4x5shooter

I took a look at mine last night. Clearly it's from the "first batch," and it's too big. Instead, I just cut another Palm V protector and put it on and it is terrific. Hopefully, Strong will send me the replacement set, but I'm okay in the meantime.

Just a reply to the above -- I've seen in a lot of threads where people have mentioned they had to remove the batteries when their 60C/CS locks up. It may not seem like it will shut off when you press the power button, because it is not nearly as responsive as normal when the unit crashes, but if you just hold down the power button, it will shut off after a delay. Then when you turn it on again, it will be fine (but with a log on the debug screen of an abnormal shutdown).

Two map page issues: Transparent data fields on the map page, to allow you to see the map through the fields (like on the 2610) The ability to have the data fields show up on the map page while routing, but go away when not routing (basically, two different profiles, one while routing and one while not routing) Even more color schemes

I love mine (60CS) and agree the lockup "issues" are just occasional kinks in the early versions of the software. Mine has locked up a few times, but it doesn't make me dislike the unit. My computer locks up a heck of a lot more often! The battery life is incredible and the screen is great. The antenna seems very good. All in all, it's everything I expected, and I expected a LOT.

I wonder if Strong sent me a replacement set or if I already got the "new" set. I haven't even tried putting on the ones they sent (arrived about 10 days ago) after reading the experiences here. I've been using the Palm V protectors I bought from Radio Shack and cut to size. Since that works great, I didn't want to screw up a good thing. But maybe I'll try the Strong ones. If they don't work, it sounds like I just have to contact them and get a replacement set that works. If all else fails, I'll just cut another one of my Palm V protectors. For those who have PDA screen protectors already laying around that are bigger than the 60CS, just put one on the screen, trace the edge of the screen directly onto the protector with a Sharpie pen, then pull it off, stick it on a new one, and cut. If you need to make a touch up trim once the screen is on, I find it easiest to use one of those little nail scissors to do the cutting.

I think it's interesting that in the photos, some of the data fields are in the bottom of the map screen, as well as the top. I don't think you can do that on the 60C/CS (at least I haven't figured out how to do that on the 60CS). It might be a nice option.

Yes, the MapSource program that came with the 60CS will support the USB upload, but you need to make sure USB is selected as the preferred method of upload.

To muddy the water further, occasionally, my averaging will count to some number, then stop -- for example, it may count up to 31 or to 59 but then it stops counting. It's even "stopped" on 1 before. It does this maybe 1 in 10 times I average. This is not because of a lost signal, either. Hitting ENTER to "save" the waypoint average up to that point, then starting it over again has always worked. I'm using a 60CS.

Garmin has 24K Topo maps of the national parks in the East and West. Neither of these cover Louisiana, which might be on the forthcoming 24K Topo Central maps, but I don't know. I own the 24K Topo East and I like it. Keep in mind the Garmin 24K Topo maps are useful only if you do a lot of hiking in or near national parks. I hike a lot in Shenandoah and also Harpers Ferry WV (among other places). Both are fully covered by the 24K Topo East, so it was a good purchase for me. It has nearly all Shenandoah hiking trails and points of interest marked (waterfalls, cemeteries, cabins, ruins, etc.). Also one more note -- even though the 24K Topo is national parks only, you might want to check the online viewer at Garmin's site to see if the areas you want are covered. For example, the places I hike in WV are not national parks, but they are close enough to the Appalachian Trail that the maps cover them. [edit: Bampson was typing at the same time I was!]

Well, that's bad news. I ordered a pack, too. I guess I will see for myself. In the meantime, however, I picked up some Palm V protectors at Radio Shack ($7, I think) and trimmed one to size. They are larger than the 60CS screen in both height and width and come in a pack of 12, so I just had to sacrifice one. I put it over the screen, then used a Sharpie pen to outline the edges of the screen on the protector. I peeled it off, stuck it on top of a fresh one, and trimmed around the edges. Then I used the "fresh" trimmed screen protector on my 60CS. Works perfectly, and is very clear and easy to see through. Now I'm wishing I hadn't bothered ordering any!

