nathantw
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Posts posted by nathantw
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I would quietly return that one and buy a new one so you have the most up-to-date maps. It might not be the most honest thing to do but the big corporates have no personal skills.
I was going to suggest the same!
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I was up in Alaska a couple years ago with my 60CSx and it had no problem whatsoever getting satellites. I even went halibut fishing and the fishing was hot in one place and suddenly the fish stopped biting. I didn't want to tell the captain that perhaps we should move back to our original spot because the GPS showed we drifted a bit from the hot area.
It also came in handy at this one clamming area. Apparently the tide comes in very, very fast. I had my handy-dandy marine selection that showed the tides and I found that we had approximately 2.5 hours to do what we needed before the tide came in and flooded the are we were at. That was a fun day.
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I think the fact that their hasn't been a bug-fix release says a lot.
I think you're right. I was thinking that since there wasn't an update for a while that there must not have been any serious bugs since nothing had come out since 4.0 came out. So, I'm at ease now.
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I've been away for quite some time and haven't really been keeping up with the goings-on in the world of GPS's. My 60CSx has been working fine all these years with firmware 3.70 installed, except for the times when I'd try to shut the unit off and it would just beep and I'd need to take the GPS off the mount and remove the batteries to stop it. Plus I'd find that fresh batteries would be dead the next time I tried to turn it on even though the unit was off and plugged into a power source.
Anyway, I went to the Garmin site and saw firmware 4.00 and decided to install it. Thinking that it's been a while since it came out that all the bugs, if any, would have been addressed already. However, looking at the messages in this forum I'm starting to think that maybe I shouldn't have updated my GPS because of the reports of people getting close to geocaches and suddenly their units will say they're 75 feet away or something strange like that. Did I make a mistake by updating my unit?
Since nobody seems to have any thoughts or ideas to share I thought I'd give you my findings. I made a waypoint to my car and returned to it at the end of the day. The GPS said it was 20 feet and east of where my waypoint was set. I checked the accuracy and it said it was 25 feet, so I figured it was that particular error that caused the discrepancy.
I noticed that the GPS takes a little bit more time to find satellites when starting cold and it does take a few seconds longer to calculate a new route, though nothing to really complain about.
So overall, the "new" update wasn't too bad.
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I've been away for quite some time and haven't really been keeping up with the goings-on in the world of GPS's. My 60CSx has been working fine all these years with firmware 3.70 installed, except for the times when I'd try to shut the unit off and it would just beep and I'd need to take the GPS off the mount and remove the batteries to stop it. Plus I'd find that fresh batteries would be dead the next time I tried to turn it on even though the unit was off and plugged into a power source.
Anyway, I went to the Garmin site and saw firmware 4.00 and decided to install it. Thinking that it's been a while since it came out that all the bugs, if any, would have been addressed already. However, looking at the messages in this forum I'm starting to think that maybe I shouldn't have updated my GPS because of the reports of people getting close to geocaches and suddenly their units will say they're 75 feet away or something strange like that. Did I make a mistake by updating my unit?
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For what it's worth, my wife has a Nuvi 680 and I have a 60CSx. My 60CSx is able to route me to any address as well as her Nuvi. However, when geocaching there is no way in the world we'd try to use a Nuvi mainly because it just doesn't work very well with that. It's wonderful for driving, but not being able to customize your fields for hiking is a huge problem. I'm sure it's possible to do geocaching, but, in my case, we don't need to. Plus the battery doesn't last very long.
The Nuvi to geared very heavily towards walking around a city and driving. The 60CSx was geared for the outdoors person with the convenience of routing for driving to your fishing hole.
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My Garmin 60Csx is getting old. It has found me caches and has been through some Bush-Whacking Hell.
I'm looking for a replacement after the first of the year <snip>
Wow, mine is pretty old too, however the way I look at it if it's not broke don't fix it.
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I live right on the Gulf, and I've calibrated my altimeter by placing it right at sea level and setting the known altitude to '0'. Immediately after calibration, the GPSr reports somewhat accurate altitude readings, but after more than 15 - 20 minutes, it goes wonky. In places where it reported altitudes of 30 to 40ft, it will read -10 to -120ft! I only noticed this while looking at my track log in MapSource. My old GPSIII+ was almost dead on at determining altitude...so what's up with my Csx?
I don't know if this will help you or not, but I have a Tissot T-Touch watch that displays the altimeter. When I set my watch to match the 60CSx altimeter they both basically stay at the same altitude, whether it's 20 feet above/below or hundreds of feet above/below. I think the air pressure has a lot to do with what's being displayed.
