Gr8Scot

I came across something interesting yesterday and would like to know if other Oregon owners have experienced the same thing. I was trying to find Mr Panda's "van Riebeek's Hedge" cache http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_detai...=y&decrypt= When I tried to access the cache description from a PQ downloaded on Friday, all I got was a blank screen. The hint and logs were visible though. I suspect that it's a similar problem to the Oregon not showing photos in cache descriptions. Mr Panda has done a great job in creating an excellent looking description on the web, but unfortunately for Oregon owners, when out in the field you see nothing. It may be something bearing in mind when creating future cache descriptions. In these days of paperless caching, perhaps putting vital information required for finding the cache in a normal text paragraph at the end would be a suggestion?

WARNING There is a bug in both versions of the new firmware that prevents the Oregon from showing street names after the update has been applied. Probably best to avoid this upgrade as a GPSr without street names isn't of much use! I suspect that a fix will be released shortly.

I'm happy to report that I was wrong (for now) about firmware upgrades for the x00 series. Upgrades for both x00 and x50 series are now available for download. Interestingly the track archive feature introduced in the last beta release has been dropped from the x50 production release. There were many reports of serious bugs. Details are: Version 3.70 (x00 series) available now via webupdater. GPS version has jumped to 4.34. Release notes: - Added support for Garmin BirdsEye. - Added mmHg pressure units. - Added ability to change active track color. - Added option to calibrate screen under Setup->Display Oregon x50 (WebUpdater) software version 3.30 Changes made from version 3.20 to 3.30: • Added support for Garmin BirdsEye. • Added mmHg pressure units. • Added support for Riyadh time zone. • Added ability to change active track color. • Added option to calibrate screen under Setup->Display. • Added custom waypoint symbol and geocache symbol support

Just a word of warning to anyone thinking of purchasing an Oregon. Garmin have ceased manufacture of the 200/300/400 series. The last firmware release for the Oregon was only been made available for the 450/550 series, as has the even more recent beta. It would appear that they will no longer be developing the firmware for the x00 series, although they will continue to support it. So future firmware releases for the x00 series will probably be restricted to bug fixes. Several people worldwide have queried this with Garmin Support. Although it has not been confirmed directly, reading between the lines of their replies it seems to be the case. The suspicion is that Garmin is delaying making the announcement to enable retailers to sell off their x00 series stock. I don't even know if the x50 series is available in SA, but if you are in the market for an Oregon, may be advised to consider buying one of these models if you want to keep up with any future enhancements.

Agreed that support hasn't been discontinued, but it looks as though firmware development may well have been. See the discussion (and answers from Garmin) on the Oregon Wiki here http://garminoregon.wikispaces.com/message...645937#20649337

Be warned that Garmin have ceased production of the x00 series Oregon. Their latest firmware releases have only been for the x50 series. The Oregon is an awesome bit of kit (I've had a 300 for over a year) which I would heartily recommend. But if you are going to buy one, rather buy a 450 or you will be left behind with future updates.

Stay clear of the Oregon 200/300/400 series. Rather go for the 450. Garmin have stopped production of the x00 units and have not made the most recent firmware upgrades (available for the 450/550) available for the x00 series. They have not officially confirmed that they are no longer developing the x00 series firmware, but when questioned directly would not deny it either.

The 60CSX was for many years the "benchmark" GPRSr when it came to accuracy. The Colorado followed it (but didn't fare too well) and then came the Oregon. There is now also the Dakota, which has a slightly smaller screen than the Oregon and not quite so many features. Initially the Oregon's accuracy (especially under tree cover) wasn't as good, but a couple of firmware updates later, and it's now just as accurate. A friend of mine has a 60CSX and side by side, there is just no difference in accuracy between them. The drawback with the 60CSX is that it can't handle paperless caching. It's also increasingly hard to find in SA. Uploading caches from the GS website using the send to GPS option is as easy as plugging the Oregon into your PC's USB port and ticking the box. But there is a MUCH better way if you are a Premium Member. You can set up a Pocket Query (PQ) in the GS site. This will e-mail you up to 500 caches in one go, filtered to your requirements. This can be set to happen every day, once a week, whatever you like. You then just unzip the file that gets emailed to you and copy it to the Oregon in the same way that you would to any flash drive attached to your PC. You don't need any GSAK macro or anything, just your usual file manager on your PC. When you turn on the Oregon after that and press the Geocaches button on the screen, the 500 caches, with all their details (but no photos) and the last 5 logs for each, are available to you. They are sorted from closest to furthest and there is a search feature. The unit can hold up to 2 000 (or 5 000 on the 450 and 550 models) caches at once. You then press on the cache name you want to go to and it's shown on the map. Press on the cache name, and you get all the details and the last 5 logs. Press the big green GO button and the Oregon navigates you there. Near the cache you can switch on the electronic compass and just follow the arrow and the distance countdown to the cache. When you find it, you mark it as "Found" and can record a field log which can be uploaded to the GS site later. The cache then moves to your found list on the Oregon and your found count increases by 1. There is an excellent Oregon Wiki at http://garminoregon.wikispaces.com/ that will answer all of your questions far better than most local salesmen can. Take a look there and if you have any further questions, just ask.

