Gliderguy

Iknow it isn't technically that easy, but Nimh batteries hold at a constant 1.2 to 1.25 V for probably 80 percent of their entire charge. Once they drop much below 1.2 they are going down pretty quickly. I think the initial time above 1.2 and the last gasp below 1.2 are pretty equal lengthwise, giving a near approximation of 100 ma. I remember somewhere that either the III+ or the V would run on 4 volts before shutting off, and I don't think the Nimh batteries capacity are rated below that cutoff voltage. I do appreciate and understand the concept of the unit running on constant power rather than constant current.

You must not be getting a full charge. On regular Energizer 1850 Mah batts available from Wal-Mart I get 11-12 hours continuous use with WAAS enabled and an external antenna connected (the antenna draws an extra 7ma). With battery saver on, WAAS disabled, and the stock antenna, I get 18 hours and a few minutes. Disable the battery saver and I get about 16 hours. All of these tests done indoors making the unit work pretty hard to maintain a lock. Minimal screen backlighting used... If you did this test from the very first charge the batteries have ever had, Nimh batteries take a few cycles to reach full capacity. I notice on the first cycle of my batteries they only lasted about 2/3 their final life. In general, I find the V to use just over 100 ma, so that the 1850 mah batteries give more than 16 hours of continuous use, but less than 18.5. The other question is did the batteries sit for any lenght of time (several days to weeks) before you used them, some self discharging could have happened.

Well, I have heard of going on the patch to cure other addictions, but I think this takes the cake. Do you also sell Garminette gum? And how is the reception? I would think you have to walk like Popeye the Sailor all the time to keep a lock...

Well, I have heard of going on the patch to cure other addictions, but I think this takes the cake. Do you also sell Garminette gum? And how is the reception? I would think you have to walk like Popeye the Sailor all the time to keep a lock...

Probably a firewall issue. The JDMC that replied above is the actual programmer of USAPhotomaps, and note his questions to the original poster in the thread's second post.

Novus is good stuff. It works great for plexiglas glider canopies. You can probably find it at some mail-order aviation places like Wag Aero or Sporty's Pilot Shop. I suspect it may be available through some marine outlets, as well.

With only one post, I suspect Alphawolf has been pulled under the bridge by one of those green things that tend to live under bridges...

the III and III+ are excellent units to cache with. Before I bought my V, I used both the III and III+ and was very satisfied with the results.

I can see it now: After having a beer at each leg of a 26 part multi cache, Our intrepid explorer wakes naked, scratched from head to toe in thorns, chigger covered, and unusually sore in all the wrong places in a park normally reputed to be a meat market. After saying to himself, "DUDE! Where is my CAR? a few dozen times, he is arrested for public lewdness. While being booked at the jail, he notices on the noonish news update that he was captured on amature video power hurling for distance from the top of Echo Canyon with impressive distance and volume at approximately 7pm the night before. At that point he still was in possesion of a 6 pack, jeans, and his GPS.

I have used a GPS aboard a hot air balloon twice with no problems. Just a couple weeks away from some real hot air ballooning: Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta

GPSR's are specifically ALLOWED on Southwest airlines flights except for the takeoff and landing portion of the flight. I take that technically to mean if the flight attendants aren't strapped into their seats, we aren't taking off or landing. Again, like mentioned earlier, look on one of the info pages in the back of the airline magazine where they list the drink and snack menu. There will be a complete list of approved and unapproved devices. I have used my Garmin V on probably half a dozen flights with Southwest Airlines and the only comment I got was from one male attendant who thought it was cool and wanted to know how much they cost.

Most newer units show distance remaining in feet once you are within .1 miles. You may be able to upgrade the firmware on your GPS II+ to get this precision at Garmin's website Some Magellan units auto average below a certain traveling speed. Most Garmins have an option to average position buried somewhere in the menus. Since SA has been deactivated, there has been some lively debate on whether this gives you any real improvement in accuracy. The main thing is to let the unit stabilize over the intended location for several seconds to a minute before reading it, and verify you have good satellite strength and geometry. The more challenging the situation with weak sat reception and poor geometery, the more likely that averaging might improve the solution, but only if you do it for a meaningful length of time such as 15-30 minutes (to allow the actual sat geometry to at least change slightly)

Gotta second what Phantom4099 said. (with a tip of the hat to Ramjet in that I know exactly what he is saying, too.) I have talked 8 miles line of sight with two different FRS radios. One of these was only a 300 mW radio instead of the full 500 mW that is legal. If you were airborn the range would probably be 20 miles or more. I have heard of mountain to mountain communications in excess of 50 miles, as well. On the other hand, (in line with what Roger Ramjet is saying) using them for motorcycle to motorcycle communication with helmet mounted headsets, a mile was more typical, especially if one of us got out of sight of the other over a hill or around a curve. These high frequency radios are very line of sight and may be of extremely limited use in very heavy woods/steep canyons. They won't talk through very much granite.

I can't speak directly about the Garmin antenna, but I did buy a SM-76 amplified external antenna from GPSGEEK on Ebay. Total price was less than $30 shipped. My particular antenna came with the long 16ft cable. After using it indoors and out, I estimate that the amplified antenna INDOORS gives equal performance to the stock antenna OUTDOORS. Take the external antenna outdoors and virtually all the sats went to max. (even the WAAS 35 bird that is normally at about 50%.) The only birds not maxed were very low on the horizon. A shorter antenna cable might net you a slight improvement in signal gain over what I have described. This particular antenna is available with 3, 10, and 16 ft cabling. The cabling is very thin, about 1/8 inch in overall diameter, and is easy to coil and stash away. One other feature of this aftermarket antenna is it has some magnets already built into the base, and they are STRONG. The bottom of the unit is some kind of soft plastic or rubber film that shouldn't scratch a vehicle's paint, the whole unit is sealed and described as waterproof. The claim to fame of this particular antenna is low power draw, only an additional 7MA. My GPS V probably draws about 100MA of battery power, so the runtime on batteries should be reduced by less than 10%. [This message was edited by Gliderguy on September 03, 2002 at 02:15 PM.]

