Entropy512

Last I checked, the default on the site was WGS84, a worldwide standard. I see no reason to add a rather contrived "national" standard which doesn't even seem to be the standard used by most government agencies (USGS maps have UTM markings...) when the default is a well established world standard. While gc.com is at it, clearly they need to add New York State Plane East/Central/West coordinates, as they are a standard in New York State.

Just in case you didn't know, you can get more detailed maps for free at http://gpsfiledepot.com. And this is why I would not ever reccommend a "T" model Garmin. So between the 400T and the 450 - def. the 450.

For copyright and licensing reasons, you cannot directly use Google Earth imagery in a Garmin device. You can, however, use Google Earth as a tool for finding imagery or georeferencing imagery you already have. http://www.gpsvisualizer.com/google_earth/...twork_link.html can provide you with a Garmin Custom Maps compatible KMZ using a variety of datasets for the area you are currently looking at in GE. There's a utility called MAPC2MAPC (google it) that can take georeferenced images in a wide variety of formats and create a Garmin Custom Maps compliant KMZ. You say you don't have images, but there are a wide variety of sources for free imagery (at least in the US, there are also some but not as many for Canada.) If you go to a place in Google Earth, you will see copyright info for the imagery - in many cases this can point you to a free source for aerial imagery. (Most states have imagery available at higher resolutions than the national USGS imagery.) For example, Pennsylvania has 2-foot resolution imagery of the entire state and 1-foot for most of it. New York has 2-foot for the entire state, 1-foot for a good portion of it, and 6-inch resolution for a select few areas. http://seamless.usgs.gov/ is a good place to obtain fully georeferenced imagery that can be easily turned into a KMZ with MAPC2MAPC (pre-georeferenced -> no need to manually calibrate the map.)

No, and no. Actually, no and yes. SA was turned off earlier than expected because the Air Force figured out how to do regional "denial of service" (likely regional SA) earlier than planned. So the military retains the ability to degrade the civilian C/A code on a regional basis if necessary. However, I think it is unlikely they will ever do so except possibly in a situation with intense combat. (Not a "cold war" style situation like Korea is now.)

Plenty of other Garmin PN vs Oregon threads elsewhere I'd reccommend reading. I owned a PN-40 briefly, it died, it was returned to Amazon, and I bought an O300 on short notice. I would definitely not consider going back, especially after the addition of Garmin Custom Maps. As to imagery: Garmin Custom Maps allows you to load arbitrary raster data into the Oregon. This means you can use high resolution state aerial imagery when available. The "high resolution" USGS aerial imagery available through DeLorme is actually quite low resolution (1 meter I think?) compared to state imagery in many states. New York and Pennsylvania have freely available 1 foot resolution information as an example. (Best way to figure out what the best imagery available is and where it comes from is to fire up Google Earth, pan to your area of interest, and look at the copyright marker. In NY and PA it'll point you to the respective state governments.) Not sure what Garmin BirdsEye provides - it is easier to use than Garmin Custom Maps, but may not have the really good aerial imagery.

Please specify which country you are in and what units of currency your budget is in, since you're either not talking in US Dollars, or you are doing VERY poorly in searching for a good price if you can't find anything less than (MSRP + 300)... Garmin Oregon 450 is around $350 USD, a bit less if you search. Plenty of free maps available for it. PN-40 is $250ish and comes with basic maps, but they're on par in detail with "100k" Garmin maps and there is no easy way to load more detailed topo maps. There is also no way to load arbitrary raster data to them without spending $100+ for XMap, and the aerial imagery available as part of the DeLorme subscription service (USGS imagery) is significantly lower detail than what is available for free from many government sources (such as New York GIS 1 foot aerial imagery, similar imagery is available for free in Pennsylvania.)

Me, too. Using a Dakota 20 (same difference) and the accuracy is there if you have the patience to wait for it. I just get a bit weary of the occasional sloooow drop to a reasonable EPE. My eTrex Summit HC (Mediatek chip) gets down to business a good bit more quickly once turned on than does my Dakota. If driving to a starting point, I always make it a point to turn the Dakota on a mile or so away from GZ to give it a "head start". You imply that you let it lock when you're driving/moving - it has been my experience that every GPS chipset I've ever used suffered from significantly increased lock times if moving much at all, especially at vehicular speeds.

