StanByk

I can still get no lock onto the EGNOS satellites. Yesterday I went for a 12 hour caching tour, most of which was under open sky, but not a single time did I see the Ds. My girlfriend had no problem getting the correction signal on her Vista. I also checked my tracks in Google Earth and whenever we were walking along streets the Oregon was at least showing me on the right side of the road (even when I had it sitting in the pocket of my jacket). It wasn't always exactly on the pavement, but it was most of the times within approximately 3 meters thereof. My gut feeling is that 2.86 is indeed a bit better than earlier firmware versions, but I still fail to get a lock onto the EGNOS birds.

I agree with you. I never got a WAAS signal (or EGNOS in my case) with my Oregon, while I get it most of the times on my Vista HCX. I will email/call Garmin and see what they say.

Hi yogazoo, I have made similar observations when I compared my Oregon 300 (2.8) with my Vista Hcx (I never had the drift problem and I think that it has excellent accuracy as well). When looking for caches, most of the times, the Oregon and Vista were pointing to spots 3 to 10 meters apart from each other Especially under heavy tree cover this turned out to be a problem. Obviously I can not say which one is right or wrong (if any...). In many cases, though, the Vista was pointing straight at the cache, while the oregon was off by quite a bit, despite having a small EPE number. While I love the big touch screen on the Oregon, I do not trust it very much when it comes to accuracy. For accuracy I prefer my Vista Hcx. Robert PS, I did a cache hunt with a friend last week, with the Oregon (2.86). He was using a Vista Hcx. I will ask him to send me his tracks so that I can overlay them with my tracks. I will post the result, when I get his tracks.

Hi everybody As soon as the weather is getting any better I would like to attempt the UK Mega series of caches. Problem is I live in London and I do not have a car, so would have to do it by public transport. I was wondering if any of you guys here can give me some advice with regards to that. I thought about taking the train to Alton and do the first ring from there, but am unsure how I can get to the second ring of caches (the one further north, which I would plan to do on another day). Are the caches along a path? If yes could this series be done on a bicycle? I have already contacted the owner a couple of days ago, but haven't heard back yet. Many thanks in advance Robert

Hi, I just made two new profiles for my Oregon 300 and wanted to confirm with you guys that my settings make any sense at all. Sorry for asking so many (dumb) questions The first one loads up my topo maps. Routing is set to pedestrian and off-road and locking to roads is switched off. I want to use this profile if I am out in the fields and away from roads. The second one uses City Navigator maps. Routing is also set to pedestrian and "on road for distance". This profile should be for caching in more urban areas where I would mostly walk on roads. What I don't understand is, what happens if my cache away from the road, e.g. in a small park. Will the routing automatically change to off road routing, once I leave the roads? Also, should I set this profile to lock on roads? What would happen if I lock to roads but then leave the road? Will the Oregon change automatically to off-road routing? What is the "off-road transitions" setting for? Should I split this profile up into two profiles. One which is set to "on road for distance" and "lock on road" to get me close to the cache if I don't know the area (I will be walking) and one which is set to "off road" and "do not lock on roads" for use once I am close to the cache. Both profiles would be using CN maps and would be for urban caching. I would appreciate any help I can get on this. Many thanks Robert

Hi everyone, are there any news regarding WAAS/EGNOS? Is it any easier to get a lock onto a WAAS satellite (or EGNOS in my case) with the new firmware? On another point -sorry, I don't have an example at hand - when I set the routing to pedestrian and then ask the Oregon to calculate the on-road route to a destination more often than not it is not the best and shortest route, but it is a rather long and indirect route. I am using CN2009 Europe and most of the time my Oregon is set up to use the recreational profile. Thanks Robert

Hi, I own a Vista Hcx and an Oregon 300. I recently was recording coordinates with both units for a multicache I am planing to hide. On some of the spots both units were quite close to each other, but more often than not they were quite a bit apart from each other. I think the worst was about 10 meters apart from each other. All measurements were taken in the woods under tree cover. The measurements on Vista were taken with averaging for 30 seconds. I don't know which one is more accurate, since I obviously do not know which of the two set of coordinates (if any) is right and which is wrong. My gut feeling, however, is that the Vista is more accurate. At least in some cases, where I was searching for caches under heavy tree cover, the Vista was spot on, while the Oregon was pointing to an area 10 to 20 meters away from the actual cache. Robert

