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ArcherACT

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Everything posted by ArcherACT

  1. Yep. That's all it does. I'm not about to lash out for another GPS although I would like to know exactly what the new Etrex's do that the GPSMAP62 doesn't.. or vice versa.
  2. Your results are almost exactly what I discovered a few months ago with over two weeks of continuous testing. Although I have the Maha Powerex that you don't seem to like. (Note that when comparing the Maha to your LaCrosse, the LaCrosse actually has tested as putting slightly more charge into most batteries, so the Maha has a little less agressive termination circuit) I also found that the compass being turned off appeared to make no discernable difference.
  3. Reading is simply the process of moving ones eyes back and forth and recognising markings as communication. Moving in most instances under ones own power involves use of the eyes to navigate around objects and discern the location of other objects. As we have evolved over millions of years to do this and nobody has noted mass lapses of ability to see, I claim that your assertion is not only without justification, but it's also pretty much the most ridiculous idea that I've seen on the Internet in quite some time. Moving to your next assertion. I have six GPS devices. All have compasses. Three have electronic 3 axis compasses. I have never seen any lapse of accuracy when close to a waypoint or cache. I can't think of any interaction which would change accuracy in proximity to anything other than electromagnetic fields. Thus, I believe that your second assertion has no accuracy either. Electronic compasses allow the ability for the map to orientate accurately while stationary. I found it annoying in terms of having to plan a route from a stationary position if I had to walk to orient the map again. These days I wouldn't buy a GPSr that didn't have a flux gate compass.
  4. Pretty much the only way some of the newer Garmins could be any more geocache friendly is if they had small tracks to crawl to where the cache is located. With the limited amount of information presented in the original post, it could be construed that the problem was user based rather than equipment based.
  5. What this means is, yes, it's legal to own it. But you'll never get it rekeyed, so that's why it's legal to own. It will be totally and utterly worthless to you once it doesn't work.
  6. Some time later this year, I'm going to walk 570 odd kilometres (350 odd miles) across Spain in a long geocaching trip, masquerading as the Camino de Santiago de Compostela. I want to have my GPSMap recording the track for as much as possible of the six weeks it's going to take. In order to get the longest possible battery life from my GPSMAP62s, I've been testing rechargeable batteries to see how long they'll last. I'm going to take a solar battery charger with me, so that batteries get charged on the way. If things get rainy for too long, I'll take a spare set of lithium AA's just in case. Currently, I have the battery saver turned on and the backlight down low. Using the Powerex 2700 AA's, I get around 15 hours, 30 minutes before the unit shuts down. Sometimes a little bit more. With the compass turned off, I've got one test time of just over 18 hours. Another one of these tests is on the way. It's just a matter of resetting the trip time in the Trip Computer screen and leaving the unit on to test it. I've not found anything else to do in terms of saving battery power. Any ideas? Has anyone else ever bothered to see how long their unit can function for? Anyone else cached the Camino?
  7. My 62s can archive the tracks each day. It is supposed to be able to automatically do this to the microSD card, but I haven't found out how to do that yet. Mind you, I've come nowhere near filling the memory up yet.
  8. I'd actually suggest bypassing the problem. Just use pocket queries instead and make sure that you only select the size of caches that you want to go for. You don't have to have all the cache sizes in there. You can't see the different files on the unit. Only the results of the file by the fact that it displays the geocaches that are IN the file. GSAK is a rather intensive way to handle caches when a pocket query is far easier to use. Just remember to put the pocket query file in the GPX directory in the Garmin Directory. They'll show up.
  9. The standard USB cable tells the unit that it's got a data connection and it switches to the standard mode of being a flash drive. The Garmin USB charger biases the data wire in a way that makes the unit stay in operational mode. With a bit of googling, you're likely to find someone who will have done the research and made a cable. Otherwise, if the spanner mode option doesn't work, you're up for a Garmin branded charger.
  10. Most Garmin GPS's don't have the facility to delete individual caches. Just delete everything and download less next time.
  11. Thanks! Nice to know that. I can now power up my little baby for all of 5 dollars for the bits.
  12. Well, that's as helpful as stating "You can fill your car with gas!" when someone is asking where to find feed for their horse.
