Wesbo

While I'm sure it was quite an investment, your A100 is really just an imaging tool. Throw that strap around your neck and take it caching. I tote my Pentax K10D just about everywhere, and while it has had some thumps and has gotten a little wet, it keeps on ticking. With the kit zoom and/or a small 50mm lens your A100 should be pretty small and easy to haul. A little waistpack might help, plus you could stash other junk in there as well.

There is a recent study, that looks reasonable, that backs up your claim. Basically it shows that guns aren't useless against bears, but that sprays are more effective. So if bears are your only concern, it would seem that sprays are the way to go. Of course, there's nothing wrong with a two- or three-tier plan. W

I wonder if you had a dud OR. Mine doesn't seem to have any accuracy issues. I turned it off Friday at work, about 15 miles away. I just turned it on. Sitting at my kitchen table on the first floor of a two-story house it took about 30 seconds to tell me that 'home' (my kid's playset in the side yard) was 24 feet away. It's off by about six feet but it is still acquiring sats.

Ooops. User error. Feel free to delete this post

Best for what? Geocaching? Boating? Getting to and from the mall? You can get a used etrex for a song on ebay and you can get a Trimble surveying setup with sub-centimeter accuracy for the price of a pretty nice car. Need some specifics...

Dunno what your problem might be, but using a dreaded PC, I just click the 'Send to GPS' button/link and everything just works like it is supposed to. I also use pocket queries to generate GPX files and drag them into the OR when it is tethered.

For a while now I have been dealing with cheapo chargers that overheated batteries and/or otherwise shortened their little battery lives and never really charged them well. I ordered a LaCrosse BC-900 and have been using it lately. It has four separate charging circuits so each battery's charge is monitored from start to finish. It brought some of my old batteries back to life and has made me a believer in rechargeables once again. No, I don't have any connection with LaCrosse or anything like that. It's just nice to see something actually work really, really well.

The screen is definitely the sore spot of the OR. Otherwise they have put together a great unit with great features. I'll be doing some battery life tests with different BL levels over the next few days myself.

What will you be doing with it? If you are Geocaching only, get the base Oregon and be done with it...

The Festool comparison is remarkably appropriate....

Why does the Oregon cost as much as a decent notebook computer when it probably costs the same as a nuvi? Charge what the market will pay... I'm a sucker, and there are plenty more like me out there.

First make sure you have Software version 2.2 Assuming you have three tracks already loaded do the following to each one - Main Menu>Track Manager - Select a track - Select "Show on Map" - Select "Set Color" and select the color you want to use - Repeat GO$Rs This procedure works on mine, but I'm not able to get a screenshot at the moment.

I use neither profile. Mine is in Recreational profile all the time. I just use the Geocaching mode to find a geocache, and then use the map and compass screen to get there.

My TomTom One XL is VERY easy to use and has a great interface. No experience with Garmin road units.

Forgive me for suggesting that Geocaching has gotten certain folks into the outdoors who might have not done so without the 'gadget' factor. Give an outdoor newbie a sport with an attainment/achievement factor and you'll get the odd bird who doesn't know how to act outside. Let me quote: "The best thing about geocaching is that everyone can play" "The worst thing about geocaching is that everyone can play"

Frank: Invest $40 or so in a good Maha (or comparable) charger to keep those rechargeables healthy and you're on your way...

Might just be me, Bill, but I think it's helpful to everybody if you log a DNF on those... It lets other seekers know that the cache might be a little/a lot challenging, and it lets the owner know if a hint needs tweaking and/or if the location needs to be double-checked... JMO.

Interesting... My OR 400t seems to track very well. I have a driveway about 1400' long. I walked one edge of my driveway the entire length of it and returned on the opposite edge. The recorded tracks are nice and parallel except for a little 'noise' in the outgoing track toward the end. Not a scientific test, obviously...

All the time...

The stainless alloys typically used in watchbands/cases are non-magnetic. Actually, the vast majority of stainless alloys are non-magnetic, and those stainless alloys that are magnetic are just barely magnetic.

The Geocaching profile functionality seems a little buggy. After logging a find and choosing 'find next Geocache' (or whatever the menu item is called) I just get a blank screen. Perhaps the QA guys weren't cachers.

My only real gripe with the Oregon is the screen visibility. See if you can demo one before you buy. Other than that, I'm not sure how it could be any better for what I expect a GPS to do. The paperless geocaching features are implemented really, really well.

Keep in mind that your average GPSr is weatherproof, rugged, can take some bumps, and so on. Your average PDA/GPS, or some other solution, isn't. I don't mind handing my GPSr to somebody and letting them carry it around. And since it is a single-purpose device I don't have any critical data on it that I can't live without. Ever been after a cache in the rain? In a canoe? That pretty much rules out anything but a purpose-built GPSr for me...

Accuracy on a civilian GPS can be less than 3m (about 10ft) with WAAS turned on but it can never be said to be accurate to less than 1m (about 3ft). Its just the nature of the civilian signal of the GPS system. The military system is purported to be more accurate than that but civilians cannot access it. This information is somewhat out of date. The military no longer intentionally degrades the accuracy available to civilian units. The use of this feature, called "selective availabilty," was discontinued in May 2000. In September, 2007 the government announced its intention to remove selective availability entirely. However, in order get the kind of accuracy you want, you would need to purchase a professional surveying unit rather than a recreational handheld. These units cost thousands, not hundreds, of dollars. ...but this kind of accuracy is kind of meaningless in Geocaching unless hiders and cachers all have units with this kind of accuracy. If the hider's GPS is 50' off, and your GPS is accurate to withing inches, you're still 50' from the cache... The vast majority of units made in the last 5-10 years have more than enough accuracy for geocaching. Any current unit from the big manufacturers is accurate enough.

Broadway Photo (and many of the other NY-based electronics companies) has been ripping people off for decades. They are crooks. Look around enough and you'll find that they love to create sockpuppet accounts on forums like this one from 'satisfied customers'. Generally it's a newbie with a day-old account with a grand total of one post... Seriously, stay away from these guys.