dantonac

That happens with any GPS when you are closer to the target than the GPS is able to be accurate. If the coords you are heading to are at spot x and you are closer to spot x than the gps accuracy then the arrow will jump around. Regardless of whether you have a Magellan or Garmin or some other unit your accuracy should be within 50 ft without WAAS and within 15 feet with it. Slowing down does help because at a slow enough speed averaging kicks in and usually improves the positioning accuracy. My Meridian (all the models are the same as far as accuracy goes) gets me reliably within 10-15ft with WAAS which I almost always have in my area. I have become so WAAS dependant that I almost get depressed if I am not able to lock on to a WAAS sat when exploring.

topo/meridian are compatible. I had no issues transfering the maps to my meridian and my topo cd is 5 years old. I suggest that if you are PC savvy you follow the advice above, otherwise spend 20 bucks on a card reader that reads all the major cards and plug it into a USB port. With the topo software (at least my version of it) there is no copy to disk option as there is with the newer direct route software, but what you do is tell it to copy to the GPS and when it is going through the map building routine it is actually writing a file to disk. When it errors trying to wrote to the gps, just cancel. It is in the installation directory structure (don't recall exactly where, but the directory is called MAPS. Just drag and drop that file to the memory card. Be advised that if you repeat this process the map file will be overwritten because the software names the maps the same thing. To avoid this rename the map before transfering to the card.

I stand corrected on the number of AA's used. Sorry.

That the Garmin has a longer battery life than the Meridian strikes me as marketting rather than reality. The Meridian uses 2 AA batteries and the Garmin 4. The Garmin gets twice the bat life, but uses twice as many. I haven't seen the color screen of the Garmin, but the Magellan looks nice to me. Given the software being used I don't really see the advantage of 256k color over 16 although I will concede that in theory it is nicer. Last I checked though it also cost more. One again it boils down to individual preference/predjudice.

On the screen where it tells you your position is averaging it will say WAAS average if locked. On the sat screen a WAAS sat shows up as a red W and it gets a red box around it if the GPSR is locked on it.

Why would WAAS use more batteries? The reciever is always tracking sats anyway. And why on earth would anyone turn the feature off? WAAS can only improve accuracy, not degrade it. I have always heard there were only 2 sats with more planned for some unspecified date in the future, but the wierd thing is that both WAAS sats my gps sees are in the east. One near the horizon and the other higher in the sky. Given that I am in Wisconsin which is just east of central US that seems strange if there are still only 2 sats, one on the east coast and 1 on the west.

So I had this ancient Magellan GPS 315 which predates mapping GPSes and WAAS. It did the job and will forever hold a place in my heart. I kept wanting to get a newer unit, but everything I read said the WAAS sats were only 2 in number, one on each of the east/west coasts available only in the US or north America and even then only if one was in a wide open area with a clear view of the horizon. So I held off upgrading the trusty 315. Recently I made the plunge to a Magellan Meridian color with all the goodies. I go out into my front yard (facing north with the house blocking the south) and I don't get a WAAS lock. My accuracy is no better than the 315 to my disappointment. I go into the south facing backyard and I can "see" 2 WAAS sats and get a lock on one. My accuracy is in the 5-10ft range and I am excited. So I go hunt a couple caches. One is on a beach near Lake Michigan and the other in a forrest under heavy tree cover. In both cases I "saw" 2 WAAS sats and locked onto one (always the more overhead one, not the one along the horizon) making the find fairly easy. There must now be more than 2 WAAS sats. What I want to know is where do you live and how reliably do you get WAAS corrections? I drive 55 miles to work and it appears that even in my car I maintain a WAAS lock the whole way. This simply rocks.