I can't duplicate that particular error, but once I did have it calculating a quickest route to a certain waypoint and just as soon as it finished calculating the route and displayed it, The Garmin JUMPED DOWN TO THE NEXT waypoint and started re-calculating the route. Weird. I have not been able to duplicate this error, and I am certain it wasn't user error becasue I saw the correct waypoint name flash up on one of my configured fields in the map screen for just a second after it quit calculating the initial route. (I have waypoint name as one of the configureable fields in the map screen) Until the next revision of firmware comes out, dont blindly follow your V without verifying the waypoint it has calculated to!

I concur with GoPherStash. Rechargable Alks work great for non-continuous use items like an emergency flashlight or such, The rechargeable Alks will hold their charge for a long time without self discharging. Their downside is each recharging results in a measurably shorter life. I think the manufacturer only suggest they are rechargable about 25 times. In my experience with them, once you have recharged them about 10 times they are down to a fraction (less than half) of their orginal capacity. NiMH will self discharge slowly if given the chance, but I have yet to wear out a set of NiMH batts, and I have at least one set that has been recharged on the order of 100 times with no noticeable reduction in capacity. I understand that 500-700 cycles is routinely reachable with NiMH batts.

Coolest: a 6 inch tall pewter dragon figure. (no, I didn't take it) Lamest: Wet Cigar. Maybe we should add to this thread by stating what we think the coolest thing and lamest thing we ever left in a cache (if you will fess up) My Coolest: A toss up between a good silva compass or a $10 scrimshaw pocket knife. Lamest: My signature item. originally a CD with shareware and USAPhotomaps burned on it, now just one of these cheesy plastic aliens like in my avatar. Most original: In my best (and only ) cache to date, I left several copies of a magazine that describes the construction of the Sandia Tram (which is visible overhead from the cache site) and the details on a plane crash that happened very near the cache site. A little history lesson, if you will. Some visitors to the cache also find the article on indoor hiking in the same magazine very amusing.

Coolest: a 6 inch tall pewter dragon figure. (no, I didn't take it) Lamest: Wet Cigar. Maybe we should add to this thread by stating what we think the coolest thing and lamest thing we ever left in a cache (if you will fess up) My Coolest: A toss up between a good silva compass or a $10 scrimshaw pocket knife. Lamest: My signature item. originally a CD with shareware and USAPhotomaps burned on it, now just one of these cheesy plastic aliens like in my avatar. Most original: In my best (and only ) cache to date, I left several copies of a magazine that describes the construction of the Sandia Tram (which is visible overhead from the cache site) and the details on a plane crash that happened very near the cache site. A little history lesson, if you will. Some visitors to the cache also find the article on indoor hiking in the same magazine very amusing.

I side exactly with Moun10bike on this one. A little water on the suction cup before you stick it to the windshield and it is THERE. My RAM mount was put on my truck windshield over a month ago and has yet to move. When I would stick the mount on the windshield with a dry suction cup, it might fall off hourly.

I side exactly with Moun10bike on this one. A little water on the suction cup before you stick it to the windshield and it is THERE. My RAM mount was put on my truck windshield over a month ago and has yet to move. When I would stick the mount on the windshield with a dry suction cup, it might fall off hourly.

Ditto what couch potato said, I probably look every couple of weeks... I have occasionally MeMapped an update, but only after I have played with it for a few weeks to verify stability.

I have had the same problem that ChazC describes - the suction cup mount falling off occasionally. However, if you wet the suction cup with just a bit of water when you put it up, and press down firmly to get a good suction, it will stay up for days and days and days... (it hasn't moved in over a month since I last put it on my windshield of my Dodge pickup.)

I have had the same problem that ChazC describes - the suction cup mount falling off occasionally. However, if you wet the suction cup with just a bit of water when you put it up, and press down firmly to get a good suction, it will stay up for days and days and days... (it hasn't moved in over a month since I last put it on my windshield of my Dodge pickup.)

You need a fake wasp or hornet's nest to hide the cache in. Most folks leave those alone, and they look natural up in a tree as long as you have wasps or hornets in your area. Another option might be a wood duck house or such, if any wildlife services occasionally put up such things in your locale. Lastly, if it is an oak tree, maybe you can work up a really good fake burl or knot that lays against the trunk. This one might be hard to make look right. I would also suggest a squirrel nest, but these are usually WAY up a tree in a fork where you never would be able to put them unless you were really adventuresome. Might be able to build a squirrel nest with the cache actually hanging below a fork and beneath the bulk of the nest, with enough camoflage that it cant be seen but not so much that it would hang up when you tried to lower it. I think you would need to string and pully any of these up with a black or dark string, or very heavy braided fishing line. The florescent monofiliment fishing line would glow in the sun too much and the UV from sunlight weakens it rapidly. It would probably have to be replaced yearly. If you really want to be cute, I have heard of people getting really clever doing treed caches with solar/battery powered winches that could be toggled up/down on the ground by photosensors being triggered by a laser pointer or such.

Sounds like what the world needs is a Tri mode phone that runs Windows CE applications. Then you could even do net stuff from the boat if you were close enough to shore to pick up a digital cell tower. Palm phones are around, and they work pretty good. I am betting it is only a matter of time before you see a Windows CE powered phone with net access.