SecretSpy

Any Vista guys out there having problems with the Glide Ratio. Mine doesn't work all the time. Most of the time it just displays [ __:1 ] even if I'm going down a steep grade. If it does display it will show [ 468:1 ] or something and then go blank. Garmin tech support gave me the default respose. Not much help. It seems to work a bit better if I select "Glide Ratio to Destination". Anders had his timezone bug the "Anders Bug" boy I hope this isn't the "SecretSpy Bug". Curious to know what Anders and Hawk-Eye think. LowlyWorm Says Gig 'em Aggies

dadgum that is just to funny. I checked out the link and couldn't stop laughing. The article on the 80's European Pop star C.C Catch or aka Caroline Mueller was in town for the Voice of Asia 2002 tour. I kept thinking of Anders and the Geosuit. I know that's your friend in the pic but you gotta admit that whenever someone sees it they think of you in it. The whole disco scene and the article just made laugh so hard. It said she thought Audi was the best car ever. You gotta read it. Almaty Herald what a trip. Still I hope you can get Garmin to fix your bug. LowlyWorm Says Gig 'em Aggies [This message was edited by SecretSpy & LowlyWorm on August 15, 2002 at 10:41 AM.]

I had bought my Vista back in May of 2001 used it for marking the lat/lon of my wedding proposal to my girlfriend while we were in the mountains near Silverton Colorado. I had seen it and other GPSr's featured in a "Popular Mechanics" issue. All summer it sat on my desk waiting for me to think of something to use it for. Then in late July I read an article in "Enertainment Weekly" in their website reviews section about Geocaching.com the website. I checked it out and have enjoyed the sport ever sense. (LowlyWorm said yes and she became my wife in March 2002). LowlyWorm Says Gig 'em Aggies

I live in Texas so I bought some Texas geocoins @ www.txgeocoins.com LowlyWorm Says Gig 'em Aggies

I copied this from the page eraseek linked "The Accuracy numbers don't represent actual accuracy, because .....it looks like the installed MetroGuide map prevents an Accuracy number less than about 20 feet." I will unload my Metroguide reinstall basemap and test my Vista to see if this is true. LowlyWorm Says Gig 'em Aggies

I was just thinking the same thing this weekend. I'm sure Jeremy has a way to figure the info out in the database. Just takes time and he's so busy with other geocaching stuff - oh yeah and a life. As for me 1 state (Tx) and 1 country (Canada). I saw a guy on www.wheresgeorge.com the other day that had logged bills in 75% of the counties in Texas. It was a map of Tx counties all different colors. He said he had a friend made it for him. I will So the technology exists to have a graphical representation of the data. LowlyWorm Says Gig 'em Aggies

In my recent e-mail to Garmin I told them they should use us geocachers as a resource and work directly with us with errors and other stuff. I think it would save them time if they just monitored our forums. They could even have a section on here so they could post news to all of us at the same time. It might cut down on the amount of duplicate e-mails they get. LowlyWorm Says Gig 'em Aggies

In my recent e-mail to Garmin I told them they should use us geocachers as a resource and work directly with us with errors and other stuff. I think it would save them time if they just monitored our forums. They could even have a section on here so they could post news to all of us at the same time. It might cut down on the amount of duplicate e-mails they get. LowlyWorm Says Gig 'em Aggies

Well I have had mine for a 18 months and my screen doesn't have lines but since day one the whole screen has been shifted to the left. In other words there is more blank (border) on the right than on the left. I can still view everything perfectly it just looks funny because it's not centered. Here the kicker it comes and goes. 10% of the time it's just fine. I can't part with it enough to have Garmin fix it. It's just not that big a deal. LowlyWorm Says Gig 'em Aggies

Are they talking about GPS alt or barometric alt? In a recent e-mail to Garmin I was told the only way to display GPS alt was on the SAT PAGE and not on the ALTIMETER PAGE or TRIP COUNTER in one of the rectangles. So I guess my question is this whats the big deal in needing the GPS alt to be updated for maximum altitude and thus causing a silly MAP PAGE error. LowlyWorm Says Gig 'em Aggies

Duplicated Anders experiment Same results LowlyWorm Says Gig 'em Aggies

I thought the GPSr does all the converting for us. LowlyWorm Says Gig 'em Aggies

Mine works correctly. I guess that's your specific bug. The Anders Bug. LowlyWorm Says Gig 'em Aggies

