Low Bat

Not a bad idea if you got little kids and worry whenever they hold your prestine $400 GPSr while running down the trail. I wonder if this receiver also gives hints and such if at first you can't find the cache.

Looking at the video you posted it shows a daylight readable screen. Of course we don't know if that's with or without the backlight on. If it's without, I'd say they really did find a way of improving the screen.

Yes the screen is really the item of interest here. I wonder what they did and how well it works. The reviews should be interesting.

Yes, and on the first time I went geocaching too. I can recall getting it one other time from another geocache find years later. I am very allergic to poison oak and try to be careful, and even skip a number of geocaches that look risky. What really makes a difference is when returning from a hike that I "may" have encountered poison oak, I toss my clothes straight away in the washing machine and take a shower using liquid bleach to remove any oils. I rinse throughly and follow up with body wash to remove any leftover bleach. I've never had a case of poison oak since using this method. Tip: make sure to scrub your shoes including the bottoms, as you are likely to have stepped on the leaves. Ordinary water and a scrub brush seems to work well. Handle everything carefully until it's be "decontaminated".

Wow another beta! I'm now plugging in my Oregon for software updates more often than I am for geocache updates. Thanks Garmin.

I like having my name and phone number on the startup screen like my 60CSx could do. The startup file didn't appear for me either so I just created my own like Catch43 did. I don't think I'll need averaging, MOB, or sight n go, but knowing I have the ability to add those features to the main menu is kind of nice.

Just use the compass screen.

FYI, the debug file remains even if you change software versions. I sent Garmin the file when I was using 2.94 and noticed the file also contained information on 2.93. I'm not sure if your lack of satellites will generate a bug report entry, but you could take a look and see if the date and time of any entry matches the date and time you had satellite trouble.

I haven't tried it but I read you can. I don't think it will tranfer geocache descriptions, just the coordinates and the name or GC number I believe.

You can only have up to 200 gpx files. The 2000 waypoint limit applies too. For example: you can upload 4 gpx files that each contain 500 waypoints per file, or 20 gpx files with 100 waypoints each, or 200 gpx files with 1 waypoints each.

That's an interesting use.

When color came out I thought it was more gimmicky than useful, which was also my opinion on cell phones. Who needs a color screen? After mistaking a trail for a topo line and missing my turn I decided to go color. Detail is way more easier to see at a glance. My cell phone is only useful with color because of the camera, otherwise I can see the numbers and letters just fine in B&W.

Just a guess, but I'd say they're all beta releases because there are so many coming out in such a short time. Probably when Garmin feels they got it fined tuned enough we'll get a non beta release and that'll be it for awhile. Garmin focusing their attention on the Oregon was the main reason I purchase one.

Might be useful on the foothills.

Before the days of geocaching when selective availability was on, I used my GPS for finding my position on the trail and that was about it. Now that we have electronic road maps and geocaches, and my overnight backpacking days are memories, I'd say my current GPS does 95% geocaching, 4% road navigation (when not driving to a cache), and 1% hiking (again when not to a cache). Why such a small amount of use for non-geocaching activities you ask? It's because just about wherever you go nowadays you can't help but travel past a number of those little treasure chest icons on your screen. Anyone remember the non-Google map we used to have for viewing available geocaches? It used to have one geocache here and one way over there. Over the years I watched with amazement as those little treasure chest icons spread across the map like a strain of bacteria. I'm not complaining, just amazed at how geocaching took hold with so many. Now the bulk of GPS receivers made are geared to either car navigation or geocaching, or both.

Thanks for the direct email address, and thanks for the screen backgrounds you made, and for all the information you make available on your website. BTW, do you ever sleep? I could swear whenever I post something you post soon after.

Sorry I don't have a pic. My Oregon is perfectly visible in direct sunlight with the backlite off. It's the indirect sunlight that washes out the screen for me.