I'd reccommend against getting a SiRF III-based puck, as that chipset is old and dated. There are newer better performers right now. So far in other forums (GPS Passion seems to be a good place for "puck" reviews and comparisons), the "top dog" appears to be the MTK v2 chipset. I have an i-Blue 747A+ that was purchased from semsons.com - USB, Bluetooth, AND datalogging all in one. The MTK2 chipset in it is very sensitive - it practically instalocks when outdoors, and even inside my apartment, it locks faster than my Oregon 300 or AT&T Tilt 2 lock outdoors. There are slightly cheaper versions without the logging capability.

Edit: Removing dupe, previous post went through despite timeout error.

My Dakota 20 (same as the Oregon 450/550 chip) holds lock fairly well, but is much slower than my eTrex to claim a decent EPE. The WAAS issues, OTOH, are a well known bug with the Cartesio chip units of all flavors. Garmin shouldn't even advertise the Cartesio based units as WAAS/EGNOS-enabled until they can work out a fix with STMicro. Note that the PN-40 also has the same Cartesio chipset, and performs very similarly to the Garmin. I wish Garmin had moved to the MTK2 when they released the Oregon 450...

Yup, depends on your area. At least for New York and PA, the latest topos were created before the Census released their 2009 TIGER dataset in the fall of 2009, and the notes for at least one planimetric release say they used the 2009 TIGER data. In some counties (like mine) the 2009 set has major improvements. Another option is that there is a map set generated from OpenStreetMap data, which should have the highest quality road data of any noncommercial source. I forget the URL - as they update weekly direct from OSM, they aren't listed on gpsfiledepot if I recall correctly, but I could be wrong. URL is something like garmin.na1400.info or something like that? Topo is clearly best when not on a road.

I have an Oregon 300 and love it. I have not had any problems with screen readability - the default IS too dim but it's not difficult to change once you know how. (That's one of the few features you really need to read the manual for - tap the power button quickly and a brightness control comes up.) My father is purchasing a 450 soon, very likely we'll be arranging a swap since I use my GPS more than he will use his.

Yeah, a bad charger will greatly reduce the lifetime of NiMH batteries. Getting a good charger with independent charging circuits for each cell is critical. So let's see, assuming you ONLY power one device (and hence ONLY require one 4-pack of NiMH AAs at most:) 4-pack of ULSD NiMH AAs - $12 approx LaCrosse BC-700 - $28 approx Total - $40 So if alkalines are $13 per 48 - that will get you 3x48 = 146 alkalines (3x13 = 39.) 146 alkalines can be matched with 36.5 recharge cycles of your NiMHs - this is WELL within the cycle lifetime of NiMHs even with a junky charger. Note that in many devices, the high internal resistance of alkalines will cause them to not last nearly as long as NiMHs, reducing the number of recharge cycles to break even. (Photographic flash units are an extreme example - it's nearly impossible to run them off of alkalines, the recycle time skyrockets and the life is only tens of pops instead of 100-200) If you buy more than 1 4-pack of AAs (hence making the charger cost factor in less), the advantage turns even closer towards NiMHs, with the extreme being: 1 4-pack of ULSD NiMH AAs = $12 1 48-pack of Alkaline AAs = $13 Forgetting the $1 difference, that's 12 recharge cycles or less. This is not counting the significant amounts of waste alkalines generate. NiMHs don't have the toxic waste disposal problems NiCds did. Edit: I have the MaHa MH-C9000 and love it, however for most people, the LaCrosse BC-700 is more than sufficient and is around $20 less, plus is physically smaller. The MaHa is a bit bulky.

Also, to the OP: What UMPC are you getting? I'm trying to find info on the Marvell Dove and Freescale i.MX51 platforms, but the only info I've been able to find is how to install Ubuntu on them and the fact that Ubuntu 10.04 supports them, NOT where to obtain the hardware or any of the hardware specifications...

