Chi-Town Cacher

Just to update my previous numbers since they are no longer accurate. The price of the Delorme PN-40 at Amazon.com has dropped again. It's now down to $199! LINK!

The deal just got even sweeter! I followed TotemLake's link and the Delorme PN-40 is now down to $199. Kind of makes me almost wish I needed one. Congrats to those that get them at that awesome price!

I missed one of your questions. Yes, you are good to go and do not need to buy any additional maps. They come included in with your GPSr. Check out the thread I linked to above and note that the image library is where you can download aerial imagery for a very modest fee. Have fun and if you have any problems feel free to ask over in the GPS and Technology forum here on Groundspeak and there are lots of real smart folks over there.

Congratulations on your purchase you got a great deal if you got it at the $239 price I saw yesterday. If you want to see a previous thread that deals with precisely the info you requested the you can CLICK HERE . Again congratulations and happy caching!!!

Hi Smurf. You are correct I do have a special connection to Delorme. That connection is that I am a former Garmin eTrex Vista HCx owner that upgraded to a Delorme PN-40 and I love my Delorme PN=40! I didn't do my own research and relied on others recommendations and was greatly disappointed when I found out that for the price of my Vista HCx ($219) and a set of Garmin topo maps I could have bought a Delorme PN-40 on sale and had a MUCH better geocaching unit. There's no way in my opinion that the eTrexes can come anywhere close to the bang for your buck that the PN-40 have and they have a similar price point when the Delorme PN-40s are on sale (like right now on Amazon.com). Now if you were trying to imply that I'm a Delorme employee or sell their products then you would be incorrect. I have never in my life had a sales job and wouldn't want one. I'll stick with the retired life that leaves more time for caching and fishing! Happy caching!

As far as the rubber banding problem goes my GPSr was never left in a hot car and my nephews eTrex Legend was never left in a car either (he doesn't even drive yet) so heat may be one aggravating condition, but it's not the only one. Some folks also say mosquito repellant or suntan lotions also aggravate the problem. Maybe so, but I never used either of those while I owned my eTrex Vista HCx. It's just a shame that Garmin either can't or won't fix the defect. As far as your comment that the Delormes eat batteries like potato chips I'd suggest you might want to keep in mind this forum is frequented by new geocachers and your greatly exagerated comment is very misleading and does not benefit the folks your post will be read by. As the owner of a Delorme PN-40 I can honestly say that in a day long caching trip you will need to change out your batteries once and that is it. So let's say you take along 2 extra AA batteries that you will need and then another 2 AA batteries just as an emergency backup that comes to a total of 4 little AA batteries you'll take with you on a day long caching trip. Don't forget these are AA batteries not car batteries so it's really ridiculous when folks imply that you'll need to carry around pounds and pounds of spare batteries. As for the tiny fonts go that's interesting. Everybody seems to want to recommend Garmin eTrex models and they are pretty comparable on font size and I've never seen you or anybody else call out the eTrex line of GPSr's for having painfully tiny fonts. I am literally almost blind in one eye, color blind in both eyes, wear prescription glasses and both eyes are very sensitive to light and I can assure you that I can read the fonts on my Delorme PN-40 just fine.

Most of the recommendations you'll get will be for the Garmin eTrex line of GPSr's. I used to own a Garmin eTrex Vista HCx and found out after buying it that the eTrex line has had a known defect that has plagued this line of GPSr's for years and Garmin either can't fix it or Garmin just doesn't feel the need to fix it. Now keep in mind that the majority of the eTrex units don't have this problem, but I can tell you I was not a happy camper when my $219 new eTrex Vista developed the problem. I've seen folks say don't worry about it you can just put a large rubber band around it to fix it or you can use electrical tape to fix it. Sorry, but I don't see why I should be expected to hold a new $219 GPSr together with a rubber band or electrical tape. Yeah if it occurs while under the 1 year warranty Garmin will repair it, but the problem I have is why do they continue to sell a GPSr that has a known defect? Maybe I'm just too old fashioned and have unrealistic expectations like if I buy something brand new it should be free of defect. Anyways if you're interesting in reading about this problem here is a link to a thread discussing it CLICK HERE . Now if you really need to stick to your budget rather than a Garmin eTrex what I'd suggest would be a Magellan eXplorist 500. You can find them used on eBay for less than your budget maximum. This is the unit I started with and found it very easy to learn (I'd never even held a GPSr before) and it was very accurate out in the woods. Just make sure it comes with the charging cord and the owners manual and you'll be set up great! Lastly let me throw out an option that's a fair amount above your maximum budget price, but it would be a HUGE step up from any of the units I mentioned above. That would be the Delorme PN-40 GPSr which you can currently find on Amazon.com brand new for only $239 with free shipping! It will allow you to paperless geocache and comes with North American maps included. If you are curious and want to read more about the Delorme PN-40 you can CLICK HERE . Good luck in your search for a GPSr that will be a good fit for your personal caching needs!

