Ratsneve

Here is my "attempt". Bare... (pun intended) since these coordinates are South of the Border the only map I have to use is the base map on the Oregon, Topo U.S. 2008, so it really doesn't show much. It will be interesting to see what other Oregon GPSr maps some might come up with of this part of Baja. BTW, unless it is a real coincidence and this location is actually 3,005 feet ASL (which I still doubt very much since it looks very much like the coordinates are in an old region of the Colorado River delta) the Oregon reflects my home elevation in Central Oregon instead. Oh, wait the 3005 foot elevation is my elevation. In the other screen shots 157 must be the elevation--no? But it is funny seeing the one red pin in the Gulf showing 156 feet--perhaps that is an elevation error? Or is it true elevation change relative to Central Oregon representing that the Earth is not a perfect sphere but very slightly "pear shape"? A bearing of 156 or 157? That would work. Well, it just goes to show you how much I know about my Oregon. Come to think of it, does anyone know why the course route splits like it does? There is a thin line and a much thicker straight-line route. Why? The course couldn't autoroute because the source and the destination are not on any roads the OR could use but the thin line takes off from the source too? Is it showing a deviation or a deviation error even though I don't think there should be any?

Unfortunately I was not aware of any other problems... Wait, there is the duplicate posting problem but I get around it by using the back arrow to the original post and only then refresh. I then only see my one post (no duplicate). Well, okay, I'll just remove this thread from my subscribed topics and we'll let it DIE!

I assumed you might be aware of this link too: http://garminoregon.wikispaces.com/ If not be sure to check it out thoroughly for other Oregon information you may want to be aware of.

On the Garmin Oregon 400t approaching the unit with a magnet will affect its 2-axis electronic compass reading. It shouldn't affect data at all but it is generally not a good idea since if the GPSr has any ferrous material in it, and there must be something, it may pick up some perment magnetism from any magnetic source. Whether this would permanently damage anything or just cause more frequent calibration or no harm at all I don't know. If the Venture HC doesn't have an electronic compass then you probably have no concern.

Is it normal for the Oregon 2-axis compass sitting outside with clear visibility of ~85% of the sky to jump 5 degrees or so in either direction randomly but let's say several times in a minute? It seems to settle down after several minutes returning to its normal point, in this case, true North. I don't know what the cause is. I just noticed too that the location pointer has jumped/drifted off west ~200 feet. I returned to another previous known point and it is off west only ~100 feet. This is worse then the previous days occurrence of ~60 feet. After a power-cycle everything appears back to normal again. This isn't good not to know the cause or how to duplicate. I suppose if one always has tracking and recording on you can see when you unexpectantly go 100 feet off your course unless the track jumps ahead and you aren't watching. How would this affect geocaching? I suggest when you get near a cache you set a marker, cycle the power, and see if you are still where you think you are.

Interesting... And in my last google and from another post there seem to be two different voltages available for Litium AA cells. 4.2 (rounded) probably means each cell is 2.1 V and they are in series, certainly not as high as the 3.6 V variety. Does the PN-40 spec give a _maximum_ input voltage? What if you installed two 3.6 V 900 mAh cells? Although it is not as important on the PN-s as it would be on a CO or OR, it might give a much brighter backlight _and_ possibly shorten the life expectancy of the screen? Learning these detailed specs for a DeLorme may be a piece of cake compared to learning them for a Garmin.

What a fascinating thing to notice! Although my sat page has room for 14 sats I have never ever seen more then 12. And with 12 showing there has always been at least one none WAAS with no "D" designation. So far my best GPS Accuracy reading has been down to 13 feet. WAAS or no WAAS is negligible as far as accuracy I can see means. And... When I turn the unit on it normally seems to take around an hour for the "D"s to register on the sat single strength bars. I've turned the unit off and then right back on and it still took around an hour for the "D"s to appear again. I don't understand this Hot Fix at all so I will suspect it is inop. on the Oregon 400t until proven otherwise?

