Entropy512

Mini-USB connectors tend to be pretty durable, despite not being designed to be waterproofed. I had a bit of a scare when I plugged in a charger that had accidentally gotten dipped in a saltwater puddle (rubber floor mats of my car in winter) to my AT&T Tilt - the charger's tip was basically destroyed and the Tilt briefly stopped accepting charge from any other device. A little bit of isopropyl fixed that right up. No loss on the charger at all (I think i'm up to nearly 10 of them at this point due to various devices having one included...) but the Tilt damage would have been scary - i'm trying to wait until the Fuze 2 comes out before upgrading phones.

It may also have a different (IMO significantly better) chipset, possibly the first unit released as part of Garmin's recent press release that future units will be using the MTK v2 chipset.

I have an Oregon 300 and absolutely love it. I'm actually glad my PN-40 died on me within an hour of receiving it, the Oregon 300 is a far better match for me. The other option is to wait and see what chipset the Dakota 20 has. Garmin announced a press release indicating that future receivers will use the MTK v2 chipset, which so far is only available in "pucks" for PDA/PC use. The MTK2 chipset is *amazing*. The Dakota 20 might be the first receiver to use the MTK2. The STMicro Cartesio used in the Oregons and PN-40 has pretty deficient WAAS support.

Amazon and NewEgg are probably your best bets. $10 for 2GB is a ripoff, you should be able to get a 4GB for the same price elsewhere. SanDisks are usually overpriced but often go on sale. I got my 8GB SanDisk for $25 but that sale ended. You can get 8GB cards for $18-20 from NewEgg and Amazon.

No it is not, as it affected a unit "out of the box" as delivered by the manufacturer with a non-beta software load, and consisted of a hardware problem (yet another power issue). The Garmin issues are specific to one specific beta release. There is a massive difference between hardware defects and a single bad software release. I suspect a contributing factor to the DeLorme problems is that the case seemed to me when I had mine to be relatively soft plastic throughout (as opposed to a high-stiffness chassis with rubberized coatings for impact protection like the Garmin). This ability of the case itself to flex (and it DOES flex when trying to snap in that extremely tight cable connector, which requires a LOT of force to get it to slide in) is probably a contributing factor to all the failures.

The OP also mentioned being in the military - the impression I've gotten from map requests over at gpsfiledepot.com and the maps Coggins there (who is also here) has made is that U.S. military personnel are using Garmin receivers in some areas (probably because the DAGR has limited availability and only displays your lat/long?). For the OP, the apparent "community" support within the military from guys like Coggins provides another advantage to the Garmin.

I can't speak for sure, but that eBay seller might need to be reported. It sounds like he sold you a pirate copy of CN... BTW, to the original poster - YOu don't need GSAK with the Oregon 300. Just take the Pocket Query results, unzip them, and drop the GPX files into \garmin\gpx on either the SD or internal storage.

The LaCrosse BC-900 Morgan mentioned and the MaHa MH-C9000 are probably the best two chargers money can buy. People seem to like the LaCrosse slightly more nowadays, but the MaHa comes with a power cable for vehicle use. I have the MaHa myself.

Yup. Garmin is the way to go for international. Garmin: Has an international support network, DeLorme is US-only Has international maps available from the vendor. DeLorme is US-only. International maps require DIYing with XMap Uses standard connectors for their cables - Any old mini-USB cable will do. Lose the cable for a DeLorme abroad and you're toast.

Garmin Oregon 300 - solid build, nice screen, great user interface, can be powered by my existing cell phone chargers and uses the same cables I use to sync my phone and download from my datalogger puck. (It has a standard mini-USB connector)

8GB gives you some breathing room with the new betas allowing for multiple map files to be stored on the SD card. (prior to that 4GB of maps was the limit unless you did file-renaming tricks on a PC to switch maps) You'll need City Navigator maps to do on-road routing. You need genuine Garmin topo maps to get DEM relief shading For just plain old topo contours, you can get free maps of many areas from gpsfiledepot.com, but I don't know what they have for Canada. There are lots of excellent maps for the U.S. derived from publically available government datasets.

IIRC, the limit is 200 GPX files or 2000 waypoints/caches. Just unzip the GPX files from the ZIP that was sent with the PQ and drop the GPX files into \garmin\gpx on the Oregon's storage. Internal storage and the MicroSD both work equally well.

Yeah, that's the only problem I've ever had with importing tracks from the Oregon to Google Earth. Usually: I save a track in Track Manager on the Oregon Plug the Oregon into my PC Load the GPX directly from the Oregon's storage That's it, works like that in Windows and Linux so I am assuming Mac too.

My experience so far is that, if setup properly (some of the cheaper pucks can be a little wonky in their initial setup, the Garmin configuration chosen in their receivers is excellent based on accounts I have heard) the SiRF III blows away the STM Cartesio, especially if you live at moderate northern or southern latitudes (like New York State) which have the WAAS sats lower to the horizon. The SiRF III's WAAS support (if turned on - my Holux puck had it off by default!) simply blows away the Cartesio - Firmware fixes have taken the Cartesio a long way but nowhere close to the SiRF III. The top dog in performance, accuracy, and sensitivity (see various side-by-side tests of GPS dataloggers over at gpspassion.com) seems to be the MTK v2 chipset. It's an incredible chipset, but so far only available in external "pucks" and loggers. Garmin and MTK recently released a joint press release that they will be including the MTK2 in future Garmin receivers. (Maybe the new Dakotas might have it? I haven't seen any info yet as to what the Dakotas will include chipset-wise.)