Hi, I am not sure if the following problem has been brought up before. I did a search, but couldn't find anything. What I would like to do is to install City Navigator Europe maps onto an external harddrive connected to an EEE 901 netbook. Since the c: drive on the eee is only 4 gb I will have to use the external harddrive. Problem is that even if I tell the CN installer to install the maps onto the external drive it still insists on putting approx 2 gb onto the c: drive. Since I do not have 2 gb available on c: the installer quits with an error message. Do you guys have any idea how I can install everything onto the external harddrive, without any data being put onto the c: drive? Many thanks in advance Robert

Hi all, I owe both an Etrex Vista Hcx (never had any drift problems) and an Oregon 300. Both have the newest firmware upgrades. I realized on a couple of occasions that under heavy tree cover the Vista seems to cope better than the Oregon. Several times now when I went caching the Vista was pointing directly to the cache, while the Oregon was pointing to a totally different direction to a place several meters away. I am writing "seems to cope better" because obviously I don't really know if it really is more accurate under such circumstances (tree cover). Maybe the hider was using a Vista as well and both might tend to introduce the same error? Do you have any experiences with this? Thank you Robert

Hi, I would like to add myself to this thread as I have the same problem. Also, if one creates a new waypoint from a multicache, it doesn't copy over the description to the waypoint. So to get back to the description I have to abandon navigation and load up the original multi, write down what I need, stop navigation to the multicache and go back to navigating to the waypoint which I have created just before. Either I am doing it wrong or the Oregon is not very suitable for multicaches. I am curious to hear if there is a solution to this (besides using a second device or a printout). Thanks Robert

Hi, Is it possible to IMPORT gpx files into an already existing Mapsource file? I would like to add the data from a pocket query to a Mapsource file which already contains some waypoints, tracks, etc. Obviously I can open the gpx file with mapsource, however, I wasn't able how to merge it with my existing mapsource file. The only solution which works for me, although it is not very practicable is to open the gpx file and transfer all the waypoints onto my GPSr and then import them back into the other mapsource file. Do you guys know if it is possible to do this without going via my GPSr? Thank you and best wishes Robert PS: I haven't tried GSAK to do this yet.

Just copy the gpx file into the Garmin/GPX folder on the Oregon

I believe you are probably correct and that is why folks that have purchased the colorado ( that has the same Mediatek chipset as used in the vista HCx ) are complaining about the same Drift / Accuracy problem. Hi, Is it possible that there is a bad batch of those chips out there. I have never experienced any problems with my Vista HCX (formely with 2.60/2.60 now 2.70/2.60)?

Hi, I have used FileMagnet as well for paperless geocaching on my Iphone. It works great. Another possibility is to use Data Case. In this case you can load you pocket query into GSAK, export it as html and then copy the html files onto your iphone. Robert

Hi Kit Fox, Thanks for citing those parts, I will have a closer read when I have more time. You still haven't answered my question by the way. What I still fail to understand is why on average the USA have 10 times more homicides per 100 000 inhabitants than most European states (with the exception of Switzerland and Finnland)? Please understand that at least here in Europe, the likelihood of becoming victim to a serious crime as a ""normal person" is extremely slim. The crime statistics seem to indicate that the USA are a far more dangerous place to live in than Europe, so maybe your fear is warranted. Can you please enlighten me as to how much of the homicides are gang related and how many affect the average middle class person. Thank you Robert

Thanks for pointing this out to me. I haven't heard of it before. Edit: I think police officers should have guns. I was rather surprised to see that most didn't, when I moved to England. That's not entirely correct. From http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/talking_point/986379.stm

I understand your point, but my big worry is that easy access to guns leads to more crime rather than less crime I read somewhere that the number of homicides is directly related to the number of people which carry guns (% households with firearms). In this statistic the USA had by far the most gun deathes per 100 000 inhabitants, twice as many as Switzerland, where it is as easy to obtain guns as in the states, and 10 times as many than in most European states. Regarding your point about police not carrying guns. They don't here in England... There is a difference between unlikely and inconceivable. Just as you have experienced, it is unlikely that any one of us will ever experience violent crime. However, the very fact that it is 'unlikely' not 'impossible' means that there is some chance of it happening. Therefore, an ounce of prevention is seen as a good thing by many people. Think of it this way, I read somewhere (so it has to be true ) that most police officers never have a need to remove their weapons from their holsters except for practice and cleaning. Using your argument, police shouldn't carry weapons. Another analogy that is frequently offered is smoke alarms and fire extinguishers. These are rarely needed, yet we all feel safer for having them. When I was in elementary school, they made us drill on what we would do in the event of nuclear war. I like to believe that the possibility of nuclear war was somewhat remote, but we still had the drill (which strangely would have saved none of us).