Ditto! I was so happy with the erratic compass and how the track would sometimes wander off a road that I exchanged it for another that made me ecstatic when the barometric pressure wouldn't trend data when the CO was turned off and I flipped up and down with joy when I finally got the "system software missing" while roaming around near Sequoia National Park while still up in Central Oregon. Sadly I was still able to find several geocaches without any difficulty. Now I have an Oregon and I feel very sad to report so much seems to be working well... But I'll still share this happy news that the barometric pressure sort of gets erratic and perhaps a little weird when I tried pressure trending last night and after I turned the unit back on this afternoon. The chart while off looked really good with a gradual rise to this monrning and falling back down just a little. You could see little fluctuations in it but no where near as erratic as the jumps and partial recoveries going on prior to turning the unit off and turning it back on. Further more, I'm happy to report that it is so much fun trying to line up a feature/icon on a map to identify it using the touchscreen. First you tap and get a red pin to appear... Then you move the map feature to the tip of the pin but be careful--the pin sometimes moves out of the way. It gets so exciting when you get close and try to lift your finger off the screen at just the right time because the map is jiggling around just enough that miss the mark. Sometimes it takes several tries. I make a game out of it called #$%^ Garmin. It is these little things that please me so much about Garmin.

I've had the unit on for over an hour this afternoon and the location marker appears stable. **I wish this blue arrowhead was transparent with a precise "ground-zero" mark on it.** Anyway, the big news is that tracking barometric pressure over night seems to really work great. The graph has nice trend variations in it... I don't know how accurate the data is though. At the start 1:48 AM, 9-14 the pressure reads 30.12 and reached a high at 10:15 AM of 30.18 dropping down at 12:37 PM to 30.07. Now, the bad news... Prior to tuning the unit off and after turning it back on this morning the pressure graph was erratic with a large pressure drop down and recovering part way back up before turning the unit off and a large pressure increase up and recovering part way back down after the unit was turned on. These observations are like spikes that do not return to the previous base line pressures and none were present during the time the unit was turned off. I'm not likely going to track these barometric problem(s) further with Garmin. I'm sick of this issue and don't care to often what the pressure is doing...

The site seems to be working fine: http://gpsinformation.info/penrod/oregon/oregon.html Penrod's work imo is a must read for new Oregon owners (like me) and/or anyone interested in buying the Oregon GPSr.

Why hasn't Groundspeak or any moderators that know addressed this at all? If it is broken and isn't going to be fixed until the next forum software update--fine--but where are the clues that you are aware? Using Windows XP, SP3 plus everything else that comes across Microsoft Update. IE 7.0.5730.13. (Sorry if you ignorned me because I didn't provide this info.) Thanks.

Not proven out yet by me (or anyone else??) but consider that if you used Lithium-ion rechargeable batteries you would get 7.2 V and ~900 mAh. This should give you a brighter backlight screen then 2.4 V and ~2700 mAh Ni-M-H batteries. And 7.2 V is higher then the USB 5 V or 12V to 5 V to MicroUSB inputs. Is anyone using Li-ion cells in their Oregons or Colorados? The Colorado has a diagnostic screen where you might be able to read/confirm the higher voltage of the Lithium cells but seeing the screen actually dim down slightly switching from Li cells to 5 V USB input would be noteable indeed--if true. The Li cells will give you 1/3 the battery capacity though so that isn't to good. I got a voltmeter and an Li-Ion rechargeable (currently being recharged) that goes in my DeLorme PN-20. Gotta' go for now and back later with a voltage. Does the DeLorme PN-20 (PN-40) have a diagnostics screen that includes the system voltage input? The Garmin Colorado does but the Oregon doesn't.

Do a Google for "lithium aa cells" and you'll find more. However, I noticed something I missed. Apparently they come in a second flavor--1.5 V AA and 3.00 Ah (is that 3,000 mAh?) and the 3.6 V AA and 900 mAh.

Well, I just found the location marker wandered off ~60 feet SSW of its normal 20 foot diameter cluster. I set a couple waypoints at this erroneous location. Also noted that my elevation had dropped a couple hundred feet or so which is very unusual to see off that much. What really nails it for me I think is that I cycled the power and now everything is back to where it belongs. The marker is inside its cluster and the elevation is back up 200 feet. I think this is a problem. I'm going to set up the unit for a barometric pressure trend while turned off on battery and see how it looks in the morning.