Thought that was the 2GB limit not 4? I think it was, in theory, possible to somehow do 4 with standard SD, but most attempts at actually implementing that feature failed. So nearly all 4GB cards on the market are (micro)SDHC. I use an 8GB MicroSDHC in my Oregon, works great. It looks like the new "load from multiple files" in the newer Oregon betas might allow one to load more than 4GB of maps, making the 8GB cards useful for more than just "extraneous data" storage. That said, you can fit a TON of map data into 4GB...

As others have said, increase your budget a little and you should be able to do very well. I've been seeing reports of the Oregon 300 selling for as little as $250 if you hit the right sale. The O300 is an *excellent* unit, one of the best out there.

In my case, I only load PQs straight into my Garmin. Once I've marked some caches as found into the device, I can just: plug in the device Go to the upload fieldnotes page on gc.com Click "browse" and browse to fieldnotes.txt on the Garmin (It's in the "garmin" folder in the root directory of internal memory) Upload it I usually do a few extra steps to keep things organized - I move the file to my local hard drive first, and rename it to the day's date.

I have a Garmin Oregon 300. With the exception of transferring maps (done properly, map transfer should be a one-time or at least rare task), the O300 is 100% usable under Linux. Some of my machines run Gentoo, my netbooks run Ubuntu 9.04 - it doesn't really matter. I've even seen some indications that there might be "map image file builder" apps available for Linux. (qlandkarteGT seems to sort-of imply that it might be able to build mapsets and send them to a device) The reason for this: The O300 uses a standard mini-USB connector (i use the cable in my Eee case that supports my MTK2-based puck The O300 appears to a PC as a standard USB mass storage device The O300 represents all data internally as standard GPX files The end result - interfacing my O300 to any of my Linux machines is drag-and-drop. There is one slight caveat: Due to the way the Oregon presents itself to the PC, I believe you need "Probe all LUNs on SCSI devices" enabled in the kernel. Most stock kernels have this feature, but many people (including myself) forget to enable it in custom kernels. I also use an MTK2-based datalogger (i-Blue 747A+) and it works great under Linux using a Java application called BT747. Do note that the "A+" variant of the 747 requires kernel 2.6.29 or newer.

The Northeast US units (Parts 1-3) are effectively 24k maps. For some Northeastern states, you have multiple choices. e.g. New York is covered by the New York State topo and by the NE US map. The NEUS map has a "newer" hydro dataset that is in general more detailed, but while it is not specifically known to have errors, it hasn't been as thoroughly vetted as the hydro dataset used for some of the other maps like NYS Topo. That said, I use the NEUS mapsets in my Oregon.

Yeah, the lock time on my BB Storm can be like 15 minutes. It's interesting that your puck is faster the Oregon. OTOH, and Oregon is $400 and my BB was basically free with my cell plan, so... I'm gonna keep sucking up the 15 minute lock times. Keep in mind this particular puck was $80-90 or so alone... The MTK2 chipset in my puck is generally considered to be the "top dog" nowadays. It appears future Garmins will be using it, they just issued a press release to that regard a month or two ago. My guess is that STMicro promised a lot with the Cartesio chipset (getting them an "in" with the Oregons and DeLorme PN-40) but then failed to deliver.

Have you actually gotten specific feedback from more than one of these local cachers that they didn't like it because it was PMO? As others have said, many premium members use the Pocket Query function to get cache listings and rarely actually hit cache pages on the site (unless they have trouble with a cache). Good chance those active cachers just haven't gotten around to hitting your cache yet.

I agree. Of the two most popular GPS receivers (or series of receivers) good for paperless caching, only one (the DeLorme PN-40) allows in-unit battery recharging, but that support seems to have led to a fragile power supply design that tends to fail. (The issue thread on DeLorme's forums is up to 18 pages long and steadily growing.) It's easier to just get an extra set of two NiMH AAs and a good NiMH charger that can run off of a car power supply. My MaHa MH-C9000 came with a vehicle power cable.

As to "no recent problems" - As of 3-4 weeks ago, units were still failing (such as the one I received). DeLorme has not announced a design change indicating that they have identified and fixed the problems. Edit: What you say is in direct conflict with the thread I linked. There are users reporting more of the same failures as of yesterday even. As to Oregons bricking - Unlike the DeLorme power failures, most of the Oregons that users have managed to "brick" with corrupted GPX files have been able to unbrick them. Also, yes, the 2.99 firmware sucked but it was a BETA. When you run a beta, you're taking a risk. Unlike the PN-40 where there are at least 2-3 reports of people receiving MULTIPLE consecutive defective units (Add one to that, there's a report dated July 1 in the DeLorme thread of someone receiving a replacement from DeLorme warranty support that was DOA.), I have seen very few reports of people having to send their Oregons back to the factory (except maybe in the Beta threads, but again, with beta firmware you're always taking a risk.) TOPO 8 is special software. Anything other than a web browser and the operating system's included drivers is special software. Any connectors that differ from a defined USB standard are special hardware. The PN-40 requires both. The Oregon requires neither.

Recalibration only applies to the compass. Try taking a saved track and viewing it in Google Earth - As others have said, it may be the map that is wrong and not the GPS. I know the Garmin 100k topos (such as that included with the 400t) are not too accurate when it comes to hydro data. Try one of the higher detail maps from gpsfiledepot.com, or the previous suggestion of looking at a saved track in Google Earth.

If the date is updated when having satellite reception but is lost when turning off the unit, it means that the internal lithium cell that keeps the clock and satellite constellation data is totally discharged. This button batery is not easily replaceable, as you have to open your GPS unit. Regards, This is typically the only thing in a GPS that will "wear out". Some of the older Garmins (like the GPS 45 in the early 1990s) were dry nitrogen filled to facilitate achieving their waterproofing rating, these units would degrade over time in terms of waterproofness. Newer waterproof Garmins just use aggressive rubber gasketing to my knowledge - the Oregon is definately not dry nitrogen filled.