msphynx
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Posts posted by msphynx
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So, I turned 40 a few months ago and never could find a "big" present ... husband got a fancy $600 multimeter for his 40th.
I checked out the Garmin site a while back and saw the Colorado and LOVED the concept. I called Garmin to ask about the mapping software and what will fit my needs and the guy I talked to said the Colorado is neat, but the Oregon is awesome.
Some background: I got an eTrex Legend (the basic kind) four years ago. I discovered geocaching and have done "some" ... mainly when we travel. I use MetroGuide v7. I would love to use a handheld with in-unit routing.
I use my Legend about 75% as a road navigator (not the best, I know) and 25% for geocaching. I don't want a nuvi (in-laws have one) because I can't use it as well for geocaching. Normally I navigate and hubby drives ... cuts down on arguing.
So, I announced I wanted an Oregon 400t and the CityNavigator NA.
THEN I started to wonder if the touch screen would work with gloves and if it would "lock" if the unit was in my pocket. I found this forum and now I'm re-thinking.
As far as accuracy ... I know my Legend will sometimes have an accuracy down to 7-8 ft ...now I'm in Kansas, no mountains, no trees. But, 30ft on the Oregon????
Then there's the WAAS stuff and the brightness of the screen ....
I'm thinking that it will be such an upgrade for me that most stuff won't matter....
So, should I jump in, considering I'm way amateur compared to you guys?
Thanks!
Susie in Olathe (yes, THAT Olathe
)Go for the Oregon, definately, you won't regret it. You mentioned the 30ft. Keep in mind this is just what's showing on the 'gps accuracy' screen, i've seen mine get in the low 20's, but i really think it might be some type of bug in the firmware as i've been pretty spot on with majority of my caches (under 10 ft) Besides i think everyone agrees due to all the variances there are you pretty much have a 30ft search radius for cache no matter what gps you use. (unless you have the military version AND the person setting the cache had the military version) which we don't. so 30ft is good.
Go get the Ore' you won't regret it, especially when it comes to grabbing a list of caches and the info all on a single unit! (thus you can save your blackberry charge for better things like phoning 911 when you mess up really bad in the woods but still have cell signal)
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Yeah I've noticed some of the streets in my Oregon 400T are off also, very disappointing for a $600 device.
I received an email back from garmin today stating
"I talked to another supervisor about this. Evidently, this has happened on a few other Oregons too. There should be an update available soon to take care of this issue."
my next question was 'when to expect this next update' and their response
"I actually don’t know. With the brand new units, we usually see quite a few updates within the first few months."
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Maybe a sliding 'toothpick' like piece that won't seperate from the coiin for pulling out those micro logs :-)
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Ok, i'm new and considering making a coin. I ask you, what hasn't been done yet and what exactly are the properties you look for in a geocoin?
My wife is a graphics artist (old school i.e. hands, drawing instrument, and paper) so she could easily come up with the design for me and put it to paper which i could scan.
Some of my thoughts are:
a puzzle coin - 2 pieces serial numbers match, but any two numbers would fit together (i'm sure the cost would be outrageous to make every single coin cut differently so only 2 like s/n would fit together.
a hidden cache coin - top and bottom half connect together (twist perhaps) and inside is a hollow area to fit paper, another 'smaller' geocoin, who knows whatelse.
a utility coin, not sure but maybe a earth magnet in the middle of it, perhaps a flathead tip, phillips tip, other tools you might use on the trail, who knows. could be anything just a thought in it's very infancy.
Anyhow...throw me ideas, even elaborate on the above. what materials, colors, features, etc. Exactly what makes you say WOW.
My goal is probably like most others. Make a very nice coin to add to the community that many would purchase and have a few for myself for little or no cost. And who knows..maybe the wife could get back into the art she so loves to do.
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funny, but the garmin site does not list the city nav or nt version as being compatible with the Oregon, it's not even listed. I do see a message that says something about not being compatabile with my preloaded device. is that generic i don't know.
...why does it show me living on another street (bad topo map?) ...
All garmin (others also) topo maps have the streets off depending on your area. If you want accurate street maps you need to get city navigator.
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First let me say i'm new to geocaching and gps's. Only in the sense of civilian. My military gps and mapping skills are pretty old and rusty so they probably don't even count :-)
I was introduced to geotracking by a co-worked (thanks! :0) and after hearing of how to get the data for caches into the unit it came down to. Hey...I want plug and play. I don't like converting this, transfer there, do this do that, then get it into your system (or carry yet another device)
so that pretty much sealed it for me....Checked out the nuvi, eh...they aren't ready yet for car to trail, just not advanced enough. Give it time few years, who knows.
Colorado...lol...after reading all the problems here? nope...i'll pass.
Hmm...that left me with the tried and true i head people discussing the 60's and 70's. but then that defeats my plug and play now doesn't it. So that left me to the Oregon and of course might as well go to the 400T when you look at the options and costs.
