pdunwin

This weekend I noticed that my Garmin HCx is giving my speed as 8 - 10 mph lower than what I know it to be. Specifically, it reads around 50 when I know I'm going 60. At first, I thought the spedometer on my car might be off, but I had the same problem in another car. In the past, the unit has read accurately at those speeds. Right now, I'm using the unit while it's plugged in to car power, so I don't know if it would be different while on battery power, but I don't know why it would. I assume that my speed is calculated based on my position, so this makes me think that there's some error in my displayed position, though I haven't detected such problems yet. Please let me know what's causing this and/or how to resolve it.

When I picked the cache I wanted to hunt this weekend, I didn't realize what a popular choice it would be. There was another cacher on the site when I got there and two more who arrived while I was there. When I walked by a little later, I saw yet another person looking around. Is there any kind of well-established way to greet a fellow cacher? I wasn't making too much effort to hide my GPSr, but I sort of wanted to say something like "Hey, I'm like you!" to the others I saw. I felt like I was being rude just ignoring them. On the other hand, it would have been rude of me to go up to someone who's probably busy concentrating, just because we happen to share a hobby. So conflicted. What's the best way to handle finding a cache when there are lots of other cachers around? Should I still try to be sneaky and take it somewhere else to log and trade trinkets? I decided against that, because a) I probably couldn't have been that sneaky and I didn't want anyone to check the hiding spot and not find the cache where it should be. So, I just sat there, in full view and just tried to be quick about it. I assume it's best not to go up to other cachers and say "Hey, I found it, it's right there!" but, that's basically what I was doing by sitting there.

I've had an eTrex Vista C for a few months and it has recently started to exhibit a strange problem. When I'm moving faster than walking speed, my compass freezes with North at the top. If I'm navigating to something, the arrow freezes to north too. If I'm moving at walking speed or below (or below whatever speed I set), the device reverts to the magnetic compass and works more or less normally. The device is still calculating my direction from GPS data, because the arrow on the map screen still indicates my direction. Somehow, the compass screen just isn't getting this information. I've talked to Garmin and they recommended updating to the latest firmware (2.30, I think, and I'm on 2.10) but nothing in the update description refers to a problem like mine. I'll update, but other than that my options are to keep the magnetic compass on at all times (which I think is tough on the battery) or send the unit back to Garmin (which is a hassle and deprives me of my GPS for an unspecified amount of time). I'm hoping some of you have encountered this problem and have a fix for it. Thanks, Paul