I'd like to send Garmin my error log, but I need their email address so I can attach the log. Looking at their website I only see a form for contacting support. What email address did you use? EDIT: Ahh... I think I found it in an old email from a few years ago. techsupp@garmin.com

Same here, although I was routing to a waypoint. It looks like the shutdowns are occurring automotive mode. Anyone have a shutdown in a different mode?

Garmin has made a golfing GPS based on the Oregon. It's called the Approach G5. It does have a list of golf courses you can view here. It looks like a great golfing GPS, but looking over the 12 page manual I don't see any indication it can do anything else other than golf courses.

Well I've had my first shutdown ever on my Oregon 300. Using version 2.94 I was navigating an active route with WAAS on, backlite on, using only battery power (half charged), and orientation set for track up. While making a left turn the screen was adjusting for the turn while I was zooming (don't remember if it was in or out). All of a sudden the power shuts off. I powered back up and the route navigation resumed. I'm guessing I may have put too much of a demand on the software or the NiMH batteries.

Whoa! There's already a thread started here. http://forums.Groundspeak.com/GC/index.php?showtopic=217620

Thanks g-o-casher I got it up and running. I think they got the bug fixed with map scrolling, but the bug not showing the cache description you're navigating too is still present. I see we have another feature.

I tried a similar experiment, only I also removed the batteries. While on the freeway on an active route, I shut down and removed the batteries. Five miles/minutes later I reinserted the batteries and powered up. When it cycled past the opening screens it already had the new fix and was still on the active route. I wonder if there is an internal battery, a capacitor, or does it store to flash memory on shutdown. How does HotFix work? I need to try this again for a longer time and distance.

Some of us go back aways when it comes to owning GPS receivers. I thought I'd start a thread where we can show our progression. Here's my history. As you can see I've been a Garminite for 14 years. 1995 - Garmin GPS 40 My first GPS. I was simply impressed at seeing my position in relation to the fixed waypoints I created, and that it could show my position change in real time as I was driving or walking. This thing used 4 AA batteries and ate though them in just a few hours. Amazing battery hog that you only turned on when you needed to check your position. One channel receiver and it took like 5 minutes to get a position fix, sometimes even longer as it looked for one satellite at a time. I remember thinking this would be really cool if it had a map. 1997 - Garmin GPS 12XL Wow, twelve satellite at once and better battery life. When hiking in the back country I carried a protractor to triangulate my position from two mountain peaks that I entered as waypoints. Knowing the distance from the mountain peaks allowed me to find where I was on a paper trail map. I still wished for a GPS with a built-in map. 1998 - Garmin GPS III Plus Another leap in technology as I now had 1.44 MB of memory to download segments from a MapSource Topo CD. I finally had a built-in map. Now I just wished for Selective Availability (SA) to be turned off so I could get better accuracy, and it finally was turned off in May 2000. 2001 - Garmin eTrex Vista Wow, so small and it only uses 2 AA batteries. A barometric altimeter, electronic compass and 24 MB of memory. With SA gone I was happy as I now had everything I could possibly want in a GPS, and then I saw the Garmin website mention something called geocaching. I caught the geocaching bug by the end of 2001. 2004 - Garmin eTrex Vista C Color display, WAAS, USB connections, and better battery life. Now if Garmin would just update the topo CD. 2006 - Garmin GPSMAP 60CSx Big screen, backlit buttons, microSD card memory, and routeable maps. Having the SirfStar III chipset meant I could now get a fix while under a tree canopy, which made hiking and geocaching all that much better. Garmin MapSource continues to improve and I finally got updated topo maps. I also added City Navigator street maps to my GPS since I have a unit that supports it and goes as high as 2 GB of memory with a microSD card. 2009 - Garmin Oregon 300 Touchscreen and paperless geocaching. I now have an all-in-one GPS for street nav, hiking, and geocaching. No paper or PDA needed for geocaching anymore. This little egg fits in my cell phone cradle on the dash and powers from the same retractable power cord my cell phone uses. I guess the next leap in technology will be combining my cell phone and GPS together in the same unit.