So here are my first impressions.
Use: extremely easy, intuitive controls, with a few key presses you can figure out what you don't know.
Geocaching info: wow...plug it in, download the GPX or build the query (pay users) and have it send you the entire list, grab the larger file drop it on your device folder under GPX and your done. Counts are easy to setup. It's just 'easy' I think there's even an 'easy button' built in somewhere. :-)
Accuracy - well this is very important, but in my search for the device for me someone said give 10 people the same device no matter how good they'll all end up standing in different spots. So it seems to me 30ft is the basis. Too many variables are there, who placed the cache, how accurate were they, weather, your skills, reception that day, etc.
So i look at my house on the map, hmmm looks like it has me positioned 1 street over. Wow...that's a long way off. Not sure why, maybe the map is not accurate, who knows)
Ok well what about caches. We'll several population type caches i've been within a few feet of, if not right on top of it.
So the real test began this weekend.
Went out to a local park going for 4 multi caches, none are easy and it's alot of main trails with unmarked trails and then the make your own trail (i like to follow the compass personally...shortest distance (sometimes)) :-) more on this later.
So i hit my caches. 1st one I'm off by 8 ft of where it ended up being at. It was a hard find and i made so many b tracks it's just one big black blotch on that area :-)
Next cache, pretty easy, put me within 16 ft of it.
3rd cache - 3 legs, part 1 was within 22 ft, part two ironicly said 1ft, i was about to give up, mumbled under my breath about what the heck there's nothing here and looked up. wham...1 ft in front of me a tag on a tree (wow...) 3rd leg, put me 9 ft off.
onto my 4th cache - very tricky cache, i went compass route crossing the trails, was in heavy brush, dense coverage, no issues. Right to all my points each time being within about 20 ft of the actual location of the object.
So back to my 1st cache...took me awhile and i finally found it after getting the other 3 caches done. This one took me all over the place, places i'd already been. luckily I zoomed out and avoided my 'like to go by compass' otherwise i would have been crossing the river in two places. Having zoomed out it was a little more of a walk but it put my back on nice trails without having to go chest deep through the river :-) and...untamed areas :-0
My tracks where i know i walked paths overlay each other perfectly even on zoom, i was able to pinpoint my way back to a spot by tracking back following these tracks, dropped the unit once about 10 foot down to the river, thank god it hit only the rocks and stayed on a rock :-) picked it up and i saw what looked like the screen had been burned in like when you leave a tv on a still picture too long. All i had to do was recycle the power, that's the only impact of the drop and it hit gravel screen first. no damage anywhere. Durability A+
Wet sweaty hands and sweat dripping all into the touchpad, no problems, still worked was able to nav through the screens. the brightness. well if your used to the 60 i suppose it is a big difference, but i didn't see it being of any problem at all in the canopy or in the wide open with sun above me.
Now it's weird but my GPS accuracy was always showing 32-36 ft. Garmin told me to reset it (hold upper left while powering on) then leave out for 20 minutes. So i did that leaving gps at normal 20 minutes, no change, reset again changing it immeadiately to WAAS, 20 minutes later down to 28ft.
Garmin seems to think it should show somethign like 8-15 ft. I haven't seen that yet. Tried both of the same resets above again but leaving it out for 1 hour each time. down to about 22-24ft accuracy now. Weird i have 10 sats and most all are D. anyhow about 4 hours of battery use on saturday and from 9am - 6pm over 15.6 miles of walking and my batteries died probably about 4pm. Not too shabby considering i maxed out the detail and brightness. Kept it on the entire time.
So my review is it's a go it's easy to use/learn, tracks and downloads your geocaches very easily for you, excellent battery life for a device, heavy duty design, took a nice beating and came out like new still, put me within the 30ft envelope consistently even in some places where it was almost dark due to overhead cover and most of the time it put me pretty spot on.
I like it...my only bug is if garmin thinks it should show 8-15 ft do i have a dude (my weekend adventure doesn't point to it) and then why does it show me living on another street (bad topo map?) it's definately like 200ft away so it's nothing to do with the gps accuracy number.
i'll update you on any other caches i do, i'm trying to keep logs and will try to get more detailed in them.
Rich Owings (GPSTracklog) has posted a very good review of the Oregon 400t today.
Thanks! I'm glad you liked it.
I have to say, it's very helpful to have you doing so much early testing, giving me a place to check against and refer people to. I know there are a lot of other people here who are very appreciative as well. Keep up the good work.
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also, just make sure you 'check' you must activate the WAAS it doesn't come with it standard checked.
goto Setup>System>GPS, it comes out of the box set for 'standard'
change it to WAAS and you should be good to go.
It seems clear that there is an issue with the Oregon and WAAS!
Maybe ( A ) they simply don't show "D" when the unit is correcting the GPS signal using WAAS (the manual doesn't show specifics), or ( B ) WAAS isn't working at all on the 2.2/2.42 software.
