tr_s

Some thoughts: 1: eTrex 30 GPS+altimeter combo = pretty bad, too simple algorithm, could sure use improvement 2: Ravines = typical place for severe GPS signal distortion (multipath). 3: Altimeter reading on a consumer grade GPS remains, in this day and age, pretty rough no matter what.

Getting within twenty feet at a first shot is good accuracy. I hardly do any geocaching, but "zeroing in" on a previously marked waypoint and succeeding with it using a consumer grade GPS device is a quite rare occurence. Yeah, of course more likely if the view of the sky if completely clear and there are no good sources for signal bounce, still I claim it to be something not to be expected. Anyway, it could well be hardware damage, if a reset doesn't make your receiver what it once was. Slight antenna failure or an aging/skewing oscillator in the device perhaps.

I must also point out that some vigorous rubbing with Autosol car chrome polish and ordinary household wiping paper might be worth a try; it tends to wipe out even heavy scractches. If it's EXTREMELY scratched use some fine grade sandpaper before the Autosol. I have rescued both an unreadable Vista and a partially unreadable eTrex 20 with this method. The screens almost become like new.

eTrex 30 owner here who also doesn't like Basecamp Basecamp = the new wonderful Bloatware paradigm with the odd crashes mixed in for good measure Mapsource = Good and reliable product as of latest version, with a reasonable resource footprint for the day and age I really don't like they scrapped the option for pulling out all waypoints,tracks and routes from the receiver in one swift click. It was just so straightforward and easy to work with. It doesn't work in mapsource either as it requires a receiver which supports the proprietary garmin serial protocol.

Perhaps because many weirdities have occured with it. The compass now works and some other frustrating stuff has been fixed but I'm seeing random shutdowns, something I never did since the software it was shipped with (2.50?)

Yes Resistive touchscreens generally work okay in cold or wet; may actually be less prone to errors than some physical button configurations due to the fact that there is no place for water intrusion which can then freeze and stick the button.

I'm using a Samxung Galaxy Pocket (GT-S5300). Quite satisfied - battery life is OK and it's cheap. GPS has glonass support and is remarkably good and sensitive (accuracy is typically slightly worse than a dedicated receiver if you use it in your pocket for tracking though). Whether 320x240 is enough for your paperless caching pursuits is of course up to yourself to decide, but C:Geo works okay on it. Typically sells for some 80-90 euros hardware only, i don't know if it can be beat. Don't be tempted to buy the slightly larger Galaxy Gio, it has severe GPS problems due to poor software.

I second that, 850 MB is just enough for detailed topos of a couple large US states or European countries at best

It seems like an okay unit and in contrast to the new eTrex series there hasn't been a lot of screw ups with the unit software. You have to like the touchscreen interface to have a smooth experience with it though. It can be handled with gloves of the thinner sort but this is less than optimal IMO. If you plan to use it in the cold a lot this might of course be an issue.

However, for me the sticky problem was really more than simply a highly set position filter - something was flat out wrong! Pre 2.71, I could be in an open field and be approaching a waypoint. Upon approaching it I slowed down. The coordinates would then stop updating, even if I passed said waypoint by hundreds of meters. Not feet - METERS. I could then sit down and in a calm manner imbibe half my lunch before the machine would actually suddenly jerk to the correct coordinates - it would lock for minutes, then record a track leg of extreme speed.

Most modern Samsung galaxys seem to have pretty good gps chipsets yes, I have the very cheap Galaxy Pocket S5300 myself. Battery life 20-25 hours with the GPS on, as long as the screen is off. Steer clear of the Galaxy Gio though, its GPS does not work (cannot lock) most of the time due to software bugs.

Shouldn't matter as I was talking about calculated heading from position change (compass off), in which case it should at least in theory behave just like the 20.

As far as I know, there is no good .img viewer for Android. C:geo can download all caches around a waypoint for offline use, regardless of if you are a premium member of GC.com or not, but I don't know if it takes actual gpx pocket queries. For offline street/terrain navigation with OSM check out Osmand.

I find it an issue. Too lowly tuned direction filter... It's too lowly tuned on my old eTrex H too, but not as irritating as the 30. I think the filtering of both direction and position should optimally be user tunable and everybody could be happy...

Frustrating. A problem with Garmin (and perhaps the other dedicated GPS makers, I don't know) is that they do not offer a from-PC option to completely reset the entire file system and firmware, so that every writable bit of memory becomes exactly as a new device from the box. Afaik this has been possible with most other handheld consumer electronics I've used; no hacks/third party software required.

File system corruption from batteries running too low would be a severe misdesign in this day and age, period. File system corruption from suddenly pulling out the power source could be seen as acceptable, but a good hardware/software intercommunication can in most cases prevent even that from wrecking too much havoc on many of the run of the mill embedded chipsets.

Yep, I normally just use a Silva and check the bearing on the GPS. Regarding finding geocaches maps+compass only, I think there's a small subculture within geocaching doing exactly that. It may take more time for sure but with a good topographic map and the description I do see it being very possible even in far off terrain... Anyway... electronic compass messup seems to be a garmin thing. I have an old casio protrek watch which probably works as good as my Silva (both need to be held level). Same for the smartphones, absolutely no problem, and they're triaxial so little need to hold level.

I think the best combo is to run C:Geo and Oruxmaps simultaneously. Haven't found a package solution that does all.

Ok - an outing today. Yes the compass seems fixed but the calibration procedure takes some time to get through. Map panning is now awfully slow - why on earth did they change that? To better disguise the fact that the receiver can't keep up with the map panning speed that previously was set?

What the phone operating systems need is a hard "USE GPS ONLY FOR LOCATION" option. No sat lock should give no position readout via the API, not a stored previous location or crude cell tower triangulation. I've used two smartphones (Xperia X10 previously, and now Samsung 5300 Pocket) along with my eTrex 30 and H when collecting track data for OpenStreetMap. Pretty much all the time the dedicated GPS track correlates almost perfectly (as in within 5 meters) with the smartphone track. The smartphones seem SLIGHTLY worse (as in more random noise added to the track) under deep canopy, but in all reality it's hard to tell. Can the iPhone 4 GPS really be that much worse?

There was no mention of a fix of that though. "Improved map drawing" could as well mean reprioritizing what objects are shown at low zoom levels.

Fw 2.87 uploaded, the calibration procedure is the same as it was before. Only difference I think is that they threw in the word "slowly". Will give it a shot during the next few days and see how the compass works

There is offline map software for Android and the phones can be set to airplane mode to not waste battery on network chatter. Biggest problem compared to dedicated GPS is rather that most such devices are non-rugged/not waterproof. There are some exceptions like the Xperia Active, but I've never touched it or know how good it is.

Of course they do, that's why I wrote "active calibration", as in practical specific action/procedure from the user. 10 degrees off is in my book pretty much nothing. It's still the correct general direction. 45 is where it starts getting really questionable, and my uncalibrated 30 sure was far over this figure...

My recently acquired $90 (hardware only, no contract) smartphone doesn't even NEED active calibration for the compass. It just works and works and works. I understand the situation is quite different on the etrex considering its replaceable batteries... but yeah... I certainly hope garmin got it right this time - might pull out my Trex from the drawer next weekend and try out the new firmware.