Don't know anything about crime in Belgium as I do not live there :-), just went there for a weekend trip. I live in London and have lived most of my live in Austria and Germany. I have never encountered a dangerous situation in my life and neither have any of my friends, colleagues, relatives, etc. I think a lot of it has to do with unreasonable paranoia. Maybe the USA have a bigger problem with gun related crime - at least this is the way it is portrayed here in the media - I seriously don't know. But let me ask again, have you or any of your friends ever been, even just once, been in a situation where there LIFE has been under serious threat? Obviously we have crime here as well, but most of the violent crime is between gangs, people who know each other, etc. Rarely it affects "normal people". I know that reading the crime statistics can be quite scary, but when you read them be sure you don't take them out of their context, e.g. where does crime happen (bad areas?), who is involved (gangs, normal people?), is serious assault and bodily harm involved? I for myself feel very safe everywhere here in Europe. I have been in the USA only once, in Boston, and I felt save there as well. I am just wondering if a lot of your worry is maybe unfounded. It sure doesn't appear to be as peaceful in Belgium as you profess it to be. Here in the USA more people to prefer to be self reliant, rather than depend on the Govt. for our protection. Unless you live in a Police State, or the streets are filled with police, the chances of you encountering a "bad guy" without a police there to save you, are extremely high. The false assumption that cachers or average citizens who prefer to carry a firearm for protection are "looking for someone to kill," or "out to shoot people," is based on fantasy perpetuated by professional victims.

On another note, Is anyone here using a poking stick when you go caching? I normally just use twigs lying around. Robert

Edit: I am talking about urban caches in the paragraph below: I find opinions like yours just bizarre, but maybe this is an American - European culture clash. For me it is totally unthinkable to carry a gun around, but then we do not really have any problems with violence here. Is your fear really justified? Have you ever been in a situtation where you were in danger of loosing your live so that you needed to protect yourself with a gun. Again this just amazes me!

Yep, copying two gpx files with different versions of the same geocache can lead to results like this. The entire geocache database appears to be indexed by cacheid which is a unique integer that Groundspeak assigns to each cache. When you load a file with cacheid=n that location in the database gets added, if the OR encounters that cacheid=n again is simply overwrites what was there before. GO$Rs Hi, many thanks for the explanation. Do you know in which order cacheid parses the gpx files? I had the impression it was by alphabet. By renaming the gpx files to A and Z and vice versa I could influence which version would show up on the Oregon. In my case it seems like the version from file A.gpx shows up, but not the one in file Z.gpx. Robert

Thanks! Will give this a try the next time I do a multicache.

We are not talking about software though, we are talking about data, XML that is. Pocket queries can be read with any text editor as they are just text and nothing else. I can not believe that anyone can justifiably determine which software I must use or must not use to open a simple text file. NOTE: I am not talking about sharing the data with anyone, all I am talking about is how I choose to display data which comes in an open format (xml/text) and for which I have purchased the rights to use it. Again, I am only talking about my own usage. Obviously it is a totally different story if you make the data available to someone else! My understanding is that the value of gpx files lies in their content and not in the file format. It can hold up. Read your software EULA sometime. You don't own that software either.

Hi, I did a little test and copied two gpx files onto my oregon. One containing my finds and one containing a series of local caches I plan to search and find. Firstly, the Oregon recognises my finds as finds - so far so good. However, the second gpx file is a bit older and has in it caches which I have already found. Those do not show up in the list of found caches, but in list of "not-found" geocaches. I am not sure yet how the Oregon decides which cache to show (the one already found, or the one not yet found in the older file)? Robert Edit It depends on the file name of the gpx file. If there are duplicate waypoints in the gpx files, the Oregon will choose to display the one from the first file when sorted alphabetically, e.g. the one from file A.gpx but not from Z.gpx I haven't tested this myself but I believe I read that it will and I know the Colorado works this way so I'm assuming it'll work on the OR. GO$Rs

I doubt that groundspeaks stance on this would hold up in court. Okay this is just my gut feeling and I really have no idea. But I cannot see the problem of loading gpx files into an off-line application. Once I have downloaded a pocket query I feel I should be able to do with it whatever I want as long as I do not make it available to other people (that is people other than me, =subtle difference). Groundspeaks stance on this is, at least in my opinion, outrageous.