[Garmin upgrade help]

You might start by prioritizing your criteria because I'm not sure you will get all of that for $250.

 

If you are a Costco member, you can get a Street Piolot c530 for that price, but the sale ends today.

[Verifying your GPSr]

I agree with the suggestion of looking for benchmarks. But, note that each benchmark find is still only one estimate of accuracy at one location at one point in time. If you really want an accurate GPSr, spend a few thousand dollars for a professional survey unit and, even with those, you have to go through a few gyrations to correct for error.

[Looking at a Summit and a Vista "H" models]

It depends on what part of the country you want to load. Large metropolitan areas take a lot of memory. I can get all of Montana (MetroGuide) into the 24mb on my Legend C and have room left over. The greater metropolitan Chicago area would consume about 12 mb.

[Want streets, which software?]

You're right. The 76csx does come with a 128mb card. I checked the gpscity.com website. I guess I'll have to buy another card if I want street maps.

 

Chuck - 128mb of MetroGuide would give you all of Michigan, including the UP; the eastern half of Wisconsin; about 3/4 of Illinois; the northern 3/4 of Indiana; most of Ohio; and, pieces of Pennsylvania and West Virginia.

[Want streets, which software?]

Chuck - I bought Metroguide North America with my recent purchase of a Vista Hcx. Given the reality of the limitations of viewing the map on a small screen, I like the maps. I don't know how the data in Metroguide compares with City Navigator, but Metroguide has all of the information and more that I need from a street map in a hand-held gpsr and it was less expensive.

 

Metroduide loads as a map layer within MapSource. The license agreement restricts usage to one computer. But, I didn't see any limitations on then loading it from that computer to more than one gpsr. You don't have to "unlock" the unit to load it.

 

To load the maps into the gpsr, you first have to create a file of maps in MapSource - use the map tool to select the map parcels that you want to use. If you intend to periodically change the maps, I would suggest saving the various files so that you don't have to recreate them. Limit the size of the file to the amount of available memory on your gpsr - MapSource will advise you about the size of the file as you build it. Once the file is created, send it to the gpsr. That process erases the temporary memory, i.e. previous map data that you have sent to the unit, regardless of the amount of memory in use and the size of the new file. This process does not disturb the base map or saved waypoints, tracks and routes.

 

With a 1 gb card, you probably have enough memory to load most of the country. But, it will take awhile to build that file and quite awhile to transfer all of that data to your gpsr.

 

I don't know for certain, but I suspect the memory card is only good for map data. Waypoints, etc. store on the unit's "hard drive".

[Etrex Vista HCx Questions]

deltaf508The only annoying thing about getting the Vista HCx is that you will have nothing to pine over for quite some time.

 

Well, I guess you could always pine for one of these:

 

http://www.igage.com/thales/

 

[GPS Unit Way Off]

Are you sure that your GPSr was set up to the same units as the coordinates of the cache that you were looking for?

[Vista HCx v2.30 available...]

With the unit on and the compass on, turn off the compass and then go to the compass page. Do you get the reminder message?

 

Yes. However, if the compass is on and I turn it off and turn it back on again without leaving the compass page, the message does not appear.

 

With the compass off, turn off the unit. Power the unit back on and go to the compass page. Do you get the reminder message?

 

Yes.

 

As I'm seeing it, this works fine as long as the compass is on and you shut down the unit with the compass on. However, the message keeps popping up when the compass is turned off and you hit the compass page.

 

I guess that I spoke too soon. It appears that the screen appears whenever the compass is off and I scroll to the compass page. If I push enter, the reminder disappears and reappears when returning to the compass page. If I turn the compass back on, the reminder is gone. So, the real question is whether the compass really needs to be calibrated every time the compass is turned off.

[Vista HCx v2.30 available...]

My Vista HCX arrived today. It came in a box from Offroute. I did not have the problems that others mentioned with dust. It came loaded with software version 2.20. As others have noted, mine also had the WAAS issue I updated it using the webupdater link. I also tried downloading version 2.30, using the link directly to the update but the download was unusable. The webupdater resolved the WAAS issue and did not give me the compass issue. I have not had the power issue that someone else noted. I wonder if that problem is related to the option of turning the GPSr when disconnected from the USB.