Well, actually everything is from multiple post I have read, some might have been user error, others might have been problems that got fixed. The big one I saw was people complaining about the lack of 3D topo and routable features, others complained that the maps where not detail enough. Of course this might all be silly complains. Do you still have the information to get it for $290? was this price before shipping? $290 sounds like a sweet price considering that the PN-60 will be $399. That's about $110 difference before shipping. A price difference like this would surely move me toward the Oregon. In terms of topographic and hydro data, the free maps are roughly equivalent to Garmin's 24k topo maps, which Garmin only sells on a regional basis. Nationwide coverage in a single purchase is only available at "100k" (lower resolution) detail. In terms or road data - The Garmin 100k topo roads are "ok", I can't remember if they're routable. Most free 24k topos are based on an older Census TIGER dataset, which is good in some places and awful in others. Most free maps are not routable, although there is now a routable map set based on OpenStreetMap data. OSM quality varies greatly depending on: 1) How good the original Census TIGER data was (At least OSM uses the latest Fall 2009 TIGER dataset, most of the free topos were generated prior to the release of this set.) 2) How much it has been reviewed by volunteer map editors For road routing, Garmin City Navigator (or a secondary unit, since basic TomToms and Garmin Nuvis cost about as much as CN and will outperform any of the current trail handhelds) is the way to go. DeLorme PNs historically have VERY poor performance in terms of POI/address search and road routing. Garmin supports the Custom Map functionality, which allows you to load any raster map that can be properly georeferenced into the unit (subject to technical limitations on map tile resolution and number of tiles). Loading "user" raster data into a DeLorme unit requires DeLorme XMap, and raster data generated with XMap cannot be distributed to my knowledge. There are a lot of raster data sources not available as part of DeLorme or Garmin's subscription services (such as state-by-state high resolution aerial imagery. As of summer 2009, the best DeLorme offered was USGS aerial imagery which is nowhere near as good as the 1 foot aerial imagery available in many states for free.)

Depends on the puck. The i-Blue 747A+ ( http://www.semsons.com/i74blgpsdalo.html ) is $80 and has Bluetooth and USB. The USB connection appears as a USB ACM serial port (ttyACMn in Linux) which spits out NMEA 0183 formatted data. The Bluetooth interface behaves as a standard Bluetooth Serial Port Profile (SPP) device, which spits out the same NMEA data. It is really sensitive and can also log data without any PC. Retrieving the logs does require special software, but there is an open source Java program that can do this at http://www.bt747.org/ I use my 747A+ with Linux all the time. There are probably cheaper MTK2 pucks without datalogging or BT.

Older versions of Windows didn't have built-in ZIP archive extraction, so you might need to download WinZip or 7-Zip. (I'd reccommend 7-Zip as it's 100% free, not shareware/nagware.) Unzip the .ZIP pocket query results, and put the .GPX files into: X:\Garmin\GPX Where X: is whatever drive letter the Oregon shows up as when you plug it in. NOTE: If you have a MicroSD card installed, *two* drive letters will show up. \Garmin\GPX will work on either one of these.

The NY and PA map sets definately are higher resolution than the 100k Garmin datasets. However: I'd suggest the Northeast Topo map sets, as they seem to have more detailed hydro data.

Just don't unbox it and turn it on out in the daylight before you give it to him. He might accidentally wind up with the 300 if you do. Actually because I'm likely to use my unit more than he will use his, we've already been talking about possibly making arrangements for me to get the "newer" unit and he'll buy my "older" unit from me. Of course, given that retail pricing is wacky right now for the 300, it would be difficult to assess what a fair price for the "older" one would be. He lives 200 miles away so would likely order the new unit directly to my parents', and might even use that on the fishing trip he's primarily ordering it for.

Depends on the map; for example the last time I was in Hawaii, I had both the Garmin 100K TOPO and the 24K gpsfiledepot map. The road data on the Garmin map was horrible, but the gpsfiledepot map was spot on. I'm really looking forward to someone releasing a map that combines an OSM export (or at least 2009 TIGER data) with topo for the Northeast. All of the topos that cover New York State are using an older TIGER dataset - the 2009 dataset is vastly improved in my county, and I've started doing some OSM edits in my hometown.

