mpyusko

All the posts expressing concern have been censored or deleted.

My Eriis is faaaaaar more accurate than my Legend and GPS80MIL. Though I agree with other posters that it's not what I'd want in my hand for anything where Mud and/or Water may be involved. Though if you gt a clear watertight container on a leash, you may just as well toss the rest of you GPS's to the curb.

The accuracy of my HTC Droid Eris is better inside a building than my etrex Legend on a bald mountain with clear sky. It's awesome.

I love my Driod Eris. It is really awesome when it comes to Geocaching. There are a whole load of different Geocaching apps available for it. It's pretty accurate too. On par with some of the "sensitive" chipsets. Even the compass is fairly accurate. Google Maps will even aid in guiding you to the cache by displaying your realtime location in relation to the cache.

My sister-in-law has no idea what a console or command line is and between slackware 12.2 and gslapt she never needs one. I did set it up for her though. But with a little googling you can find everything you need to punch into the command line to get through the setup program. Debian is far easier to setup and maintain. If you select to install KDE as the GUI (after setup) then it will feel more like what you'd be used to.

I'm primarily a Linux user. I've even converted a few family and friends over. My flavor of Choice is Slackware, though I have Debian installed on an external USB hard-drive and that is what use for most my GPS stuff. I dual-boot to use topo 7.0 and NatGeo Trails Illus 3D ('dacks). But really most of my life is lived on Linux. I wish I could get those two apps to run under Wine then I'd have no need for windows at all. My Desktop, Laptop, Router, NAS, and Phone all run one flavor of Linux or Another.

It's interesting that you say that. About the same time I started having issues is when I upgraded my GPSr to the latest (4.00) firmware. I had forgotten all about it until you mentioned it. They've taken what used to be a rock solid unit and turned it into something that is a lot less reliable. I'm really bummed. I'm there with TazD and Dakboy. Though I have an etrex Legend. (older one). Unless I have an absolutely perfect view of the sky, I don't get a good lock. I don't think it's the Sats, because my GPS80MIL in the other hand stays connected with a full canopy, and an EPE of ~12 - 13' which is the best it can do (no WAAS on it). I've also noticed that the Legend's track-logs will show me up to 175' off of my actual position (how can you hike at 75 MPH? LOL).

I don't know about you, but the last time I bought a TI-89, it cost more than a GPSr. I'd rather risk the GPS!

I believe it would be more helpful if you included a picture of your Jeep. :-) I set mine in the recessed area on the dash of my Jeep. If I need it for navigation I have a vent-clip cell phone holder that it goes into. From April to September there are no doors on my Jeep, and it rarely has the top up. My GPS didn't even slide off doing this.

Great. Where were you when I suggested someone with a lathe could make replacement pins for ammo cans? And everyone laughed at me like I was some of whack job. He probably would have also metioned that making a nail with a lathe is an inefficient use of time. I bet if you were to stop by a machine shop with a bolt and ask them to drill it out for you, most places would do it for free. If you grabbed a regular low-quality bolt like the typical grade 5 stuff from the hardware stores they could drill it out for you in a few minutes. If you're a guy give them the "I dont have much cash but...", or if you're a woman just show up People are usually pretty accomodating. I did that for a wheel-bearing that needed to be pressed with precision. The guy spent his lunch hour on it, and refused to accept money because it was "fun to be doing something different for once." So that Friday I bought the shop donuts and coffee.

Perhaps Groundspeak could have the option to buy TB codes in bulk (no items) to allow people to create their own unique TB. It would save overhead and still provide income. My .02

Garmin GPS80 MIL: It came with a zippered belt pouch... it goes in there. Garmin Legend: Lanyard around neck with the Garmin holster... I clip it somewhere. At some point I lay them where I found the cache and mark a waypoint so I can go home and check my accuracy. If I'm hiking a long distance, the GPS80 will go in it's pouch in the outermost pocket of my backpack for the sole purpose of tracking so I can get back to the Jeep. Then I have the Legend to navigate with. The GPS80 tracks a lot better and holds the sats 60% better than the Legend.

I just went geocaching yesterday. In one hand I had a Garmin GPS80, in the other I had an etrex Legend. The legend couldn't stay locked to one satellite for more than a minute or two and never gave me a direction or position during the 3 hours I was at the park. The GPS80 on the other hand took me directly to the cache with pinpoint accuracy. I was astounded. Granted this was my first geocaching find, but I'm not new to using GPS. I've done work in amateur cartography and that sparked my interest in Geocaching. I have also used an etrex vista in the past (I borrowed it from a friend) and it works great! If I were you I'd skip the legend all together and save you money for at least a Vista. It has a barometric altimeter, electronic compass, and 24MB of additional memory. None of which are present on the Legend. But that's just my opinion. Note: None of the models I mentioned are H/HC/Hcx/etc... Just the base models.