That debug page is interesting. According to mine, I've had 7 abnormal shutdowns. Sounds about right -- where I've had to shut down the unit when it locked up in the middle of something. While that is a lot, it hasn't really phased me. I've used it quite a bit in the car and hiking and am pleased with how well it has worked, maintaining signals and tracking even while hiking through valleys in Shenandoah. I have City Navigator (from a 2610) and 24k Topo East maps installed. I figure most or all of the bugs will be fixed soon enough. If I've had 7 crashes in a week of use, I can't believe s/w testers wouldn't come across the same things just as quickly. In the meantime, I'm happy with mine.

Mine has crashed several times, all obviously software errors, but I haven't been able to repeat them. Once while calculating a route, other times while doing other normal things, like scrolling through menus or redrawing the map, etc. When it crashes, it doesn't turn off immediately. A couple of presses or one looong press of the on/off button does turn it off, however. And it's always been fine once I booted it back up. I figure the first or second s/w upgrade will address these problems, and so far it has only been a minor annoyance. I love my 60CS.

I'm now a happy user of the beanbag, after being similarly frustrated by the dash mount. I needed half of the dash mount (everything but the base and adhesive disk) in order to use the beanbag, though. You need to have the circular base that clicks into the beanbag in order to use it.

To me, it sounds like the compass (sensor) is on. There is a built in delay for the unit to switch from the GPS compass to the sensor compass when you're going less than 10mph for at least 90 seconds (this is adjustable, but that is the default). If the unit is pointing up, like it would be on your dash, that sensor compass would act screwy and the map might rotate around. You can tell if the compass is on because there's an icon for it on the title bar of each screen. But I guess you are saying you've turned it off?

It sounds like a glare problem, not brightness. Usually, an adjustment of position to keep the sun's glare off the screen clears this up. I suppose you could also try the "night mode" with the black background during the day.

I just tried it and mine does not shut off. However, I know I've had mine shut off from some combination of button presses on the rocker switch before, and I think it was on the altimeter page then, too. I just tried mashing the rocker every which way, and couldn't get it to shut off, so I can't seem to repeat it. Perhaps this could be the "loose battery contacts" issue?

Don't know how up to date this is: http://gpsinformation.net/airgps/airgps.htm

That must be the problem. I've definitely used Armor-All in the past. In any case, I swung by a local store on the way home that had the beanbag mount in stock. Works great! Good thing I already had the rest of the car mount, which slides into the beanbag mount just like the "stick-on" disk. As an aside, on the top level of the parking lot structure where the store was, the 60CS was picking up 11 satellites, and margin of error was reported at +/- 8 feet. That's more accurate than I've seen from our 2610. The antenna of the 60CS seems quite good. On a less happy note, my 60CS has "crashed" at least four times already. Turning it off and on corrects the problem and I've been unable to duplicate the errors. It happened once when routing, it stayed in the "finding the route" mode, another time when clicking to "map setup," another time when in the map setup menu, another time when clicking on a waypoint... but after turning off and on, I could do exactly what I was trying to do the previous time. So it seems the software is still a little buggy. Despite the occasional crash, I'm very pleased with the 60CS, and now I'm happy with the beanbag mount, too.

Should you really do this? I'm a newbie, so I don't know. All I did was choose "new location" when I first turned it on. The location was originally in Taiwan or Japan... I zoomed way out, moved the cursor across the ocean, then over my city on the US and hit enter, and then it took only a couple of seconds before it started recognizing satellites. After about 15 seconds, it had plenty of satellite data, based on the bar graph. I assume that if I had not chosen "new location," it would have taken forever to find the satellites the first time I turned it on.

Thanks, guys! Of course, I brought the thing to work with me, so I just tried five_user (and Neo_Geo's) suggestion. Works beautifully. I can see I have much to learn, as I didn't even realize I could push "menu" there again. Also, five_user, I appreciate the tip for the cross-streets. Very helpful. Does anyone have a solution for getting the adhesive disk to stick? Anyone else had that problem?

I think I'm doing it right -- what I'm saying is that instead of that list containing all of the maps on the GPSR, I'd like it to contain only the particular maps for the area where I am (or where the cursor is). I have 40 or 50 maps loaded into the unit, so I have to scroll way down and try to find the one that I need to "uncheck," and it isn't always so easy to tell which one that is based on the name. Just a convenience thing.