For any number of reasons, the 450 is to be preferred to the 300 - not just for the added features, but for the readability of the screen. Make no mistake about it - there are retailers that still have a few 300's around at less than the price of the 450, too, but the difference for the 450 is well worth it. It is, as you gathered, a superset of the 300, and lacks nothing that a 300 offers. Also - be aware that apart from Amazon (and many eBay auctions), there's currently a $50 rebate on 450s and the rest of the Oregon/Dakota line directly from Garmin. It's a good time to buy. "(Offer is valid for purchases made between April 1, 2010 and June 20, 2010. Postmark deadline is July 20, 2010.)" http://garmin.blogs.com/promotions/2010/03...bate-offer.html Also note that you may not wish to spend the additional $ for the 450T model since there are quite a number of resources for good, free maps for the 450. Thanks for the info. I agree on NOT wanting the T variant - keep in mind I'm an Oregon 300 owner and was going to reccommend the 300 to my father, but seeing the 450 made me think. I'm just trying to wrap my head around the fact that they are the same price, one would think that Garmin would sell the "less featured" unit for less money. Looks like I'll reccommend the 450 to him. The rebate seems to be for about the same amount of discount as Amazon offers. There are other vendors selling for under $400, however they're all smaller noname ones I don't necessarily trust, and in fact I see names (like Abe's of Maine) of vendors I know specifically to avoid.

While I agree with you that the SiRF III is a bit dated and will happily purchase a receiver that doesn't have it (in fact will avoid receivers that use it nowadays...), I disagree that the Oregon's chipset isn't in need of replacement. The STM Cartesio is notorious for absolutely poor WAAS performance. It's just plain awful - in both receivers that use it (Oregon and PN-40), it's extremely rare for anyone to have a WAAS lock. However, Garmin has signed a deal with MediaTek to use their chipset in yet-unnamed receivers - I had some hope that the 450 was MTK v2 based. I have an MTKv2-based Bluetooth puck and its performance is incredible. It locks fast, locks WAAS instantly, and usually locks lots of satellites at high SNRs.

My father is considering purchasing an Oregon 300 or 450. The 300 and 450 have the same MSRP on Garmin's site, and "street price" for the 450 seems lower ($350 on Amazon, no discount from MSRP for the 300. In general, Garmin seems to be doing "street price" enforcement as it is rare to see units sell for less than MSRP now.) Based on published specs, it seems that there is nothing about the 300 that the 450 doesn't match or exceed - what am I missing? The 450 has to have some sort of disadvantage to be selling for the same/cheaper price, or is it just that Garmin hasn't bothered to discount the 300 prior to a discontinuation?

I keep wondering why people think the free ones are better. They're not, in my opinion. They're just free. If you want to see the best your Oregon/Colorado/Dakota can show, and (in Topo Canada V4, anyway) also get pretty good turn by turn navigation on road, and see Digital Elevation Model data so you see 3D views, you're going to need the Garmin maps. They ARE better in most regards, worse in one: 24K Topographic and hydrographic data in the free maps blows away the 100K Garmin topo datasets. Roads in the free map datasets kind of suck

Amen to that. You might want to consider a low-end nuvi ($100-120) for the car and whatever handheld you can afford. Generally speaking, a handheld will make a better car navigator than vice versa. My current top preference for dual use is an Oregon 450 + City Navigator Maps, though it won't give voice prompts (just beeps). One other thing -- there have been a lot of complaints about the quality of the highway maps and routing on the DeLormes. PN-20 road routing was basically useless. My father was extremely unhappy with his as he was hoping to get a device that would give at least some road routing functionality. My PN-40 didn't seem much better in the two days I owned it before it died and I returned it. My Oregon 300 does OK, but does not do spoken directions either. For the price of City Navigator maps for an Oregon, you can get a basic Garmin Nuvi or TomTom that does far better when in the car. You can get free routable maps for the Garmins, but as they are based on OpenStreetmap data, which is based on TIGER data unless someone has reviewed and fixed it, I wouldn't trust it for routing. There are a LOT of areas of the country that just have an unreviewed direct TIGER import.