First and foremost I must pay tribute to Vista Kings, Anders and Hawk-eye Greetings to both. I am having some problems with my software to. I checked some of the seldom used functions that had at one time not worked then been fixed - well they suddenly don't work again. The line thing on the map page is driving me batty. The speed the pages load is supposed to be faster but I'm not sure I can tell. Anyone timed them yet and re-loaded 2.27etc to see if it's better. The glide ratio thingy is real touchy mine jumps around all over from say 100:1 to 400:1 even in a steady climb. I assume it's units are feet if I'm using miles etc. I e-mailed Garmin about several things. I asked if G:R is based on GPS or barometric alt. They didn't answer that question. Anders is probably right (again) they used an old copy (2.19 etc) to update and forgot to fix the other bugs. Oh well waiting for 2.29 I guess. As many Vista's as us geocachers have you'd think they would read these forums and get R&D advice from us. Ha yeah right. P.S I'm not really complaining I love my Vista. Like I say "Have Vista, Will Travel" Cheers LowlyWorm Says Gig 'em Aggies

I use R&R for my Vista. After all it only takes one butt save to realize that $80 extra is not such a bad investment. They are not as accurate as real maps but they help. Now that Garmin has decreased the Vista's map page (zoom in and out) load time with version 2.28 waiting on maps to display no longer seems a complaint from my camp. LowlyWorm Says Gig 'em Aggies

Batteries like cell phones have. Longer lasting and re-charge. LowlyWorm Says Gig 'em Aggies

Batteries like cell phones have. Longer lasting and re-charge. LowlyWorm Says Gig 'em Aggies

ok it was the map card. he didn't have it in. oops. thanks LowlyWorm Says Gig 'em Aggies

Howdy! My geocaching buddy just got a Meridian and he's having trouble getting his Mapsend maps to download. He can upload waypoints to Mapsend but can not even get a 40kb map to download to the unit without an error message asking to check cable, connection, power, NEMA etc. I'm a Garmin Vista man so I'm of little help. Any advice for my friend. He says the book and CD ares useless for troubleshooting. LowlyWorm Says Gig 'em Aggies

Hey some people buy cars cuz they look cool but they might not last as long as another say ugly car. So maybe Garmins and Mags look better than Lows. LowlyWorm Says Gig 'em Aggies

Anders is right AGAIN! You just have to keep experimenting with your GPSr (whichever kind you have) to understand it's quirks. My Vista is the only GPSr I've owned and it took me a long time and many,many hours on here reading ANDERS Vista tips. At first I thought it didn't work right but I just kept at it and now I don't leave home without it. Compass calibration is a MUST. Hell I don't mind the spinning. When I get within 200-300ft of a cache I cal anyway just for kicks. As for the mem, 24MB rules. I use Metroguide USA (without autoroute to save MB) and like ANDERS use it for hotel finding etc. The altimeter isn't really needed for geocaching but it's dadgum cool when you view your elevation plots after driving through mountains. I'm not the type to badmouth a different GPSr because it's not a VISTA or a Garmin. If you like Mag's great more power to ya, but don't say the VISTA is junk cuz I'll defend mine with my life. (OK maybe not quite but almost). Good Hunting LowlyWorm Says Gig 'em Aggies [This message was edited by SecretSpy & LowlyWorm on May 29, 2002 at 10:56 PM.]

I'm a Vista man all the way. I like Garmin's text size and fonts, and the software is much more user friendly for me. Of course I've only used a friends Mag a couple of times, wheresas I can operate my Vista with my eyes closed. So it depends on how much time you spend playing with it and learning it's quirks I guess. Gig 'em Aggies

Hawk-Eye is right, Anders is the Vista man. I enjoy reading fellow Vista users comments. I learn more here than on the Garmin website. The manual is useless since it hasn't been updated since version 2.0 came out. As for the Altimeter I like it it. It's one reason I spent the extra $$. But like you guys said it is after all only relative. If a cold front comes in while your climbing the mountain well it's nice to hit Sat page and get a quick check. Anyone done any tests on Sat vs known airport or benchmark altittudes with sub 20ft Sat accuracy. I think I will try my own experiments tommorow. Gig 'em Aggies

The key for me is making sure that the auto-routing function is turned off in Mapsource before downloading them to my vista. The vista does not do auto-route so it's wasting megs. In Texas the maps are county size or in citys like Houston they are smaller (eg 4-5 rectangles). Some maps are 1mb some are 3.5mb. Gig 'em Aggies [This message was edited by SecretSpy on April 27, 2002 at 11:34 PM.]

Well my signature item is complex. There are about 15 - 20 different shapes of Tungsten Carbide that I leave randomly in caches. I know of one geocacher who is attempting to collect them as many as he can. I will mail you ONE of my unique ones. Gig 'em Aggies