Either way, it looks like a fix is needed.
I'm going to email Garmin and see what they have to say.
Thanks
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I'm usually pulling 10 sat connections within 5-10 minutes of bootup (4 within under 2 minutes)then by the end of 10 minutes about 8 will had the D at the bottom.
Garmin says that they have heard no complaints concerning the lack of good WAAS functionality on these units until I brought it up. If you have an Oregon and are not receiving WAAS you should call them and let them know. I am suppose to be getting a follow up tomorrow, but so far I have spoken to several customer service folks and not heard anything back concerning the software folks and what they know.
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I just bought one today, max out the brightness, i've had no problems seeing it. not experience with other models to compare to, but for me i see it just fine.
GO$Rs
And for every one that might be interested, this is the hardest GPS device to see out in the day light. Almost unusable. Very dissapointing
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I ended up just going for the new Garmin Oregon 400t. Looks cool and easy to use so far. We'll see how it works out.
Wish it could do the speaking like the Nuvi, but looking at the nuvi it didn't seem like it'd be as trail friendly.
I'm 8 months new to caching. I started out with an Magellan Explorist 210 which came with detail maps (as a bundle). It works well but was slow to boot up, had a flakey connector to the PC, and the files were organized by the long name, not the GCXXX number, which at a cache event was a nightmare because the long name would be the XXX Event cache #N, and there were 100 caches. The cache name would truncate on this unit. It is also black and white and the maps were a bit hard to read on such a small screen. It really depends on your budget, but a unit like this runs for about $120 new, or less used on Ebay. The Garmin Etrex H is also a popular choice in this price range but doesn't have detail maps. There are about as many units available as there are price ranges that you can imagine.
I went to a caching event and noticed that about 80% of the cachers there carried the Garmin GPSMap 60CSx. After reading many online info pages, I see that many cachers own this unit. It also has gotten rave reviews online. The lowest online price that I found for one was $281 for a new unit. Refurbished units cost about $260 on ebay. Maps can be had through Garmin for $100 or you can buy them cheaper on ebay. I am much happier with this unit. You can customize the pages that you see on the menus. After you find a cache, there is a check mark that you can use to indicate that the cache has been found, and you can see the recent finds on the recent finds page. Then it will indicate the next closest cache to your current location (the Magellan also sorted the caches by nearest, which is a useful feature). The color maps are easier to read, and you can click on a geocache on a map and it will take you to the cache page. Also if you buy the detail maps, the unit will provide turn by turn directions to the cache. It is very accurate, as it uses a SiRF chip, and is WAAS enabled, but only uses WAAS when it proves most accurate. I can use it indoors and it hasn't lost signal. This is convenient when you are caching, if your caches are closely spaced, because you don't have to wait for it to boot up to use it. Just hop out of the car.
The other unit that seems to be popular, but is a bit more expensive, is the Garmin Colorado. There are two models of this unit, that I know if. It includes paperless caching features, eliminating the need to print out the cache page for the cache description, past logs and hints. However, I use a PDA with Cachemate to carry this information. It would be convenient to have it all in one device, so if you can afford it, then by all means... I am unsure if there are reasons to avoid this unit, as nobody I know has one. I would check this forum, online reviews, etc before purchasing one.
Hope this helps.
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Completely new to caching, completely new to GPS unit other than the one in my bmw.
Accuracy is important to me, i'd like to know i'm within 2-3 feet of it if that's possible
I'd prefer a one stop shop, but will purchase maps if need be for the 'perfect' unit.
It'd be cool if it could go car to trail so we could use it in the vehicle without nav when not geocaching
definately want the easiest way to download all these caches, not sure if there is a way to say i'm traveling between east coast to west coast, give me all caches within 1 mile of my highway journey or not.
What would you recommend and why?
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Ok...i'm new to geocaching. I'd love to of course have the latest and greatest but perhaps can't stomach the price. so...maybe someone can help me.
best case - works with my car, and motorcycle like my bmw's in-car navigation, yet portable so i can go find caches. hopefully has all the maps i'll need for the US. and of course hopefully a very quick response updating my location when i'm looking for a cache.
next best - ok maybe the vehicle / geocahcing thing is too expensive, how about just a unit for caching that is very accurate and will not make me wait 5 minutes and keep changing my distance / direction to the cache?
ok maybe we're at the cheap but great category now...so what will get me out there and isn't alot of work trying to capture the caches in memory i need to go hunt down?
oh...and is there a way to keep these finds marked or seperated as found vs not found vs to do list?
)
Garmin Oregon Wiki
in GPS technology and devices
Posted
I just installed the NA maps last night, yes it's true, the topo maps will show you 'near' your house, add in the NA maps and upload your state to your device and it will place you spot on.
plus some new nifty features are added specifically for navigation in a car. Not too shabby. but it should come preloaded for 600.00 device. or just preload and make it a 700.00 device.