letmein

What the pooks said, plus: If you run the cable out the top the battery will charge faster than if you run it out the bottom. Sounds funny, but it is true.

You might load new firmware into your 600. Check to see if you have 2.03. That version is a big improvement over the original version. The 2.03 is the version that magellangps.com lists as the most recent. However there is an even newer version that works, version 2.57. Magellan strangely has only released it for the Europe eXplorist 500 model. The firmware works great in the US version of the 500 or the 600 too. Get the firmware from: http://www.magellangps.com/support/notes.asp?supportID=424 Read all about it at: http://forums.Groundspeak.com/GC/index.php?showtopic=158222

I looked over the manual at http://www.magellangps.com/assets/manuals/...0_Manual_EN.pdf The unit looks like a great unit for what it is designed for: Driving. It is not optimum for geocaching. You could use the Current Location screen to see the longitude/latitude raw numbers and get to geocaches that way. I first used my GPS that way until I figured out how to do a "Go To" to a hand-entered point of interest. You would write down the coordinates of the cache, then get to the cache's coordinates. It isn't hard. Go north to have your current location latitude increase, go west to have your longitude to increase (assuming you are in U.S.). I think the real challenge would be when you get close. Some caches are drive-up, but most are off the road a short distance. Can you take the unit from your car and have it powered up? For geocaching you probably would be happier with a hand-held unit. A cheap one can be found for about $100. Just be sure to get one that can be connected to a computer. You will quickly tire of entering coordinates by hand. Of course I might have missed a better way. I mostly scanned the table of contents in the manual. I am not an expert on your unit. Oh, and welcome to geocaching! It is an incredible amount of healthy fun! You'll see things that you never imagined or expected to see.

I would not buy a GPS unit that cannot connect to a computer. It gets very tedious entering cache coordinates by hand. The Magellan 100 cannot be connected to a computer. It only has a basic major highway map. Spend a little more. You will be happy you did.

It sounds like you are connected with the SD card being shown to the PC. You can select either the SD card or the internal memory. Go to Menu->Adv. Features->Communications->File Transfer then chose the Internal Memory. Later remember to switch back to the SD card.

Try taking out the SD card to see if the unit will then turn on. If it does, then you might try to find someone with a computer or a camera that takes the SD card. They could format the card for you. If they can't format the SD card, then it is time to buy a new one. Sometimes they do go bad. The FAQs page here lists several links to how to do things on the GPS. See http://forums.Groundspeak.com/GC/index.php?showtopic=140085

You may find this link informative: http://forums.Groundspeak.com/GC/index.php...amp;mode=linear

"Do we really need anymore firmware updates for the eXplorist?" It would be really nice for some of us. I race my brother on snowmobiles and would love to have the speed screen that has been released for the Europe models. At over 90 miles per hour I'd rather watch the trail than the speedometer, and check my max speed later on my GPS.

I use Gpxsonar. It is free and does what I want it to do. See http://gpxsonar.homeip.net/cs/Default.aspx As for how to transfer files from your computer to your pda there are a few options. Windows likes to install some complicated to used software called ActiveSync. Windows Xp might try to auto install this when you connect your pda to a USB port. I prefer to use a compatible flash memory card. My pda uses an SD card. I have an SD card reader (and writer) connected to my computer. I use windows explorer to copy the .gpx files files from the PC to the SD card. I then insert the SD card into my PDA. Gpxsonar finds them instantly on the SD card and off I go.

Bushnell ONIX? What kind of name is that? Sounds too porcine for me. Did the marketing people see Babe once too often?

To verify that the GPS is connected to the computer I would use the Windows Explorer on your PC. The GPS's SD card will appear as a new removable disk. (You may have to set the GPSr's communication settings to point at the SD rather than internal memory). When you first connect the GPS unit to the USB, the GPS unit should report that it is in File Transfer Mode. See the section in the manual under "Advanced Features" and then "Communicating with a Personal Computer".

You will probably love your eXplorist 100. However, if others are considering buying one, please seriously consider the eXplorist 210, if you can afford the difference in price. The 210 can be connected to your computer, saving you much time in getting caches entered by downloading the coordinates from your computer.