So far waypoints I set periodically from one location in my house are staying within a 20 foot diameter. I think this was pretty much what the Colorado did here too. I haven't been watching the GPS Accuracy much but it is currently showing 19 feet. At this location, by a window I'm getting 10 satellites--9 are WAAS. Satellite 51 doesn't seem to be around--why does that one interest some? Haven't done any geocaches yet. On one recent drive the track was around 100 feet off the road using the Topo U.S. 2008 base map. I added the Topo U.S. 24K - Northwest and the error of that same track decreased down to 10 feet. I then disabled the 24K and enabled City Navigator 2009. The error over the same track seemed a little better but not by much. Does this make sense? It seems like the 24K and CN are okay but the base map Topo is a little to far off? I'll check this some more. PS... These errors were not noted on the fly with each map but were estimated from the track after the trip was finished on each map. I'm not sure if this was a very accurate way. During the actual trip the 24K Topo was used exclusively. PPS... An hour later I notice all the WAAS "D"s had dropped off and then one minute later all ten "D"s were back. I've never seen any accuracy change that I could relate to WAAS or not. Its accuracy increase so far is negligible in Oregon.

Why in the world can't you delete Recent Finds? Is this a reasonable request for Garmin to change? What happens here? Does it accumulate only 20 Recent Finds and the oldest rolls off when the next arrives?

I installed the 2.5 update this afternoon and all seems well so far. Noticed that at update 2.3 probably the Trip Odometer was moved to where the Odometer use to be located. This was probably a good move since the top two fields are not selectable. I suppose the Odometer will become a gauge as to how many total miles you have traveled with your Oregon. Who will reach 1,000,000 miles first? I calibrated the touchscreen once noting the instructions on how in the back of the manual. (Note: In the case of the manual its revision date agrees with the online PDF revision date. Up to a couple weeks ago the Colorado manual wasn't so lucky--and maybe still isn't?) Anyway, today I noticed that I was having trouble getting the satellite page when I hit around the battery and satellite strength displays. I discovered that if I hit further down between the satellite strength and "Garmin" I'd get the page every time. I repeated the touch screen calibration again holding the unit in my left hand as I prefer and recalibrated the screen. The results seem perfect now. The only preculiar problem with the screen so far is keeping it from jumping around so much when I'm trying to ID something on the red pin tip.

That's because the preinstalled maps contain the basemap and the 100K topo maps. If you disable the preinstalled maps you disable both basemap and topo map which means if you zoom way out you'll notice that map screen performance gets worse and eventually you'll get a white screen. Normally if the basemap is enabled it would take over at this point depending on your map detail setting. There shouldn't be any reason that you can't leave Topo 2008 enabled with the 24k maps -- I'm guessing they are visible over the 100k maps? BTW, you'll see the same behavior with CN 2009. The pin is how you select anything on the map page. To get rid of it hit the return arrow on the bottom left of the screen. You can pan the map without activating it. Just drag the map, don't tap. Once the pin is active the button at the top of the screen gives details on what is under the red pin. Taping that button will allow you to activate a goto to that location. To fine tune the location of the pin drag the map under the pin don't try to relocate the pin. GO$Rs I'm getting much better at this now and your guess or hint somewhere else that I will end up liking the touchscreen looks more promising. I'm leaving the base map on with either the 24K Topo or CN on top of it and all seems swell. Moving a map icon/location to the pin for identification when far off is much easier with the touchscreen BUT fine-tuning the location to the pin tip I've often noticed gets the jitters. Many times I let go only to discover that the icon/location is still off of the pin by a hair and I have to try again. You can actually see it jumping around slightly. Anyone else notice this and have you discovered any tricks to making this quick and fool proof? Thanks.

Not proven out yet by me (or anyone else??) but consider that if you used Lithium-ion rechargeable batteries you would get 7.2 V and ~900 mAh. This should give you a brighter backlight screen then 2.4 V and ~2700 mAh Ni-M-H batteries. And 7.2 V is higher then the USB 5 V or 12V to 5 V to MicroUSB inputs. Is anyone using Li-ion cells in their Oregons or Colorados? The Colorado has a diagnostic screen where you might be able to read/confirm the higher voltage of the Lithium cells but seeing the screen actually dim down slightly switching from Li cells to 5 V USB input would be noteable indeed--if true. The Li cells will give you 1/3 the battery capacity though so that isn't to good. I've got a nice voltmeter, no Li cells or charger, and so far no means of getting to the MicroUSB connector pins or an Oregon diagnositic screen to read the actual GPSr system voltage--like the Colorado has that was sweet.

