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EarLady

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Posts posted by EarLady

  1. How accurate can I expect to get?
    You can do your own quickie "repeatability" experiment in your front yard. It won't tell you how close you'll get to someone other cacher's coordinates (no telling what they're using or how careful they have been), but at least you'll know how solid your own unit is.

     

    On half a dozen different days and at different times of the day, park yourself and your 450 on the same known spot, preferably with a clear view of the sky, and especially to the south. You'll get all of your info from the satellite page (tap the bars at the bottom center of the screen).

     

    Make sure WAAS is turned on (Setup / System / GPS / WAAS/EGNOS). Be sure to turn your unit on first and allow it to settle for a couple of minutes. Wait until you have a green bar for either satellite #48 or #51 and little "D"s at the bottom of your green bars for the other satellites.

     

    Wait to be sure that the coordinates on the satellite page aren't wandering and let it sit for one minute. Take a reading at that spot and record it along with the "GPS Accuracy" that is displayed.

     

    Once you have your 6 readings, it's some quick and dirty math (we'll use simple averages instead of anything more complicated - means vs. medians and mean deviations, and all that).

     

    Find the average of the latitude readings. Find the average of the longitude readings. We'll call that "ground zero" for the moment.

     

    For each 0.001 of difference in latitude between your "ground zero" and the other readings, you can figure that cost you about 6 feet in north/south error.

     

    For each 0.001 of difference in longitude between your "ground zero" and the other readings, you can figure that cost you about 4 feet in east/west error.

     

    Of course, 0.001 really means 6~11 feet of latitude, and 0.002 really means 12~17 feet, but let's ignore that for now.

     

    Report back. I'll be curious to know how you did. Oh, and for each reading, remember to record what your GPS said the 'accuracy' was. The more times you do it (we'll work with 6 for now), the better idea you'll have of what is possible.

     

    Just getting back to this forum. Thanks for the replies everyone. I'll try this and post results.

  2. How accurate can I expect to get?
    You can do your own quickie "repeatability" experiment in your front yard. It won't tell you how close you'll get to someone other cacher's coordinates (no telling what they're using or how careful they have been), but at least you'll know how solid your own unit is.

     

    On half a dozen different days and at different times of the day, park yourself and your 450 on the same known spot, preferably with a clear view of the sky, and especially to the south. You'll get all of your info from the satellite page (tap the bars at the bottom center of the screen).

     

    Make sure WAAS is turned on (Setup / System / GPS / WAAS/EGNOS). Be sure to turn your unit on first and allow it to settle for a couple of minutes. Wait until you have a green bar for either satellite #48 or #51 and little "D"s at the bottom of your green bars for the other satellites.

     

    Wait to be sure that the coordinates on the satellite page aren't wandering and let it sit for one minute. Take a reading at that spot and record it along with the "GPS Accuracy" that is displayed.

     

    Once you have your 6 readings, it's some quick and dirty math (we'll use simple averages instead of anything more complicated - means vs. medians and mean deviations, and all that).

     

    Find the average of the latitude readings. Find the average of the longitude readings. We'll call that "ground zero" for the moment.

     

    For each 0.001 of difference in latitude between your "ground zero" and the other readings, you can figure that cost you about 6 feet in north/south error.

     

    For each 0.001 of difference in longitude between your "ground zero" and the other readings, you can figure that cost you about 4 feet in east/west error.

     

    Of course, 0.001 really means 6~11 feet of latitude, and 0.002 really means 12~17 feet, but let's ignore that for now.

     

    Report back. I'll be curious to know how you did. Oh, and for each reading, remember to record what your GPS said the 'accuracy' was. The more times you do it (we'll work with 6 for now), the better idea you'll have of what is possible.

  3. I recently got a Garmin Oregon 450 and I LOVE it. I've been quite successful with it, but today I was out caching and I was zero for two. Both times I was dead on (within 1 foot) according to the Oregon, but there was no cache in sight. How accurate can I expect to get? If I am standing on ground zero according to the GPSr, about how many feet away could the actual cache be? I tried both the normal mode and WAAS mode with no difference.