Have I got a deal for you. Well actually the deal is on Amazon.com. If you CLICK HERE you'll find an awesome deal for not the Delorme PN-30 but for the Delorme PN-40 which is a step up from it's little brother the PN-30. I bought my PN-40 on sale a few months ago and was happy to have gotten it for $300 which was a very good price at that time. In the few months I've been watching the prices on the Delorme GPSr's this is the best price I've seen yet. I have no idea how long this price will be around so keep in mind it could go away in the near future, or maybe it will be around for a week or more??? The Delorme PN-40 is capable of paperless geocaching and if you pass on paperless caching for this low low price the odds are later on down the road you'll kick yourself in the rear for paying more and getting less bang for your buck. If you do buy the Delorme PN-40 then you'll probably want to buy the Cache Register application from Delorme for a one time fee of only $10 more. If you or anybody else reading this would like me to send them a link to a forum thread that discusses what a new owner should consider buying or reading feel free to contact me. To contact me just click on my screen name to the left and at my profile page click the link to send me an E-Mail and I'll be happy to send you that link. In case you're wondering I am in no way connected to the Delorme company. I am just a VERY happy owner of one of their fine GPSr's!!!! Happy caching everybody!!!!!!

I just noticed that it is not Amazon.com that is selling the PN-40 at the great price, but it is one of the vendors on thier site. So therefore it would not be eligible for the free 2nd day air shipping that Amazon.com had offered in the past and that I mentioned in my earlier post. It's still an awesome price though!!!

When I read gunguy&fam's post I was sure he had made a mistake and was talking about the price for the Delorme PN-30 and not the PN-40. I'm happy to say I was wrong and he is correct. That is one awesome deal for a PN-40! A few months ago I was tickled to get my PN-40 for $300 on sale and since then the lowest price I'd seen them was about $269. Should you jump on that deal immediately? For the following reason I would. My thought process would be this is the lowest price in quite a while (maybe lowest ever, but I don't know that for a fact) and I'd be afraid to hold out for a better price and then to find out I missed out on this great deal hoping to save $20 or $30. If Amazon.com still has the option to get it with free 2 day air shipping that would be another incentive to consider buying at this current price point. Keep in mind though that everything above is how my thought process would work and obviously yours may vary. In a few days the price may go down further or it may climb higher. I have no insider knowledge so your guess is as good as mine and quite possibly even better. Good luck on your search for the deal of the year on a Delorme PN-40. It's an awesome geocaching machine and I'm sure you'll love it when you get one. Happy caching!!!!!

Ok, let me make sure I understand this correctly on the Delorme's battery life. For the average geocacher that will be using his GPSr to geocache for a week or two at a time in the back country of the Grand Teton National Park (or a similar type park in other countries like Canada) the Delorme PN-30 or PN-40 would not be the best choice based on it not having the best battery life. Now, on the other hand for the minority of the geocachers who like me only go caching for 1 day at a time and don't mind carrying 2 little spare AA batteries then the Delorme PN-30 or PN-40 might be a reasonable choice. Is that about accurate?

One last thing for you to consider. I think it was at Amazon.com that I saw the PN-30 on sale for about $230 brand new and the PN-40 for about $300 brand new. That was a couple days ago so prices may have fluctuated up or down some since then.

Greetings! I will make this much more abbreviated than I normally would because my computers keyboard is messing up badly. First of all I upgraded from a Garmin eTrex Vista HCx to a Delorme PN-40 and I can assure you that it was a HUGE upgrade that I have not regretted for a single second. To save me fighting my keyboard I will provide you with links where you can see my views and why I'm such a huge fan of my Delorme PN-40. First of all here's a link to a thread where I shared my views both pro and con of the Delorme PN-40. Don't forget to ask about the cons of units folks are recommending because from what I see in the forums every GPSr has not only pros but cons (including the eTrex Vista HCx you were originally considering). Anyways CLICK HERE if you'd like to see my thoughts on both the pros and cons of the Delorme PN-40 (the PN-30 is very similar to the PN-40 with a couple differences and usually costs about $70 less than it's big brother the PN-40). If you think you may be interested in price comparing the PN models I'd suggest check prices at Walmart.com, Amazon.com, REI.com and other reputable on-line or brick and mortar retailers. Regardless of which GPSr you buy save the receipts and packing materials since most reputable retailers allow returns if you try your new GPSr and decide you bought the wrong one and are having buyers remorse. Good luck in finding the best GPSr for your particular needs and desires!