Excellent. Thank you.

Here are my random observations from a very new GPS user. I bought my wife a 2610 for the car, our first GPSR, and liked it so much I had to have something for myself. I am an outdoor photographer and hike all the time, so I wanted one that I could use hiking. I have never been geocaching, but I am looking forward to trying it. Since I'm so new to this, take my comments with a grain of salt. I may get excited about things that seem obvious, or critical of things that seem immaterial. I got my 60CS yesterday along with 24K Topo East, the dash mount and cigarette lighter adapter. I loaded CN v5.0 (left over from the 2610), and 24K Topo East (for the areas I hike in Shenandoah VA and Harpers Ferry WV). - I loaded 54.7MB of maps to the unit, about 35MB from CN, the rest from 24K Topo East. "Indexing" and whatever that occurs on the computer before uploading to the GPS took around 15 minutes. Actual uploading time to GPSR was around 5 minutes. - Unit is small and light, almost exactly the size of a "non-flip" cell phone. Rubberized portions are softer than I expected. It feels nice in the hand. - Screen is easier to read than I expected based on prior posts. I found it easy to read indoors. - Backlight is easy to adjust (punch the on/off button to cycle through 0%, 50%, 100%). - Screen clearly is going to be easy to scratch. Where is a good place to get screen protectors again? - I can't get the dadgum car mount to stick to my dash. First I tried the removable mount. It didn't stick at all. Then I tried the permanent mount. It seemed to stick, and I let it sit overnight. This morning, I put the GPSR in the mount, and after 10 seconds or so, it came crashing down onto my handbrake. Clearly, even the stupid permanent disk doesn't work on my car (my dash is flat and clean, I have no idea why it isn't sticky enough). Any recommendations? - Menu system is more fiddly than the 2610 with lots more options, but that appeals to the geek in me. - Satellite reception is better than the 2610. When the 2610 was picking up four satellites, the 60CS was picking up seven. - Beep prompts for street routing work surprisingly well. There is no option to choose a different beep for left turn and right turn. - I miss the voice prompts, touch screen, and remote of the 2610, but I knew I would. - Sunrise / sunset / moonrise / moonset and moon phase is nice to have, as a photographer. - Electronic compass is better than I expected. For some reason, I was expecting it was just used on the separate "compass page," but it's integrated into the whole system nicely -- for example, if you are on the map page and turn around, the map rotates around to stay oriented to the way you're looking. I realize this is obvious, but I just hadn't thought about it. - The ability to average waypoints is a great idea. - Things I miss from the 2610 during routing (2610 has these things, 60CS does not): (1) transparent tab (text) overlays -- where the map shows through the text box; (2) a tab that shows the address of the current street and the names of cross streets before you approach them; (3) different tabs when you are routing versus when you are just driving; (4) a big "next turn" tab -- the text box of the 60CS is not big enough to put very much text, so often the name of the road for next turn is truncated. At least once last night this resulted in confusion, where it told me only the first couple of letters of the street name for the next turn (this may be because CN is made for the larger text box of the 2610, and perhaps CS has different text prompts); - In areas where I had both CN and 24K Topo map data, it should be easier to turn off the CN map to let the Topo map show through. To do so requires that I scroll through a zillion CN map names and guess which one might be the right map, based on the title. There should be a way to show only the map names for the area where the cursor is, not all the maps loaded into the unit. That would make it much easier to switch from one map to another in a particular area. - Too early to tell, but battery life seems like it will be very good. While I've never used a handheld GPSR before, I'm familiar with battery life in digital cameras, PDAs, handheld games, etc., and I've been playing with the 60CS a lot over the last 8 or 9 hours or so without a dent in the battery meter. That's all I can think of off the top of my head -- I've really only tried street routing. I look forward to taking the 60CS on a hike this weekend and trying the tracking functions. If anyone can help with the auto mount problem and screen protector, I'd appreciate it.

Mine just arrived. I had to tell someone, so I finally registered for the forums (have been lurking until now!). It will be hard hanging around work the rest of the day.