I carry it in my hand. Sometimes I shove it in my shirt or pants pocket depending on whether or not my clothing has pockets. I have no idea what people are talking about when they say they lost signal, that has never happened to me with my Magellan 315 or Meridian color. I have been in areas where the signal is hosed up and I get told to walk off a cliff, but never lost signal I have a lanyard for my GPS, but it attaches to the same place the cigarette power cable does so it isn't really convenient. I have thought about getting a case, but just don't see any need for it because I like to stare at my GPS even when it isn't telling me anything I don't already know. In my hand it get's carried topside up, laying flat or just in my hand as it sways back and forth as I walk. Doesn't seem to make any difference.

well, I am a happy Magellan color user. To each their own, right? But seriously a $1500.00 GPS is waaaaay too much to spend on a handheld unit for geocaching. My Magellan which almost always gets a WAAS satellite even under tree cover I have tested repeatedly and it gets <10ft accuracy with WAAS and normal 20-50ft accuracy without. I am sure a Garmin under the same circumstances would perform comparably. Either unit can be had for under $500 with street routing software, data cable, vehicle mount, SD card and cigarette lighter power adapter. Well, OK, the Magellan can be had for under $500 with all that, the Garmin prices out higher. The Garmin gives you 256 colors, the Magellan 16. To my eyes the Magellan screen is fine in all light conditions, it just needs to be tilted to see it best under varying light conditions. I like the SD memory card of the Magellan over the 256 color of the Garmin and have always believed Magellan makes better hardware than Garmin for the same or lower price. Of course I am biased. Make your own call what to get, but whatever you do don't pay 1500 for a handheld geocaching unit. Thales is the owner of Magellan. Thales, to my knowledge doesn't make any GPS, Magellan does. If you buy a marked up Thales you are simply overpaying for a Magellan.

well, I am a happy Magellan color user. To each their own, right? But seriously a $1500.00 GPS is waaaaay too much to spend on a handheld unit for geocaching. My Magellan which almost always gets a WAAS satellite even under tree cover I have tested repeatedly and it gets <10ft accuracy with WAAS and normal 20-50ft accuracy without. I am sure a Garmin under the same circumstances would perform comparably. Either unit can be had for under $500 with street routing software, data cable, vehicle mount, SD card and cigarette lighter power adapter. Well, OK, the Magellan can be had for under $500 with all that, the Garmin prices out higher. The Garmin gives you 256 colors, the Magellan 16. To my eyes the Magellan screen is fine in all light conditions, it just needs to be tilted to see it best under varying light conditions. I like the SD memory card of the Magellan over the 256 color of the Garmin and have always believed Magellan makes better hardware than Garmin for the same or lower price. Of course I am biased. Make your own call what to get, but whatever you do don't pay 1500 for a handheld geocaching unit. Thales is the owner of Magellan. Thales, to my knowledge doesn't make any GPS, Magellan does. If you buy a marked up Thales you are simply overpaying for a Magellan.

If you look at the number of finds I have it will show 2. Is that all the finds I have? Not hardly. I started geocaching before it was a household word with a Magellan 315. Then due to my caches being stolen, the lack of caches in my area (which today is no longer a problem), my switching jobs, moving to a new city, having a first child with serious birth defects and blah, blah, blah I took a 3 year hiatus from geocaching.com. When I tried to log on I couldn't recall my password/username or what email address I might have used (probably no longer active). Thus, I signed on with a new account. I have 2 finds, but have already ordered 8 TB tags which I will place shortly after their arriving. I am already thinking about places in my new area to start hiding caches. I could very well end up having 8 caches/TBs and 2 finds. The moral is don't judge a book by it's cover.

Well since this is everyone just giving their opinions on the subject, I 'll give mine as well The first cache I found was I think 4 or 5 years ago. It was definitely a micro because the cache was destroyed and the owner decided not to replace it with anything elaborate because it's location was such that it would get looted again. So he nailed a crushed beer can to a piece of driftwood that was toss inbetween some rocks along the shore of lake Michigan. I had fun finding that cache, because it was in an easily accessible area and like I said, it was my first time doing this. In this spot there really was no possibility of having a cache be anything other than junk (not even a log). Since this was a port along the lake complete with nearby Marina, park, a water play area for kids etc. it was a nice area for a family to visit so not at all a waste of time. Now, I freely admit that I am not going to trample through 5 miles of poison oak and swamps and then climb a mountain in order to find a needle in a hay stack, but it sure is nice to be going to an area anyway and check the site to see if there is a cache hidden there regardless of whether it contains a hundred dollar bill or it's just a crushed beer can. As long as the cache description indicates the type of cache and a good description of what the expected experience will be, everyone is free to make up their own mind as to which ones to seek and which ones to avoid.

