Sputnik 57

Check your map settings to see where you have waypoints showing up. If it is set to AUTO, try moving it to a different zoom level that better suits your tastes. In any event, it will show both found and unfound caches (together with any other waypoint symbols you have). To my knowledge, there is no separate setting to show only unfound caches, and never has been.

I've had similar bad luck hiking with the unit set to Auto. IIRC, I've changed it to Distance in hopes of getting a more accurate recond of the distance. I guess I need to swith it over to Time and compare the results on known routes.

Far be it from me to impune your motives, gallet. I really do appreciate the effort that you have put into describing your experience with these units. I simply meant to suggest that your prior experience may give you a perspective that others would not necessarily share. Never having owned a Nikon or a Vista, I find the rocker function on the 60 to be fine. I have a good friend with a Legend Cx, and while the screen is noticeably brighter, it isn't a deal breaker for me. If I had become accustomed to that unit first, I might not find the 60 as acceptable. Keep up the good work. It is pretty clear that Garmin trolls these forums. Anything that can be done to raise functionality of their units deserves to be aired.

Interesting, but I was hoping for an objective review. We know you love your Vista, gallet. The vast majority of your observations simpy reflect your personal bias. I don't mean to disparage that. You are biased for a reason. I suspect, though, that it has more to do with your familiarity with the Vista than any real shortcomings with the 60. Some complain that Garmin makes too many models. I guess personal preference is just that. I would suspect that a 60 user "comparing" a Vista would complain that the button placement on the side makes the unit hard to use with one hand, and almost impossible to use in a car mount in the dark. They would also describe the click stick as flimsy. Seasoned Vista users would dispute those claims. Ain't choice grand?

There is a glitch in the Garmin plug-in. TPTB are aware of the issue and they are workin' on it.

Yellow E-trex units with 2.xx firmware do not have "WAAS" capability. (WAAS is a separate satellite signal that is supposed to help the unit filter out some atmospheric interference). When Garmin added WAAS capability to the basic E-trex, then didn't change the name of the unit. The only way you can tell is by looking at the unit's firmware. You can't add WAAS capability to a 2.xx unit by trying to upgrade the firmware to 3.xx. All that being said, no one had WAAS corrections when this sport started in 2001, and no one missed it. Forum lore says that more caches have been found with a plain ol' yellow E-trex than any other unit. Lots of cachers gripe that WAAS really doesn't add significant accuracy, and simply turn it off. I say give it a go. You should be fine.

Hiding maps affects your data processing. If you hide City Nav and then ask the unit to compute a route, it will route you on the base map only (the next unhidden map with routing capability), even if Topo is showing. To get autorouting on City Nav (or Select, or whatever), the map cannot be hidden.

It is true that the GPSr uses doppler shift to determine velocity. Do some simple math, remembering the your position accuracy my be off by 20 feet in either direction. If you are actually travelling at, say 60 mph, you should cover 88 feet per second. But if, after a second, the GPS shows you only went 68 feet, the unit will report your velocity at about 43 mph. If it shows you went 108 feet, it will show your speed at over 73 mph. Doppler shift is accurate to about .1 mph. My read on the track log bug goes back to early reports that these high sensitivity chips reported your position as moving small amounts, even if you were perfectly stationary. The trick is how to filter out that "noise," while still giving you a decent track log. Judging only be reports in this forum, the SiRF software seems to have done a reasonably good job of that (although still not perfect). Media Tek doesn't appear to have it quite right yet.

Chip size depends on how much you travel. If you never leave North Florida, the 64MB or 128MB chip that came with the card is fine. But for $20 or so, you can get a 2GB chip that will hold most of North America with City Nav NT. Its almost Halloween. Get the maps and ask for the chip as a stocking stuffer from Santa!

The Vista and other etrex units with an H in their name are great choices, and compare very favorably with the 60/76 x line. The chip set is Media Tek and not SiRF III, but users rave about these little units. If I weren't so old, I might go for one, but the screen size is just a bit smaller (also brighter). These ancient eyes need all the help they can get. While all of these units can easily be operated with one hand, the 60/76 have buttons on the front. The little etrex units have buttons on the side. If you want to put the unit into a car to navigate, I personally think the buttons on the front make operation easier. If I hiked in cold weather wearing glvoes, I might prefer the button placement on the etrex line. You really can't go wrong with any of these guys. If you have a good outdoor store nearby, your best bet is to go hold each one in your hand and see which one appeals to you.

If you use a waypoint manager like GSAK or EasyGPS, you can send waypoint names to the unit. Google 'em. They are free (although GSAK nags you for a shareward contribution after a while, which is well worth the money).

Two words: "Chewing Gum"

Nope. They both use a built in quad helix antenna. The case on the 76 wraps around the antenna (which results in a larger case, leading to greater buoyancy), but the electronics are the same.

The guts are the same, the screen is the same, the memory cards shipped with the units are different, but you won't use them anyway. It is exclusively about the form factor. Which one feels better in your hand? Which button placement do you prefer. Some like a big pocket calculator with the buttons on the top. Others prefer a Russett potato with the buttons on the bottom. Discount anything else people say about alleged differences in these units.

Should work on any device running Palm OS 3.0 or newer.

If the pocket query is returning 0 waypoints, I'll go out on a limb and guess that you selected caches fouind and caches not found. While that might make sense intuitively, there is actually a very small subset of caches that you have both found and not found (i.e., zero). Don't ask me how I know that. If it is GSAK that is filtering you to zero, stick with their forum. ClydeE will help you figure it out.

Lesson from the last 2 posts: The hot temps actually melt the rubber band onto the unit. Its cold weather that's the culprit. Gives a whole new meaning to letting your GPSr "bake."

It sounds like you're all set, but I always like to recommend Clan_Barron's article on Paperless Caching. Pretty good tips in there.

Are you sure you have Topo loaded on the Rino? You have to select and load CN and Topo maps simulataneously. If you load Topo maps, and then loand CN maps, they'll over-write the Topos you loaded (and vice versa).

Topo is unlocked. Subject to the license agreement, presumably if you unintalled it from your unit and PC, you could sell it to someone else after trying it.

I imagine you have already browsed, but if not, be sure to check out the garage sale forum,

It appears to be a know problem. Not your doing. Short answer is to manually change the icon to a closed treasure chest.

I'm pretty sure that what Klatch meant to say was, "True, but using it in violation of the license agreement is still illegal."

The 60x series uses a SiRF III chip set. The Etrex H series uses a MediaTech chip set. From the side-by-side comparisons I've seen the units are pretty comparable. The chip in the H series seems to draw a little less power, but may have a bit more drift when the user is standing still. Garmin firmware may solve that issue. From what I can tell, there is much less difference in antenna performance with these high-sensitivity receivers. That having been said, when reception is spotty, I would still hold the etrex H model flat, and the 60x with its quad helix antenna vertically. Both of the units will greatly out-perform "Old Blue".

I believe at this point, the recommended solution is to download caches from the Geocaching.com site instead of the Garmin site. Raine has informed Garmin of the glitch, and they apparently are "workin' on it" but no ETA for getting it fixed. As a premium member, you may want to try Pocket Queries and GSAK as an alternative.