Agreed! As one of the rubberneckers on this thread I can assure you that repeatedly viewing and catching up on which direction this thread is going does not mean I am really all that interested in this particular cache archival. If the CO was improperly wronged then I hope GS will give him the apology he deserves. On the other hand if he in some way violated the rules then good for GS for helping to keep the integrity of the game above reproach. So no, my repeated visits to this thread should not be construed as a fearful watching and waiting for GS to let the other foot to drop on me or other cachers rights. My repeated visits to this thread reflect on my present level of boredom and it would be erroneous to try and interpret my visits as siding with one side or another. While I'm sure some of this thread's rubberneckers do care I can assure you that to assume all of us care would be very incorrect. So to both sides I'd suggest that it might be best to not assume about that which is not really known. Happy caching everybody!

If you are open to another brand other than Garmin then I'd strongly recommend checking out the Delorme PN-30 and PN-40 that Rockin Roddy mentioned above. Currently on Amazon.com you can pick up a PN-30 for $229 with a possibility of free 2 day shipping (in your hand Wednesday!) or the PN-40 for $303 with the same shipping deal. It's paperless, dependable, has U.S. topo and street maps and street maps for both Canada and Mexico included at no additional charge. I'm so satisfied with my Delorme PN-40 that I can't see ever going back to a Garmin again. Yeah, they can drain a couple AA batteries in a full day of caching, but the solution is to carry 2 little AA batteries with you in case they're needed. Good luck in your search for the best GPSr for your needs!

Greetings! I own both a Geomate Jr. and a Delorme PN-40 and love them both equally. There are a few limitations that the Geomate Jr. has that other handheld GPSr's don't have. The biggest pro for this awesome little GPSr is that it comes with approximately 250,000 already loaded into it so you can literally be caching 3 minutes after you insert the batteries. There are a few cons that the Geomate Jr. also has (every GPSr has it's cons so don't let the fact that there are cons scare you away from considering this awesome little GPSr). To save myself a lot of typing I'd like to recommend that you CLICK HERE to see a thread over in the GPS and Technology forum where both it's pros and cons are discussed quite thoroughly. Welcome to the game and good luck in finding the best GPSr for your needs!

Congrats RR on the return of your old friend! While it's nice to hear that your beloved survived the abuse it was also refreshing to read about a good samaritan. Hopefully my PN-40 will never be tested that severely, but it's encouraging to hear there's at least a small chance it will survive. Thanks for sharing the good news!

So far I've used 4 different GPSr's in the 14 months I've been geocaching. The one thing that the first 3 all have in common is that the owners manual that came with them are pretty useless. What I discovered was that by going to the GPSr manufacturers website I could find much more informative owners manuals there. Simply download a copy of the online owners manual and I'm confident it will prove to be more helpful than the one that came with your GPSr (well I'm not familar with your model GPSr, but I'm assuming it's like most others and comes with a near worthless owners manual). After downloading the online owners manual then the advice to search out you local geocaching organization would be very high on my list of priorities of things to do in the near future. Welcome to the game and have fun!!!!

Hmm. You want to know which is the best. That's easy it's the one I use and prefer! Just joking. As you've noted the Garmin brand has a lot of higher and mid range units that have a very loyal following. Personally I'm not familar with them so others will need to discuss those units. I don't know your specific wish list of functions you'd like to have on a GPSr or budget, but personally I'm partial to the Delorme PN-30 or PN-40 GPSr's. If you dig through some of the older threads here in this forum you can find those units and lots of others discussed pretty thoroughly. To get the best advice you can get you may want to list your wish list of functions for a GPSr, your budget, your computers operating system, if you plan on caching outside of the U.S. (if so exensively or maybe only once or twice????), whether routing on the roads is critical to have or ok if it's available or you could care less one way or the other, is the ability to download aerial imagery to your GPSr important to you, is a touch screen important, do you only want the biggest screen size or is that not crucial to you or any other info you can let folks know so they can maybe be more helpful to you. Good luck in your search for the perfect GPSr for you!

