tannerk

I have an Oregon 400T and was thinking about upgrading to the 450T. The two reasons to upgrade for me is the 3 axis compass and the geocache limit at 5000. If you had the 400T and upgraded do you feel the upgrade was worth it? How's the accuracy vs the 400T? Is it anymore accurate or is it the same as the 400T? How does the screen compare? Is it any easier to see in the sun? I'm on the fence on whether I should upgrade or not. Any insight would be great. Thanks.

I have a 8gb sandisk card for my 400t loaded it up with maps. Works great.

I'm a mac user and what I suggest is get a colorado or oregon. For geocaching I create a pocket query load it on my Oregon and go caching. Log everything on the gps. When I want to log my finds I connect the gps to the mac, goto geocaching.com, then load my fieldnotes and log away. Garmin has mac versions of the software on there site. Hope that helps.

I just put in a sandisk 8gb class 4 sdhc card and it is fine also. Maybe you have a bad card or it's not seated correctly in the slot.

I found 30+ with an iphone. I use the map and watch the blue dot in relation to the red pin. Seems to work the best. I gave up on the arrow and compass routine pretty quick. Anyway just got an Oregon 400t mainly because I wanted something that was easier to use. I do a pocket query, load the Oregon 400t and go.

Offically happy with the Oregon as of now. The past couple of days here have been really cloudy which I think affected the GPS accuracy some but with partly cloudy skies I was getting 8-9 ft instead of the mid-teens as far as accuracy. Both of which are within the units specs. One thing that was interesting was no matter what the accuracy was telling me the Oregon got me the the waypoint I selected usually between 0-5ft. Some of the thing I like over the Colorado so far is: 1. Interface -- Touchscreen way easier to move though the screens and enter data. 2. Compass seems to work better not by much doesn't seem to "stick" as the Colorado did. 3. Accuracy to waypoint -- more accurate and consistent over the Colorado 4. Fits better in the hand. 5. The brightness setting stay set to what you want. What I don't like: 1. Display is dimmer but usable. 2. Cost more then the Coloardo

Maybe I should do a master reset. It had 2.2 and I did updated it to 2.6 as soon I got to a computer. How far was the gps accuracy of previous to the update? I didn't play much with it with 2.2 on it since I knew there was an update. By the way, you have a great website and wiki.

Update. I went ahead a returned the Colorado and got the Oregon. I was still getting some strange results on getting to a waypoint and decided I was done with it. Sometimes it got me close other times it was still way off. Anyway so far the Oregon has been great. Doing the same testing I done with the Colorado, the Oregon has got me consistently to a waypoint or very close to it. One thing on the Oregon though is the GPS accuracy doesn't get as low as the Colorado did. It usually in the upper teens but it gets me to the waypoint more accurately then the Colorado.

On the Oregon does horizontal or vertical position of the gps matter with a ceramic antenna?

That's what I thought but just wanted to be sure. Who would of thought the compass set to auto would be a problem.

Just a quick update. So far turning off "lock to roads" and turning off the compass has greatly improved the accuracy of the Colorado. I haven't had much time to do much testing but the little I have done is very promising. May keep the Colorado after all. Now with the compass turned off. Do you still need to calibrate it? As far as the Oregon is is more snappier locking the satellites? The colorado seems to take awhile, more then I would think it should. Not a biggie just thought I would ask. Thanks all for the info and the help so far.

I've been through 5 colorado 300's and had Garmin replace it with an Oregon 300, hate to say it but my experience with the Oregon sofar is night and day better than the Colorado. Way easier to use, perfectly stable and is much much better on batteries. What was your problem with the 5 bad colorados? Same issue or various?

Just a quick test at lunch. Progress so far: 1. Bought the Colorado a week ago. Did the webupdate to load the latest firmware. 2. Had a bad day geocaching with new Colorado(basically loaded gpx's and used the default settings of the gps). Had better luck with the iphone finding the caches. 3. Did the reset cleared user setting think it might help after the firmware update. 4. Let the colorado get some sun for the almanac for about 30 minutes after reset. Plain view of the sky sitting level on the ground. 5. Switched to geocaching profile. 6. Recalibrated compass. 7. Created fresh way points. 8. Test accuracy to get to the waypoints. Distances were way off and random. The map didn't update when changing direction holding the gps level. 9. Did this post on the forum. Maybe a bad unit or maybe I would be better off with the Oregon instead based on the colorado issues. 10. Discovered the "Lock on roads" was on (not sure why when in geocaching profile). Turned it off. 11. Recalibrated compass. Retest waypoint accuracy. Seem to help with the distance issue made it less sporadic. 12. After suggestions from this thread I turned off the compass from auto. 13. Recalibrated compass and walked around outside with gps level and this helps keeping the map updated with the direction I am going. 14. Just need to do some more testing. Always using fresh batteries. Question about the compass setting. Should this be set to auto only if I want to use the compass page on the gps and off the rest of the time? Why is that? Thanks for the help/info so far.

Thanks for the input. I think the Colorado I have is bad. With the GPS accuracy in the teens I get anywhere from 4 to 100+ ft for the distance to a waypoint randomly. The other thing that doesn't make sence is that when the map is set to "track up" not so sure about "north up" using the geocaching profile. If I want to goto a waypoint I set and have the gps get me there the map sometimes just does rotate to match the direction I may be walking so if I have a road on my right and matchs the gps and I turn say 90 degrees I can walk 5 minuetes before the map corrects itself if it does corrects itself. Does the oregon have this issue?

One setting I just found in the map section in the setup was "lock to roads" was on by default in the geocaching profile. I wonder if that has any effect on what happening with the distance. I'll report back on what I find.

Hello all, I just got the Colorado 400t last week and I am not to happy about it when using it for geocaching. The main reason I bought a GPS. I have been using an iPhone which has worked great and decided to take the plunge and decided to go with the Colorado. The problems I've been having is when I get close to a cache the Colorado has trouble pinpointing/tracking to the location. At one cache I had to use my trusty iphone to find a cache because the colorado had me walking all over the place as far as 100ft (GPS accuracy was less then 20ft). I have calibrated the compass, let the GPS sit outside with direct view of the sky before starting out. This is what I have found so far: 1. While in geocaching profile the compass seems to stick even though the compass is on. 2. If I set a waypoint with no trees and GPS accuracy of say 13ft. When I use the Colorado to goto the waypoint as a test. The distance to destination reported on the GPS is sporadic. It could be 20ft one second 96ft the next. I am using the latest firmware 2.7/2.8GPS. Did the "reset". My Questions. 1. Is this a bad unit or just the way it is? 2. Any regrets switching to the Oregon? 3. Would I be better of using the PN-40 when it comes out? Thanks.