It is a bit daunting to be starting out. I'll list four ways to geocache. The first two don't require muck skill on a PC, but the last two do. 1. You might first start by not even doing a goto on your unit. You can print out the data from geocaching.com, then you can travel to cache and move around until you get to the coordinates. This really isn’t too hard. You can get pretty close just by looking at the map that is on the cache page. It is pretty obvious that as you go north the north coordinate will increase. Go farther west, then the west coordinate will increase. I think doing a couple of caches this way will help you learn about how your unit works, and will give you a feel for the coordinate system. 2. The second method you could try is to create a mark in your GPSr, then edit the mark’s coordinates, then do a GOTO that mark. I don’t have my unit with me today, so I’ll just give general guidelines. On the lower left on your unit is the mark button. Assuming you have a lock on the satellites, when you hit the mark button it will create a mark at your current coordinates. Before you save it, make your way to the coordinates. Press in on the joystick (the enter key function on eXplorists). Up and down on the stick will change the value of the digit you are on. Right or left will change to other units. Enter will move you to the west coordinate. If you press enter again, you will be out of the edit on the coordinates. You can use the joystick and the enter to go back in to edit again. You can change the name of the marked point. When I was playing with this, I always just re-edited a mark I saved as “A”, rather than making a new mark each cache. The GOTO function has a choice: my points of interest (the marks you have saved), or geocaches (ones saved through a download). Play with this, you’ll get it. To move onto the next step, you might get help from someone who is really good at PCs. If you can find a geocaching event in your area, all the better. There will be many cachers there who would be thrilled to help you. 3. The next step is to download the cache’s coordinates directly into your GPSr. This can be a bit tricky. Download the .loc file and save it on your disk somewhere. You can download up to 200 caches individually and transfer them in a single batch to your 400. use the Magellan Geocache Manager. Hit the icon that looks like a manila folder. Open the .loc file you downloaded. Select the radio button that says “Append to existing list” !! This should be the default in the program, but alas, it is not. Continue adding the .loc files. Save the file named as you want. Now you can upload the file to your GPSr. Connect the GPSr to a USB port. The cable on the GPSr must run down the back, not up. Power up the unit. Find the button in Geocache Manager that is the “Send to GPS”. Transfer all the points in the file to the GPS. Now you must set the GPS to use the file of geocache points. Disconnect your unit from the computer (you may need to power down and restart). Make your way to the preferences setup screen. Select Active Setup. The bottom value in that screen is the geocache file. Select the file you just transferred. Now you are ready to do a GOTO. Hit the goto button. Select the “geocaches” entry. Sort on nearest to position. Select the one you want to go find. Many people use the screen that looks like a compass to find the cache. I customize my screen to show the distance and the direction. I use those two values without looking at anything else to find the caches. 4. The last step is to become a premium member on Geocaching.com ($30 per year). Do a pocket query. Save the pocket query from your email to your harddrive. Run GSAK ($30 one time fee) to load the .gpx file you just downloaded. Export to Magellan file format. Copy that file to your GPSr. Make that gecocache file the active setup file. Goto it! That is the general idea. I’m sorry if I make mistakes in the typing or the exact details, but that is pretty much the process. It sounds tough, but do it a few times and it will be second nature. Happy caching, and welcome to the club!

I don't know if would help when using your unit, but I prefer to set custom fields to show distance and direction. I find it very easy to read the angle numbers. Get the distance down to about 10 feet, and you are there. I've never really liked the compass screen with the sun, moon, and cache icons.

My US purchased one has a power supply stamped 100-240 VAC, 50-60 Hz. Of course though it has the small, flat parallel prongs that we use here, not the funny wide round ones that I see on British TV!

I now use the geocaching.com premium member pocket queries and GSAK and am never going back. But to answer your question, yes you can use the Magellan Geocache manager to load up to 200 caches per file you upload to the GPSr. That is if the geocache manager is the same for the 210 as it is for the 600 that I use. Download each .loc file individually. Open the Magellan Geocaching Manager, start to open a .loc file. Before completing the open of the .loc click the radio button that says "Append to existing list". It annoyed me every time I used the program that the append was not the default option. Permium member Pocket Query and GSAK are worth every cent if you are even mildly serious about geocaching.

If you connect the cable with the cord running up instead of down then the unit will show charging. You will not be able to communicate over the usb to your computer however. Plugging in in this "upside down" mode you should not also plug in the wall socket charger. I always use a cig-adapter to usb in my car, and I always plug it in with the cable running up so that I get a quick charge.

The firmware for the 600 was listed on the Magellan site a couple of weeks ago. The firmware for the 600 was listed as "eX500v2_03.exe" which had the exact same name as listed for the 500. I downloaded both and did a binary file comparison. They were the exact same file. I was a little nervous to install 500 firmware on my 600, but read about others doing it successfully. I did likewise and am very happy with the update. I suspect that Magellan pulled the firmware from the 600's web page so they can rename it "eX600v2_03.exe". I don't think they will post something with new features or bug fixes soon.

Typo in Minor # 6: "Can't turn of displaying park" should be "Can't turn off displaying park" I think northernpenguin was trying to organize your list a little better. It is less confusing to have sequential numbers than Major 1,2,3 then Minor 1,2,3. But the of/off typo was duplicated in the new item 16.

You may find one for about $6.00 at your local Bismart. Some models come with cables that are for a cell phone that you won't need for your GPSr.