If you are looking for an all-round device, seriously consider one of the Oregon series. It's an awesome geocaching machine which handles paperless easily with multiple built in geocaching features. Data input is simple. You just cut and paste unzipped Pocket Query files straight into the "drive" that appears under My Computer when you plug it in. When placing a cache, all you do is activate the waypoint averaging function and wait for a couple of minutes while it's all done automatically for you. I've used it as a "Nuvi" in the car (with windscreen mount and power supply) for over a year and it's quite adequate for the job (provided you can do without the annoying voice guidance, as it only beeps to warn you of navigation instructions). It can also handle multiple maps (Garmap, T4A, OpenStreetmaps) simultaneously and custom vector maps (i.e. like Google Earth images on the screen overlaying the map). The track logging is as good if not better than most dedicated loggers. Add to this about 12 hours on a set of rechargeable penlight batteries, waterproof to 1m, very robust design, etc, etc, etc and IMHO you can't go wrong. Don't let the stories of poor screen visibility in strong sunlight put you off. That's only really a problem if it's running on batteries while mounted on a bike's handlebars and you can't change the angle. In hand, all it requires is a tilt of the unit and the screen can be seen perfectly, even in direct sunlight. And no, I don't work for Garmin - I'm just a very impressed owner with a year's hard use of the unit behind me and still finding out new things about it.

I'm trying to put together an event cache at the Ice Station (our local ice rink), GrandWest Casino, Cape Town, (with a few beers) in the evening of Wednesday 17 March. You should feel right at home there if you can make it! See my post in the Fynbos Finders forum. Event published http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_detai...62-d06ebdd60844

The event has been published. Thanks for the offers of help received. I'll be contacting you shortly. http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_detai...62-d06ebdd60844 Bryan

I'm trying to put together an event cache at the Ice Station (our local ice rink), GrandWest Casino, Cape Town, (with a few beers) in the evening of Wednesday 17 March. You should feel right at home there if you can make it! See my post in the Fynbos Finders forum.

I have arranged the use of the Club Function Room at the Ice Station, Grandwest on Wednesday 17 March from 19h00 to 22h30 for a possible Geocaching Event. The venue has a private bar (club prices), comfortable seating, DSTV, etc as well as a great view over the ice rink. I can arrange free skate hire (for the brave souls who wish to be really cool) from 20h00 onwards. The venue also has a fully equipped lecture room with video projector, etc. attached to it, so if anyone would like to arrange a simultaneous Techno Event, please let me know. I am aware that the time of day may not suit everyone, especially those with children. However, the ice is at it's quietest on Wednesday evenings, so it's a good chance to try out skating without a big crowd. CownChicken, being masters at event planning, have advised that before I go ahead and publish an event, I should get an idea here on the forum how many would be interested in attending. So please post a note if you are, and if there is enough interest, I'll post an event.

Have you tried the Tracks4Africa map for trails on Table Mountain? When Cape Doc had my GPSr loaded with both Garmap and T4A on loan for a day, he said to me that he wasn't too impressed by the T4A map at the time. I've now got the new beta release that seems to have more tracks than it did when he was using it. The map is cheaper to buy, as you only need to buy Western & Nothern Cape for example. It's not nearly as good as Garmap for street navigation, but that's not where T4A's focus is. It's more aimed at outdoor enthusiasts and covers 4x4 trails, hiking, etc. The advantage of T4A is that they make it very easy to send new tracks to them and then quickly incorporate them into their latest beta release, which gets distributed about once a month to all who contribute. It strikes me that if all the cachers who walk the mountain on a regular basis do this, pretty quickly all the trails on the mountain will be reliably mapped. Just think how useful that would be to other cachers and foreign tourists (and even the rescue parties who are sent out to fetch them). If anyone is interested in contributing tracks, I will be happy to arrange this off forum (without purchase), PROVIDED that they will undertake to submit their tracks to T4A and so contribute to building the map.