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This weekend I pulled the old bonehead move of putting my GPS unit in my jeans pocket next to my keys and I ended up w/ a small dime-sized area of the screen scratched all to hell.
Here you go: http://forums.Groundspeak.com/GC/index.php...&hl=scratch
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This weekend I pulled the old bonehead move of putting my GPS unit in my jeans pocket next to my keys and I ended up w/ a small dime-sized area of the screen scratched all to hell.
Been there, done that, except mine was on rocks and not keys and my unit was a new 60CSx. What I did to "fix" the problem was get Brasso, silver cleaner, and some really, really fine grit sandpaper. You can find the sandpaper at an auto parts store. I found mine at Kragen. Anyway, find the highest number they sell and get it. I think I have 800 and 1200.
It'll take a LOT of work, but in the end you'll have a clean display once again. Do a search on my name and I'm sure you'll find my procedures and links.
Good luck.
nathan
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Been wondering what is the service life of a GPS unit. How long would it last
before you need to send it for repair. I suppose it could depend on the brand and model
as well.
I used my Garmin GPS V from 2002 until some freak stole it out of my car earlier this year. I think I'd still be using it today, but seriously it was getting long in the tooth. It flew off a bike once and fell quite a few times but really didn't get a scratch, even on the clear plastic front unlike my scratch prone 60CSX. After using City Navigator 8.0 I really think I would have had to replace the GPS V because it only had 19megs of memory.
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I always scan/make copies of all rebate materials before sending them in. It's saved my ŧ§ a couple of times.
mine too. Almost happened with my rebate with Sandisk. However, I sent them a copy of my receipt and I had my rebate within 2 weeks.
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I have noticed that sometimes I get very little warning on the last warning for a turn/exit. Some freeway exits are really long, resulting in the final warning bell being sounded after I have passed the point of being able to enter that lane. Also, some cross streets off of surface roads give very little warning. I'd like to know the turn was coming up before entering the intersection.
It would be nice to be able to increase the amount of time a warning is issued, perhaps in percentage increments.
You're not going to believe this but I had a chance to try out the 60CSx with a Nuvi 350 on a trip and both of the gps units indicated a turn coming in unison and when it was time to turn they both indicated it...again in unison. So if they're pretty consistent with one another. Surprised the heck out of me because I felt the same as you.
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I thought I read somewhere that performance can suffer if too many map areas are loaded at once into the memory card.
when tempertures reach 105 degrees F or more it becomes a slug. I thought mine was locked up, so I turned the unit off and on but the performance was the same. Also, I've experienced slowness in normal temps of 50 - 75 degrees when pressing the find button. It got irritating but I've learned to live with it.
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What was the aircraft's altitude when the calls were made? I believe that you must be within range of a cell antenna in order to make a call. Perhaps the signal propagates better UP than OUT due to less obstructions. Other wise, it sems to me that you would be limited to the same distance restrictions that exist on terra firma. Is there something that explains how cell signals would travel 35,000' aka 6 miles+ or more UP but much less OUT? Or is the normal range of a cell site over 6 miles, I didn't thint that it was, who knows?
I modified my last message to include a link from a test that someone did just to see if they could get a cellphone signale from an airplane. http://www.physics911.net/projectachilles.htm
I have no idea what altitude they made the call, but supposedly he made the call at the normal altitude of 35,000 feet or so, then when they tried to storm the cockpit the guy pushed the stick forward and they crashed. Apparently the coronor who went to the site said that he stopped being a coronor after 30 minutes when he realized there wasn't anything to look at. The people on the site said it didn't look like an airplane crash but just someone who came by, dug a hole in the ground and dumped some stuff on the field. Very, very strange.
Maybe someone turned on their GPS unit right before the airplane came out of the sky?
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Does anyone know if America West (seems to forward to US Airways on the website) allows the use of GPS? I'm flying with them on a long flight in a week and I'd like to use my GPS but I can't find anywhere if they allow them. Anyone know?
America West was the airline I took on my recent trip. The back of the magazine didn't even mention GPS usage or non-usage. Since it was sitting on my son's table and the flight attendant stared right at it and didn't say anything I'm assuming it was okay.
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Yes, Mythbusters did a good job showing cell phones don't interfer with with navigation. I think they just want to keep people off the phones. I'd hate to listen to someone next to me on the phone during my trip.
