Well, the Forum is a godsend for someone with a PN-60. Got it back when they had a deal a couple years ago. Was more sad than surprised when I found out later that Garmin had acquired them, but pleased that Garmin came out with this patch. Maybe there are still some DeLorme folks as part of the mix there.
I was flummoxed a week ago when I was testing the PN-60 and happened to note on one screen the 1999 date. Went thru all the menus trying to find where to fix the date. (Duh!) Was thinking only the time came from the satellite signal. The notes on here and using the direct USB connect to the GPS plus finally pulling the SD card out (Thank You!) got the update to install.
My first GPS was a Magellan 315 and it's first real trek was into the barren area of ruins in Texas' Big Bent Park in 2000. Ended up being the featured story almost two decades ago in my "Latent Images" column in a publication for professional (ASPP) photographers and photo editors.
Being a technology lover and electronics geek I'll share something I found useful with the PN-60 in the field. When roaming on sand trails in Michigan's Upper Peninsula you can get surprisingly far from people in some areas. I like to visit sites of 1930-40s CCC Camps, some of which were converted to Prisoner of War Camps. The PN-60 is pretty power hungry and I was looking for a way to keep it powered. Having batteries in it and running from a USB Power Pack it seems the Power Paks first provides power and the unit switches to internal batteries when that is exhausted. That's a kind of fail-safe that is perfect for my needs.
This may get a little confusing so let me know if you have any questions. With the cable attached you can power it the GPS from a Li-Ion 5v power pack. I decided to do that and have been doing some power measurements using an in-line USB power meter with LCD display that shows current consumption in Milliwatt Hours. I hooked the PN-60 thru this to a fully charged 20,000 mAH Li-Ion USB pack (less than 2 years old and regularly used and charged) that had it's own LED '% capacity remaining' readout but seems of questionable accuracy. That inaccuracy doesn't enter into these measurements.
I also had two fully charged EneLoop NiMH AAs in the PN-60. I found that the USB battery pack capacity rating is not being lived up to. I noted the total power consumption and power draw readings regularly. When I came back to check the GPS one time the power pack was off and it's power display showed 00%. The way it had been tracking it should have been at 30-35%. The unit had switched to the internal batteries and they were at about 80%. Still, I did get some good info.
With the USB Power Pack connected it provided power to the GPS for ~84 hours (3 1/2 days) running continuously and with the GPS laying on a window ledge where the satellite signal was pretty modest. Does anyone know if the PN-60 consumes more power when the satellite signals are weak?
When the Power Pack was exhausted the GPS had started working off the AAs and the PN-60 showed them at about 80% capacity still.
I'll probably do more testing. I have a couple of the 20,000 mAh power packs.
Hope someone finds this useful or interesting!