Great idea Registered

The latest firmware update for the Oregon x00 and x50 was released yesterday. The details are as follows: Changes made from version 3.00 to 3.10 (x50) & 3.50 to 3.60 (x00): * Increased the map drawing range to allow maps to draw farther south. * Corrected issue with route line sometimes not drawing. * Corrected issues with marine POI. * Corrected issues with GB Discoverer maps. * Corrected issues with possible corrupted profile showing on the Profile Change page. * Corrected issue with project waypoint bearing sometimes not showing the input value. A reminder that the unit must be in mass storage mode when using webupdater. Otherwise you get the "download file is corrupted" error message. I keep forgetting this.

Did you see what Nokia's announcement of the free for life maps and navigation did to Garmin (-4.5%) and Tom Tom's (-11%) share price? Ouch, I'd think that there must be some urgent meetings going on to determine future strategy. I tried the Nokia 5800 upgrade yesterday. Mine would only upgrade to Vsn 3.1 but a colleague's upgraded straight to vsn 4. Satellite acquisition time seems greatly improved in vsn 4.

WW I may be interested in that car mount info as well. My Garmin one (less than six months old) has already broken. If the superglue doesn't hold, I may be looking for another.

Hi Pooks & TVM

I'm so glad that this tread was started. I was worried that my logs in the past were a bit wordy, as they always looked longer than others when checking back on found caches. I enjoy going back and reading the experiences of others for caches I have already found. It just adds to the fun. I've yet to experience logs for caches placed, but agree with the consensus here that a good, descriptive log is a form of thank-you to whoever placed the cache. The only problem I see with longer logs is the time it takes to scroll down them to read others while paperless caching, but that is a minor inconvenience I can live with.

A useful tip that I picked up the other day that I wasn't previously aware of, is the ability to save a screen shot from the Oregon. Turn it on with Setup>Display>Screen Capture>On Then you just tap the power button whenever you want to save a screen shot and it gets stored in the Garrmin/Scrn directory in the Oregon's internal memory. On the other hand, the fact that the Oregon doesn't display images embedded in a cache description, can catch you out. I attempted "Blouberg Hideout" the other day without doing any prior research, and got stumped when all the description for EF showed was >. Fortunately I had a smartphone with me and was able to get the info from the web.

I fully agree. For those that don't know, it's at http://garminoregon.wikispaces.com/

Danie That was added in vsn 3.10 released in September 09. There have been 5 upgrades and many beta releases since then, the most notable in firmware vsn 3.3 when the GPS engine was upgraded to vsn 3.7. This REALLY improved the accuracy of the GPS. So if you are still on firmware version 3.10, you would really benefit from the upgrade to 3.5. There is a whole article on the waypoint averaging feature here: http://garmin.blogs.com/softwareupdates/trail-tech

I'm keen to know if there is any interest in (or objections to) a thread on this forum discussing the Garmin Oregon as a geocaching device. Maybe just somewhere for local cachers to share hints and tips on using this unit. The thought came to me when Cape Doc mentioned to me he had noticed while on "The Other Way" hike that some Oregon owners didn't seem to have the latest firmware update loaded. I thought that perhaps this may be because they weren't aware of it. For those Oregon owners who haven't upgraded their firmware recently, I strongly suggest that you give it some consideration. There have been many firmware upgrades over the year that I have owned mine, the latest possibly being the best. Oregon 300 units being sold in SA have fairly old firmware loaded. A recently purchased 300 had vsn 2.9 while the current version is 3.5. The difference between the two is vast. An option has just been added in 3.5 that adds a "dashboard" to the top 1/3rd of your map screen if desired, displaying the compass, distance to cache and button to access all the cache details (description, logs, hint, etc) directly from the map screen. This shows the details of an active cache if you have set one as your destination. Even better IMHO, however, is that if an active cache is NOT set, the cache details t the top of the screen continually update to show the nearest unfound cache loaded into the device. Great for on the fly caching while driving around. While not claiming to be any sort of an expert, I've closely followed developments of the Oregon over the past year, and would be more than happy to help with questions if any other owner has any. Please note that I'm not connected in any way with Garmin, just a bit of an Oregon nut!

I must admit that I hadn't noticed any slowdown on FireFox. I gave up on IE some time back when it was markedly slower (and to try and avoid viruses), but every now and then have to use it as some banking sites just plain don't work with Firefox. I experimented this morning opening the same cache photo galleries with both and must admit that IE did tend to perform slightly faster, but it was really marginal. I didn't notice the extreme problems that you have seen though. I have a 4Mb ADSL line at work and 384k at home, but even at home the speed on Firefox is quite acceptable. I agree with you on the form recovery issue. I use the Lazarus add-on as I found that quite often I used to lose connection to Geocaching.com - no fun if you've just typed a long log and suddenly it's just gone!