken it into a treed area yet to see.

There is BIG difference.. Oregon now supports A301 protocol pro tracklog transfer into PC in Spanner mode. So it would be use-able for competitions (declaration of flights, XC trails, ... ) and some business applications as source of valid and not tampered tracklog data. Thank you very much Garmin !!! Perfect implementation.. Tested and working as expected.. Further testing needed, but this could be used as example of very positive approach to customer specific requirements.. BR Radek Kafka I think I have it, when you scroll on the map it appears to draw the map and then add the shaded relief. I only have the basemap and no other maps install at this point. Does anyone else have this issue? It also appears to scroll a little slower including the re-draw. Considering writing to Garmin to advise them of this but would like to see of others are having the same issue.

Haven't tried out too much, just installed it, but accuracy is MUCH better...Locked on WAAS quicker and GPS accuracy inside mys house was in the mid teens and not less then 10 feet. Map re-draw appears a little different but can't put my finger on what is different, seems maybe a little faster.

Oops, sorry about the post post post...I timed out and guess everything hickuped. :-)

Though I don't have the street mapping, yet, so far (only a week) the Garmin Oregon 300 is fitting the bill. I did a lot of debating and went for it. So far I find it to be great! Sure the screen could be a little brighter, but I have yet to go dadgum wish I didn't get this. I would assume that it would do turn by turn ok as I believe it was based partly on the nuvi, someone correct me if I'm wrong. I love the paperless caching or the Oregon and the pocket queries! If you want the topo I would either go the 400T or get the 300 and add any of the maps you want in higher resolution etc.

Though I don't have the street mapping, yet, so far (only a week) the Garmin Oregon 300 is fitting the bill. I did a lot of debating and went for it. So far I find it to be great! Sure the screen could be a little brighter, but I have yet to go dadgum wish I didn't get this. I would assume that it would do turn by turn ok as I believe it was based partly on the nuvi, someone correct me if I'm wrong. I love the paperless caching or the Oregon and the pocket queries! If you want the topo I would either go the 400T or get the 300 and add any of the maps you want in higher resolution etc.

Though I don't have the street mapping, yet, so far (only a week) the Garmin Oregon 300 is fitting the bill. I did a lot of debating and went for it. So far I find it to be great! Sure the screen could be a little brighter, but I have yet to go dadgum wish I didn't get this. I would assume that it would do turn by turn ok as I believe it was based partly on the nuvi, someone correct me if I'm wrong. I love the paperless caching or the Oregon and the pocket queries! If you want the topo I would either go the 400T or get the 300 and add any of the maps you want in higher resolution etc.

My 8 year old and 3 1/2 year old go along...Though I think the 8 year old is more interested than the 3 1/2 year old

When you fugger up, does the message that states there weren't an found count against your 5?

OK...Trying to get this whole pocket query thing figured out. I have a query that I can preview but I haven't received an email with the .zip file. I may have, in my attempt to make one actually work, gone over my 5 though only one shows as finally working. So...If I did go over 5 in a day will it not send an email or is there usually a delay in sending even though it looks like one was created?

In general how long does it take for a PQ ato be created and sent to your email. I set up my first one and just curious on time frame to tell if I messed up on something.

Thought about that, but I like paperless function and less buttons for the kids

Greetings, I have it narrowed down to two units...The Oregon and the Colorado...Any owners of either or both in the Olympia / Tumwater area that would mind meeting and showing them off? Thanks!

Close. You can get the 400t, and them load the street maps on the internal memory as well. This will use almost all of the memory on the GPSr, but you can do that. Then I can assume that if you go the 300 route you have one card with topo and one with roads and swap them out as needed? Going with the 300, I would make one card with the entire US streets, and half of the US Topo, and a second card wit all the US streets & the other half of the US Topo. That way I would always have street maps, and I may have to swap cards out to get the correct Topo maps. (To be honest, I would probably have a state or two overlap in the Topo Maps to reduce the urgency for swapping cards when in working in an area near the intersection of the map sets.) If you don't want to use 2 cards, you could also use a single card, but rename the map set files on your PC, then when out, you could use your cell phone or PDA to rename the map set files to change your set of active maps. This method assumes you have a PDA or cell phone that can be used to read the SD card, but so many of these devices can do that now... Ok...I think I can live / deal with a two card system...One final question, maybe...Having used both the CO and the OR which screen is nicer? I would use shaded on the topo but not as much as I would be using the roads map and the geocaching functions. I hear of the grumblings about the OR, but if using just mainly map and geocaching is that as much an issue or is it mainly with the shaded relief?

Close. You can get the 400t, and them load the street maps on the internal memory as well. This will use almost all of the memory on the GPSr, but you can do that. Then I can assume that if you go the 300 route you have one card with topo and one with roads and swap them out as needed?

They still won't all fit for you. City Navigator NA 2009 NT needs just over 1GB of space to load all the maps. The Oregon 300 only has 850 MB of memory available to the user, and the Colorado 300 only has about 390 MB memory available. You can get a little more memory available for user maps if you are willing to delete the pre-loaded base maps. On the Colorado 300, that will get you an additional 80-90 MB of space for your maps. You might be surprised by some of the things people will do to get more space for the maps they want loaded on their GPSr. So really to "get it a''" you need the 400T and then put the streets on the external card correct? Outside of that streets on one card and topo on another card? I seem to be getting more and more confused!

Nope. The gmapsupp.img file has a 4GB file size limit to it. Just trying to load the 48 "continental" US States to a single instance is more than the 4GB limit, and you still need another gig for the City Nav NT maps... Nice thought though... So if I get the 300...I buy maps on DVD and can I put them all on the internal memory? And then get the topo DVD and put those on a card and put that in...SO running roads off internal memory and then topo on the card? Will this also work in a similar way with the Colorado 300?