Are you talking about rated accuracy or the actual accuracy claimed by someone who tested a unit? Anyway, I have a silva compass I bought several years ago that is rated to +/-1. I have not tested it to determine if it is actually that accurate (wouldn't know how to test it to that extent without introducing human error into the equation), but I have no reason to believe it isn't. I don't recall what I paid for it, but don't think it was more than around $75US. I am surprised that the Garmin unit is rated as +/-2. Until such time as GPSRs have a sighting cover attached I can't see greater accuracy as having any use due to human error.

I started out many moons ago with a Magellan GPS315. No maps, no memory to upload much to, not WAAS enabled, not color, no street routing. It worked fine for geocaching. I still have that unit although it doesn't see much use anymore as I bought a Meridian Color with the Direct Route (street routing) software, auto power cable and windshield mounting bracket. I am loving the < 10ft accuracy I am getting when I have a WAAS satelite tracked which I was surprised to find out is most of the time. Without the WAAS accuracy was usually in the 20-50 ft range. So, if your interest is just in geocaching you can certainly go with a "cheap" unit as it will serve you well. Everything else is just gravy. Between the topo maps and street maps I personally find I use the street maps more because it isn't all that often I am so far off the beaten path that the topo would be preferable. Besides, topo maps are available on the web for free as are aerial photos so I always look at those before I go somewhere so I know what to expect in terms of elevation changes, swampy areas etc. Anyway, my advice is buy whatever you want, they all work. If you find that you enjoy using it you will likely upgrade eventually anyway (even if you buy today's top of the line) and there is nothing like having one to teach you what you wish it had, but doesn't.

Ok, so I want to get into this whole travel bug thing so after I browsed the caches near me that show the TB icon I notice that *all* of them (4) in a 20 mile radius have logs indicating the TB wasn't in the cache. Starting to have 2nd thoughts about paying money for these things if they just disappear all the time. So, what has your experience been? How long do your TBs remain trackable on average? In your area what percentage of the time is the TB in the cache it's supposed to be in?

You *could* do it manually, but what a pain. Most GPSRs have an averaging function. Usually it comes on automatically when you are not moving. I have heard that there are units out there without the functionality, but don't know what they are. Both my old Magellan 315 and my new Magellan Color average when still. In the case of both units the information screen that shows the time/date and other stuff says "Averaging" along with the amount of time it has been averaging.

that explains it, thanks for taking the time to respond.

Ok, so I have been to the TB page, but I do not see any way to find travel bugs in my area like I can do with other caches. Suppose this weekend when I am out of town I want to go find a TB and bring it home to put in a cache, how do I know which cache in the area I am in has (or is supposed to have) a TB? I would hate to just "stumble" acrost a TB in a cache with no information about it's intended goal and then get home, look it up and find I just moved it in the wrong direction or didn't take a pic as the owner requested or something like that. So, how do I get info on TBs near whereever I am at so I can go hunt those that I can move along their journey properly?

I wanted to add to my post that this link will take you to information on finding the survey markers (that are precisely located). You absolutely do not need a GPS to find these as there are usually descriptions on how to find them by sight.

In most cases you don't actually need a GPSr to do geocaching as many have noted. Type "orienteering" in google and learn how to use a traditional map and compass to navigate. It is confusing at first until you learn the terminology and figure out how to use a sighting compass, but you said you were looking for something for your brain to do and this would be it. USGS topo maps are available to order (for a fee) and you can get paper versions or you can get them for free at various web sites and print them for yourself. You can also find compilations of these maps available as something similar to atlases. Some have already been mentioned. lostoutdoors.com is really nice in that you can enter the coordinates from geocaching.com and it puts a red dot on the map. Of course with a paper map that has coordinate grids printed on it you could do this yourself as well. Print it out and after you have learned basic orienteering for free from the web you can use terrain association (looking at the natural environment around you for identifiable features like bodies of water, hills, valleys, intersections etc.) to navigate (doesn't even require a compass) or you could use a compass with the map to plot a precise heading. To avoid frustration I would suggest that your first few hunts are for either precisely surveyed markers in your area or caches that others have logged finds for indicating it was easy to find. Some caches may have spot on coordinates, but the hider was so clever in hiding it that you could be standing on it and not realize it is the cache. If you look at the maps of caches on geocaching.com that are in areas you are already very familiar with you will likely find at least one where when you look at the map you say "Oh, I know exactly where that is!". then you can just go there without a map, compass or GPSR and look about the area. Whatever you choose to do is up to you, but there is absolutely no reason to let the lack of a GPSR stop you from geocaching. Always remember that pirates would hide and find hidden treasure well before the days of not only GPS, but even compasses.