As a happy Delorme PN-40 owner I have to agree that using the $10 Cache Register application from Delorme makes loading PQs so easy to use that even I managed to do it without any problems. Just for your gee whiz info I'm about as tech savvy as a rock and unfortunately I'm only exagerating a little on that. Good luck!

Hi Lee. Just for my own gee whiz info could I get you to clarify something for me so I'll know in the future? When you say that it's not as accurate as a Garmin H model how big of a difference are we talking about? Since I'm pretty tech stupid myself maybe if you could maybe word your answer like, an H model in an urban park with some trees might get you within X feet of a cache and a PN-20 in a similar situation might get you within X number of feet of the same cache. I do realize every situation is unique, but I'm only looking for a general idea of the difference we're talking about. I'm not arguing the point since I don't claim to know a lot on this subject, I'm just wanting to expand my knowledge a bit if you don't mind replying. TIA MC Edit to add: My request for clarification is directed to Lee, but if anybody else who's familar with the info wants to help educate me your inputs would be appreciated also. I just directed my request to Lee since he sounds like he's familar with this subject matter. I'm not trying to exclude anybody else who can spare a couple minutes to help educate me. TIA

Hi again. Sorry, but I'm not too tech smart so I can't answer your question. However, if you CLICK HERE it will take you to the Delorme Forums and I'm sure somebody there can help you. By the way did you see that you can download aerial imagery to a PN series GPSr? So instead of of seeing a map on your GPSr screen you would see the cache and streets overlaid onto satallite photos. Of course it's easy to toggle between map and aerial imagery mode so you can still use regular maps whenever you want. To get the aerial imagery for your GPSr you do have to buy a $30 yearly map library subscription, but it is so awesome it's worth every penny!!!!! Again good luck on your search for the best GPSr for your needs and budget!

There is a potentially big negative to the Delorme GPSrs depending on your caching needs. As of this time Delorme does not have map support for countries other than what comes with the GPSr so if you plan on doing a lot of caching outside of North America then it may not be a good fit for you. Also if you use a Mac puter ask about compatability before buying a PN series.

There is another option in your price range that I'd suggest you look into. It's the Delorme PN-20 and doing a quick search I found them on eBay brand new for approx $150 and a very similar price on Amazon.com . If you had a bit more of a budget I'd recommend upgrading to a the PN-30, but from what I've read I really think the PN-20 might be a very viable option for you. My keyboard on my computer is messing up so I'll have to make this short and if you have questions I'm sure there are lots of knowledgable folks who can assist you. Real quickly the big pros to the PN-20 is that it is capable of paperless caching which none of the Garmins in your price range are. The PN-20 has Topo and Street maps for the USA included with the GPSr at no extra cost. Other maps also included at no additional cost to you are street maps of both Canada and Mexico. Before spending money on a Garmin without maps I'd suggest you at least check out the Delorme PN-20 that is paperless capable and comes with maps included. Also, before buying an eTrex model I'd suggest you read the following which I'm copying and pasting to save me some typing. Here's the info to consider before buying an eTrex. The eTrex line has a defect in it that not every person who owns one experiences, but I do feel it's worth mentioning. On my eTrex Vista and my nephews eTrex Lenend both have had the rubber banding fall off that goes around the outside of the outer edge of the unit. I'm not 100% certain, but to my untrained eye it looked like the rubber banding is an important part of the waterproofing of those units. If that's correct then it really means a GPSr experiencing this problem has a serious problem since we all want our GPSr's to be resistant to water damage in case we're caching and an unexpected rain storm hits. I honestly don't know if it's 1 percent or 5 percent or some other percentage of eTrexes that experience this problem, but it does continue to show up here in this forum as an issue from time to time so it does continue to be a problem for some. Maybe you would or maybe you wouldn't experience this problem, but at least now you can make an informed decision about whether it's a big enough concern to influence your buying decision. Good luck in your search for the best GPSr for your needs!

Hi and welcome to the game. My computer's keyboard is really messing up so I won't type much, but I wanted to recommend the Geomate Jr. for you and your family. It's an awesome little caching machine that I feel very comfortable recommending since I own one and love it. Oh it's so easy to use a child can literally use it on their own. Anyways, if you want to read about this awesome little unit you can CLICK HERE. By the way you can buy this unit either from geocaching.com's web store or from REI.com. Good luck on finding the best GPSr for your needs.