I've applied the 2.5 update successfully. Haven't a clue why Garmin won't add the Oregon to the update download page. The Colorado is there. But remember that I think it is the Oregon wiki that links to the updates. For the moment my biggest discovery I just noticed must have happened as a result of updating to v 2.3 the other day... The Odometer disappeared and a second Trip Odometer appeared in its place in the topmost upper right display of the Trip Computer. I checked though and the Odometer still exists so I have put it where the Trip Odometer default location was. The sad part of this is that the Elevation and now the new Trip Odometer fields cannot be changed. The other six fields below these can be changed. Not to sad though. I will hide the Odometer, which still can not be reset and use something else in its place. I won't use Water Temp which reads only blanks and Air Temp is conveniently missing now. BTW, Has anyone figured out where the "easter egg" diagnostic page is? I better read the Oregon wiki before I post to much more.

I just checked this before updating from 2.3 to 2.5 and it is the same in both cases. At least I see what you mean. However, you can access the waypoint info detail and it will give actual mileage way way beyond 9999 miles. I don't think this is a problem at all unless you insist on waypoints greater then 9999 miles and even then you can read the actual mileage. Once it falls below 9999 miles it will display. I don't think this is a bug--just a desire that Garmin might have used a number to 5 places.

Somebody gave me that advice in regards to buying a house 40 years ago. In the fullness of time, they were quite right. At ease. I think DeLoreme's intentions are good. I enjoy the attention DeLorme gives us even though I likely will remain happier with the Oregon for my personal GPS needs. I'm just sorry Garmin seems so 180 degrees different as a company and out of touch toward its customers--but in the end, after things settle down, does it matter? I'm aware of not buying enough when given the opportunity and having to buy more later, but buying more later has always been possible so far. Bill Gates once said something like, "64K will be all anyone ever needs," and I added a $450 Pascal language 16K RAM card to my Apple "][" once. If it becomes "necessary" in the future there won't be any PN-40se's available but likely there will be a PN-40p (for plus) that might have 16 GB internal. More likely there will be a redesign to include a larger screen with greater battery capacity with lower current drains. Likewise Garmin will have already done a portable outdoor widescreen by then too. And the beat goes on...

For some reason (lateness of the hour?), I'm having trouble parsing out four consecutive adjectives: a. smaller b. standard c. micro d. secure digital May I please have another look at this? In the meantime, I might comment that the "external" SD card is of the "standard size", i.e., larger than the mini SD card which is larger that the micro SD card. 10-4? CowboyPapa Who drinks Special Edition beer when available. Does it matter? Or, better, how does it matter?

Although my fears came true talking to Garmin technical support I was ultimately successful after around 3 hours of lost time waiting on the phone and/or jumping through hoops that didn't work, in reaching the inner sanctum software department. There is a different world at Garmin... The guy in short order cleaned up all the accumulated mess prior to and including last Wednesday in registering my new Oregon and unlocking City Navigator 2009 properly. As before and as I suspected he did the lion's share at his end which the regular phone support continues to fail miserable at. I cleaned up the unlocked maps section in MapSource and entered a brand new 25 digit unlock code for City Navigator 2009. Unit registration now only shows the Oregon (the Colorado references are gone). And Maps at MyGarmin just shows City Navigator 2008 and 2009 with the correct codes. On top of that I got my refund posted finally so I'm now only out $40. With any luck the Oregon could last a long useful time for me--we'll see. You'd think at this point I'd be all happy with Garmin but I've wrung myself ragged through Garmin's wringer so much I'm going to remain very reserved about any recommendations. I should still report results of a number of problems hopefully resolved now once they are checked here and I hope to return then to the Map Challenge thread when I feel in better control.

I'm thinking this one might be in error and a partial reference to the Colorado not plotting over time when the unit was shut off--but I only played with pressure--didn't know you could plot elevation changes or that the Oregon had any issues concerning this? What about the potential screen freezing issues you had or had heard of with the Oregon and 2.4? Should I go for broke and install 2.5 now and just see what happens? I think I will.