Maybe, but I doubt it. First make sure your GPS is set to use WGS84. Second, make sure your coordinates are entered correctly. Third, if your datum is WGS84, do NOT enter the UTM coords that geocaching.com displays (along with WGS84) as there is no mathmatical formula that converts between the two that is 100% accurate in all locations. Your accuracy isn't out of bounds, but it isn't desirable if you are in a clear area, you should be seeing 20-40' accuracy in most cases. However you indicated that for your first find you had 3 satellites and were under tree cover. This can easily explain the problem. You need 4 satelites and to have the sky relatively open for reasonable accuracy. You asked about how to tell if your magellan is locked on a WAAS sat. Go to the sat screen and look for red W's. Those are how Meridian's display WAAS sats. If the red W (assuming there is one in view) has a red square around it, then you are getting the signal. If it's a red W with no red square around it, you are not. To test the accuracy of your GPSR you should ***NOT*** use a geocache as you are not guaraunteed the listed coords are accurate at all. What you should do is lookup reference points (I forget the web site that lists them, but basically there are precisely surveyed markers in various places often municipal buildings) in your area or go into a clearing, let your unit average for several minutes and then save the waypoint. Turn your unit off, then back on, let it average for a few more minutes and then see how far it says you are from the saved waypoint. That is the accuraccy of your unit(at that time and in that area anyway). It helps to do this both with a WAAS sat in view and without so you can see the real world difference in your part of the world. I have the Meridian color which is essentially the same unit you have and without WAAS I have about 30 ft accuracy. Sometimes it is 3ft accuracy, sometimes 30ft. No way to know in advance of the hunt which it is going to be though which is why you need to test to see the typical range of accuracy. If you do this and consistently find you are off by 100ft with your unit I would sent it back, but I rather doubt the innaccuracy is being caused by a defective unit.

The electronic compass on GPSRs(unless someting has changed) are rated to +/-5 degrees accuracy. To figure out where north is while standing still that's fine. To get a good bearing to use to find a cache spot from a couple hundred feet out that's not at all accurate enough. A magnetic compass rated to +/-1 degree is a much better solution. Even better is a sighting compass that allows you to choose some distant object as the target so you know you are continuing to walk in the correct direction.

Could be that you are trusting your GPSR too much. I certainly understand the frustration of not finding a cache and sometimes I just shake my head at the locations chosen for caches. One example was a cache hidden in a state park I was going to be camping at. It was in a kettle morraine on TOP of a steep hill that took 45 minutes to climb. Nothing but rock cliffs all around and on top there was dense tree cover. No way at all the GPSR is going to be accurate in those conditions. My gpsr informed me that to get to the cache I was going to have to walk off a sheer cliff with a couple hundred foot drop and then fly another 100 or so feet. The cache was magically suspended in thin air apparently One trick to finding caches is to start with a cache labelled 1/1. These should be caches that you can just look at a map of the area and pretty much guess where it is going to be and then go find it WITHOUT your GPSR. Of course you do want to bring your GPSR so you can see it's limitations. When going for harder to find caches a compass is a great tool. Not the compass on the GPSR even if it is an electronic one, they simply aren't precise enough. Get a compass rated to be accurate to within 2 degrees or better. When you are near the cache, 100-200 ft away find the clearest area you can and let your GPSR average your position for a couple minutes, and then look at what it tells you your bearing to the cache is. Use your compass to tell you what way to walk and then walk to it. You can repeat this from another angle and figure that where your paths crossed is the spot. Assuming the coordinates were good in the first place. Theres nothing quite like turning over every rock and climbing every tree in a 100 ft radius only to realize you searched the wrong 100 ft radius