  13. Not yet. GPSr's have to be designed specifically to use them. Eventually we will have GPSr's that use GPS, Glonass, Magellan and maybe even other geolocation satellites as other countries implement them. GPSr's are radio frequency receivers. They listen to a narrow band of frequencies transmitted by the US GPS system satellites which transmit specific data in specific sequences. Other satellite systems will transmit on different frequencies and quite likely different information as well. Thus, we'll need NEW equipment to take advantages of this. It's extremely doubtful that firmware upgrades will make new systems available. It will be a "forklift upgrade". Think of it from the manufacturers point of view. Would they prefer you bought new stuff at a PROFIT for them, or build equipment that will only require a firmware upgrade at a COST to them? So keep waiting and you'll find that within the next few years, you'll be able to buy more expensive GPSr's that will pick up more satellite systems. It's inevitable. Garmin has started it. The other manufacturers MUST catch up and try and surpass them to remain competitive.
  14. Sanyo Eneloops get rebranded as a few different cell types throughout the world. It is quite possible that any energiser Low Self Discharge (LSD) cells are rebadged Eneloops. Sanyo sell a few Eneloop branded chargers. The generic slow charge dual cell one is okay, It just charges for 16 hours and won't cook the cells. Sanyo has a page which explains all their chargers. Well worth reading. http://www.eneloop.info/products/chargers.html I have several chargers and my current favourite for AA's and AAA's is the Maha Powerex C9000 which has already been mentioned. http://www.eastgear.com/maha-mh-c9000-w-4-aa2700-batteries-wizardone-charger-1.html For some reason, my swallow charger, (which has now been replaced by a different model) won't quite peak the eneloops. So it was the excuse I needed to buy the maha. Yes, the maha is awesome. I've even tried to explode old batteries in it by doing naughty charge rates, but the thermister shuts it off. The swallow charges just about everything else I have and both can run from the car with no problems at all. I will only ever use LSD batteries from now on and the three distinct brands are the Imedions (by powerex) Eneloops and Enerkeeps. The Eneloops consistantly measure between 1850 to 1920 milliamps in the powerex and will power my GPS62s for quite long caching sessions and with at least eight more i n the geocaching bag, power my GPS and torch until way past the time that I should be in bed anyway. With a pack of four Duracell or energiser AA's costing 1/4 the cost of Eneloops or Imedions, I only have to charge them four times to be equal on battery costs. Each time I charge 4 eneloops after that, I'm saving 4 dollars. With all the devices around my house that use AA batteries, I will pay off the Maha charger AND batteries in equivalent savings within charging 100 batteries. PS. Ignore the "cell memory" theory. It's never been able to be reproduced, even in laboratories. On ebay it is possible to buy single solar cells which will supply either 6 or 5 volts reasonably cheaply. Some of them even come with a USB female port which can be wired and glued to the bottom of the panel. With a decent USB AA charger like an Eneloop one, you can quickly assemble a light weight solar powered portable AA charger which you can use while on the go.
  15. I'm having a hard time looking at the screenshots to decide exactly what pointer you're talking about. I can't see anything that takes up 1/3 of the screen. Do you mean direction pointer or are you talking cursor pointer?
  16. I don't believe that any GPS will display declination. For three reasons. 1. It's not constant from place to place. 2. It changes as the poles move. 3. It's irrelevant for the functioning of a GPS device. In order to display declination, there would need to be a declination data overlay. This would need to be constantly upgraded to be accurate. And lets face it, if you've got a GPS on you to display declination, why would you need a compass? If you've got a compass, you need declination ONLY if you've got a map. On that map will be declination. So there is absolutely no reason for anyone to go through the pain of providing declination on a GPS.
  17. Yes, as has already been pointed out, the Microsoft Tag requires a data connection. While the amount of information in the tag is huge, realistically, it's not really stored in the tag. It's stored in a database. While I don't think that it's a Big Brother rationale to explore what they're being used for, it's really nothing more than a large remote database entry with a pictographic representation for a query. QR codes however have an integral data storage capacity OR linking capability. They're a published standard that can be used without paying royalties to the Nippon Denso corporation. They're accessable to make without specified software on the Internet, OR with readily available free software and can be read with a wide variety of smartphones. Software for which is available for free. With a bit of luck, QR codes will penetrate further into our lifestyles and give real life hyperlinks to information. Not just caches.
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