     

    Any help would help. Thanks!

    EarLady

  4. I've got the 550 and from what I've read turning on waas can shorten your battery life but if you can lock onto a waas sat your accuracy improves. I had an etrex and it never got a waas lock. Its accuracy was averaging 7m. my 550 gets a waas lock probably 60-70% of the time and i get 3m accuracy then. so weigh out accuracy vs battery life i guess...

    just my 2c

    <_<

     

    Does the unit tell you when you are locking onto a WAAS satallite?

  5. I recently upgraded to an Oregon 450 and I love it! Still consider myself a newbie and wondering if I should change my GPS mode from "normal" to "WAAS." I've read a little about WAAS and wondering if it will increase my accuracy for normal geocaching.

     

    It actually says WAAS/EGNOS as a selection in "Select GPS mode." The other option is "normal" which is currently what I am using.

     

    Any input welcome!

  6. I just got a Garmin Oregon 450 and I absolutely LOVE the paperless geocaching, and the ability to download caches directly to the gps with just a click or two. Does anyone know how to download a bunch of caches at once directly to the unit. I planning a trip and want to download about 250 caches and I don't want to click on each one separately. I can do a "check all" then download them as waypoints, but that requires going thru GSAK.

     

    Pls. reply ASAP as I'm leaving tomorrow morning!

  7. I'm new to Geocaching and am shopping for a new GPSr and and wondering why everyone loves the 60CSx so much (I'm not being sarcastic, I'm just doing research).

     

    I've read it is the "gold standard that all GPS units are compared to." Is is the accuracy, or the ease of use. I have so far limited my search to paperless and touchscreen, and am considering the Oregon 450 or the Dakota 20.

     

    One person on this forum has the 60CSx and a pretty high end Oregon (It think the 550) and prefers the 60CSx. Is the accuracy of this unit a whole lot better than all the others out there? Will I be frustrated trying ot find caches with the Oregon or the Dakota? I want decent accuracy, but also want it to be easy and convenient as far as retrieving logs and such after finds. I also really want paperless.

     

    I'm also wondering about the new 62 series. Does anyone know if it will be paperless, and touchscreen?

     

    Thanks!

  8. I'm quite new to geocaching. I started with a Magellan Explorist, but it's greyscale, and doesn't allow direct sends from Geocaching.com. I've done lots of research and am considering a Garmin Dakota 20, or the Oregon 300 or 450. Any comments? Does anyone know if Garmin has truly fixed the software issues in the Dakota 20?

  9. I have a Magellan Explorist 210 GPSr and I can't connect it to my computer although I did successfully the last time I tried which was a few months ago. I am new to Geocashing. I am using GSAK to upload data to my Explorist and today I spent several hours trying to connect the thing to my PC and it won't work! I recall that when I did it successfully before, I was able to read the file structure just like any other GPS device, and just drag and drop the file created by GSAK into the Geocashes folder on the Explorist. But this time I can't get my computer (actually, either of my 2 computers!) to read it -- it just says something like USB device not recognized. I tried redoing that funky physical connection on the back of the unit a million time!

     

    What am I forgetting to do or doing wrong? The weather if finally nice! I want to go out and geocash!

     

    Thanks!

    Maureen

  10. BC & MsKitty,

     

    Thanks! I followed your directions exactly and am up and running. Downloaded a bunch of caches and found three of them today -- got a late start and it got dark. Now, do you happen to know the trick to deleting a saved waypoint? The user's manual describes how to delete a "point of interest," and I figured it'd be the same for a "geocache", but I can't seem to delete waypoints that I haved saved under "Geocaches." Any help would be appreciated!! Thanks!

  11. I just got a Magellan Explorist 210 for Christmas. I like to think I'm somewhat technologically savvy, but this is very complicated! To download caches from geocaching.com to the 210, do I need to go though the Magellan geocaching software, or just download from the site to my GPSr? For example, my digital camera came with all this software to download pics to the computer, when all I need to do is click and drag from the SD card. I don't use the software anymore.

     

    Thanks!

    Maureen

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