miles58

There's the missing link!! People in cars drive around and give precise (and probably continuous) feeds back to a database of where they are and what coordinates map to that. How else can a GPSr see that a road has a bend in it or how cloverleafs are built, etc. I can see how that can work for a lot of things but the software maps are far more comprehensive than people driving around in cars can handle. It's still a bit of a mystery to me. This calls for some research! The maps in the GPS are created from survey maps. A statring ppoint is given for an "object" like a road and a directuion is given. When the road turns/curves the point of the change is given and the angle/curve radius is given to the point that the road goes straight again. Thus a road the goes absolutely straight for a very long distance need only take up a very small amount of data to describe. Tracks for roads are not gathered by people driving around all day.

There's only one really, and it's been discontinued. The iWay 100m. Look for it and you can still find one and probably under $150 at that.

Go buy an iFinder GO. it's about $60 and comes with base maps. Can't beat that.

Velcro is your friend.

Go to ebay. Do a search on "ifinder cable"

You can still find them new for sale though. Some places are closing them out really cheap. Under $150 for the unit, MapCreate 6.3, and a SD chip is not too bad.

JV, That's what I am telling you. It's the same unit as the iFinder H2o, Hunt or PHD. Same size same buttons, same cig. cable will run all the regular size iFinders. It's an iFinder with voice auto routing. Same waterproofing, same everything. There is no pages button on the Iway, it's the "speak" button instead. It comes with a speaker on the Cig plug, but I use the power cables interchangeably

JV, You might want to look for an iWay 100. It's the auto routiong version of the H2O mono chrome. You might be able to snatch one now for under $150 and it will come with MapCreate 6.3 and all the CDs at that price. It does it all, has the same beautiful Lowrance screen, antenna and maps. I have my suspicions that since the unit is the same otherwise as the H2O, Hunt, and PHD that you could rename the firmware upgrade file and actually convert it over to any one of them. My experience is that it equals the Garmin 76 color unit for auto routing but it uses voice instructions (turn left in 500 feet onto xxx street) instead of beeps. The only question I have about the unit is that it seems to be hard on batteries when used for caching. I have never tried to prove it, or compared measured drain though. It doesn't necessarily make sense that it should be harder on batteries than the iFinder Hunt which has a voice memo (and thus the audio circuits) capability, or the PHD. Otherwise, it's fully equal to the Hunt or H2O models which I also use except for the barometer in the hunt.

35.390 40.142 Sat 0900 35.391 40.141 Sun 1200 35.390 40.143 Mon 1000 35.391 40.143 Tue 1100 I don't think I'd be all that happy about those numbers, they're nowhere near Seattle.

You can d/l the full manual from Lowrance: http://www.lowrance.com

This is a no brainer. If you have used the Sporttrack for 2 years with no problems, and you can still find a cache with it then the color unit is 400 feet off and you might need to set the datum. No way you're going to find caches with a unit 400 feet off.

Drive the cursor to the coordinates using the joystick and zi/zo buttons. Hit enter twice and you will have your waypoint at the cache coords.

Why not just post pics of the various species on the cache page along with the bloom times, and the finders can add to the "collection"?

You can use MapCreate 6.3 which you can buy for ~$75. You can also buy 6.0 or 6.2 which are less PITA to use than 6.3. I've seen then as low as $30. I have 6.0 with the upgrade bits for 6.2, and I have 6.3. The maps are more or less equivalent in terms of local (to you) accuracy and current. If it weren't for the "magic" LEI card reader requirement of 6.3 it is worth the bucks.

I have four Lowrances, one of which is the H2O. It's every bit as good as anything on the market. You will want the MapCreate software, but it's not necessary to start' I bought the H2O in December for $141 delivered from ComputerHQ. The maps are more current and detailed in my experience than the Garmin's maps.

Why not? If anyone who'd find it wasn't bright enough to know to turn of the autorun and scan it before trying to look at the pics chances are pretty good they're already infected anyway. Looking at a CD for executables and scanning the jpegs for stegs is simple enough. The question is more one of whether it would be worth the time to look through the CD once you'd determined it was benign.

Try a small map I think the Pro maxes at 256 meg.

You can still fin a Lowrance iWay 100 available for under $200. It comes with the full set of CDs for Map Create 6.3, a USB SD card reader, a 64 meg SD chip and Cig lighter power cable. It does autorouting, turn by turn written and voice directions, it's a hand held unit so you can use it quite easily for caching. If you look around you might even find it under $150. The maps are more complete than Garmin's and the unit has a better screen than gargellans (including the 76C IMO). It has the same antenna system as all the Lowrances, which is to say second to none. The only complaint I have with the unit is that it seems to be harder on batteries when compared to my other Lowrances. Compared to the iWay 100 a Garmin V is downright crude, much slower, has a less sensiteve receiver and much smaller screen

I've seen a number of moose turd necklaces, and all they did with them was to varnish them after they were dry. I suppose if you use a decent marine varnish it will be weatherproof enough, but the weathering is what will camo it.

I use four different monochrome iFinders, Pro, Hunt, H2O and iWay 100. I regularly cache with someone with a Garmin color unit. I still find the Lowrance screen easier to use. I use the mapping for many things, not least of which is caching. My only complaint is that the iWay 100 seems to use batteries a lot faster than the others. If the color trips your trigger go for it, but it might be smart to look at these first generation color units a little closely. The units are rugged, reliable and cheap. I've owned three Garmins and one Magellan. I think I am using much better units now.

Yeah, considerably.

The GO/GO2 do not accept memory chips. The GO has a basic map. The GO2 has a little bit better map. The GO/GO2 will use the same external power cable as the iFinder and iFinder Pro. Lee Rimar has a thread in here somewhere that lays out downloading waypoints on the GO/GO2 If you don't need real mapping then you have a unit that will find caches as well as any unit on the market. You just have to manually load them.

Yes. A ground plane is necessary if you want the performance you paid for. A big washer would work fine. What actually might work best might be a small can with say half inch high sides about the diameter it would take to set the antenna inside. It would provide the ground plane and limit multipathing.

Sounds like the unit is basically OK, but for some reason is not picking up the WAAS very well. Not having had my hands on a H2Oc I don't know if the setups are the same as the other units. It might be that you have the power saving pushed out. I Don't know what it would do if you set it to require WAAS and pushed the power saving out in particular. The DGPS setting might matter too. I don't much pay attention to the WAAS locks anymore. With or without doesn't make a big difference in accuracy or reliability of the lock on any of the units (Pro, Hunt, H2O) and iWay 100) that I use regularly. The only way you'll know for sure is to compare two iFinders side by side. If they send it back and it works like or better than the gargellan, that's all you'll know. Find someone with a standard 12 channel Lowrance and compare with it or an iFinder GO.

The accuracy and screen quality of the Lowrances are second to none, and far better than most. The reception is uniformly better than most, and equal to any when you use an external antenna (which all iFinder pro and later will take, and many gargellans will not). The iFinder GO is a super cheap basic unit that has 16 channels phenomenal battery life and great reception. No antenna jack or memory slots for them. The gargellans are just now cathing up to the fact that memory slots are a good thing. An iFinder pro or later velcroed to the dash is a perfectly acceptable car nav unit because you get a large, bright, high contrast screen that is very easily readable for car nav.