What's interesting is that it's almost impossible to get a phone call or make a phone call when you're higher than 4000 feet in the air, let alone 35,000. So I don't think people would be making many successful calls while up there anyway. If it was so easy then why was there a successful test of a new system to allow cellphone calls to be made from the airlines just last year? http://www.physics911.net/projectachilles.htm
For something that makes a person say hmmm, Flight 93 on 9/11 the guy supposedly made a phone call to his mom from the airplane. If cellphones didn't work then how did he make a call? Also, why did he say his full name to his mom? "You do believe me, right?"
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my father and I are thinking of buying the rino 520 or 530 has anyone used these products and what do you think of them
I'd try the usegroups (I think it's rec.family.radios or something like that) and the Yahoo usegroup (Garmin Rino) to see their thoughts. From most of the things I read about their past Rinos they weren't too positive, especially on the radio aspect of the units. Their biggest complaints were that the units were useless without line of sight radio transmission.
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This topic has been discussed to death! A simple search on either "airlines" or "airliner" will result in at least 10 different threads all saying the same thing!
I tried the GPS 60CSx on an airplane this weekend. When I was in the aisle seat I ended up just turning it off because it wasn't picking up any satellites. On my second trip I was by a window and I stuck the antenna right against it. It picked up quite a few satellites and once it was locked I was able to take it away from the window and got 35' accuracy. It was fun to see where we were, especially when flying at night when we were passing cities and I was able to pick out Palm Springs, Riverside, Edwards AFB, etc. However, when the novelty ran out I got bored and turned it off. I figured I'll get to my destination when I get there.
I think it'll be more worthwhile on a longer trip than one that's 2 hours. One note if you're using one with a built in altimeter, mine kept on saying we were between 6000' and 6500'. It wasn't until I went to the satellite screen and saw what altitude the satellites figured we were at that I recalibrated for that particular altitude.
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She said Captain told them that 9/11 guys used handheld GPS, and if they see anyone using, they should "take it away." Unknown how true.
Ummm, if this is true, then I seriously doubt that it's true. http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-8260059923762628848
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Changes made from version 2.70 to 2.90:
* Add feature to save active track log to file on data card.
* Add ability to utilize mass storage on PC via USB connection.
* Fix NMEA output to include GPGSV sentence.
* Improve Garmin USB Mac support.
For a patch that only contains four items it sure was a big file, not to mention a large jump in revision numbering.
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I've said it a hundred times...I just don't understand how a person can spend $400 on a GPSr and not spend another $20.00 for a protective case. It just baffles me.
That's like asking why a person would spend a lot of money on an expensive SLR camera and not buy a never-ready (ahem, ever-ready) case to protect it. They're inconvenient. I'm sure the one for the GPS is especially so if you use the car mount or change batteries often.
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If you've been following the scratched screen saga you'd know my screen was scratched on a bunch of sharp rocks while hiking. Garmin said they'd charge me $136 or so to fix it. I said forget it. People have suggested using Brasso and screen protectors. The scratch was deep enough that I felt it with my fingernail. If you do a search for my past message you'll find that I gave a couple links to instructions on how to fix scratches. I followed the one that used 1000 and 2000 grit sandpaper. It took quite a bit more time than I anticipated. I wished I used a screwdriver and taken the screen off before working on it, but such is life.
Anyway, in the end Brasso ended up doing a great job buffing it up after using 2000 grit paper. The GPS doesn't look like it had a scratch on it now. So, if your screen is really scratched up and you're up to the challenge I highly suggest giving the "fix" a try. I'm so much happier with my unit now that the scratch is gone again. I may spring for those plastic screen covers now. ;-)
Garmin GPS V turning off when connected to computer.
in GPS technology and devices
Posted · Edited by nathantw
It has been a long, long time since I used my GPS V, but to tell you the truth, it sounds like it's starting to go out. I'm not sure if this will help, but I replaced my unit after it was stolen with a 60CSx and have never looked back. It was almost a perfect upgrade with MUCH FASTER satellite finds, mapping and changes. Also, I have all of North America maps on my unit because I was able to add more micro-SD memory into it. I don't need to keep going to back and picking and choosing regions. However, there are differences that I'm not sure were changed with the 62S unit or not, but you can't go horizontal for automobile mode. The map screen then becomes itty-bitty when all navigation text windows are shown. There's no "detour" button and holding the find button down won't take you home but will take you to man overboard (useful on a boat, but not for driving). Everything else is much better than the GPS V.
So, my advise is to just bite the bullet and buy a new (or used) 60CSx if you can afford it. They both use the same accessories other than than the bike/automobile mount.