LucaPCP

No such problem with mine. May be an issue with your USB port/PC. Or perhaps it's because I store a lot of tracks on the GPS? I like to store there all my hikes, so I can use it in the field to follow a hike I have previously done. I must have a hundred or more tracks... The laptop is a new superfast top of the line Macbook, but perhaps it's not optimized for USB 1...

I confirm: as for firmware versions, 3.6 works 4.3 has the bug 4.8 has the bug 5.6 has the bug I have reverted to 3.6 and I am happy again. I have not tested version 3.9.

I tested it more carefully. Version 4.8 also has the bug. I had to go all the way back to firmware 3.6, but I confirm that 3.6 works. Tomorrow I will experiment more.

mineral2, I know one can edit tracks in BaseCamp, but can one also edit them in-device? Sometimes, it would be useful to split the part of the track before the trailhead from the part after... Thanks!

gpsblake, I thought more about it. Assume you bike from A to B. Then you switch the GPS off, go back to A. At A, you turn the GPS on. I can see how the following behaviors can be implemented: 1) (what happens now) the point at A is considered part of the same track, and causes the trip odometer to be incremented to close to double the distance A-B (because this is A-B-A). 2) The GPS sees that it woke up in a point far away from where it was shut off, and starts a new track with a new track log. Great, but in this case also the trip odometer would read 0. You would have to dig into the previous tracks to display that track and its statistics. 3) The GPS sees that it woke up in a point far away from where it was shut off, and starts a new track with a new track log. The trip odometer consists in the sum of the track lengths, WITHOUT including the straight-line segments from the end of one track to the beginning of the next. It is 3) that I think we want, right?

GpsBlake, I don't remember 100% correctly. But I have this very strong impression that I was on 4.80 last year, and I did not notice anything wrong then. I reverted mine to 4.80. I will report back in a couple of days if this fixes it. Yes, it's a very annoying bug. On the last hike, I was looking out for a fork some 3km from the trailhead, and when I glanced at the GPS, it reported some completely nonsense trip odometer - not pleased. (I prefer metric for gps distances... I can understand 3.4 miles, but for short distances, 2000 ft says nothing to me).

We shouldn't be having to do with for one and two, we don't always turn on a computer before using the unit again. It wasn't a problem with units like the Dakota, Venture HC, Etrex C, or even the original Etrex. It's a regression bug and it's a big deal to many of us who u se our units for something other then geocaching. But I just don't think it's a bug. Switching the GPS off != saying that a track is finished. What if in a long backpacking trip, I want to switch the GPS off every night? Not because I switch it off do I want to lose the trip odometer; I may just want to pick up again on the same trip odometer when I switch it back on. How would you propose otherwise that one records a long track on a multi-day trip, or even a trip where I switch the GPS off during lunch?

Yes. But actually many people were complaining already on the Garmin Forums, so not sure I am the first. It appears to affect other models as well. I made a very precise bug report, so let's see if they manage to fix it.

It's not really a problem. Once home, just stick it into your computer before switching it on. It will switch on automatically, but it will not add spurious points at the end of the track.

The solution consists simply in switching the 62 off at the end of the hike. Then, once you get home, DO NOT switch the 62 back on. Just stick it into your computer. It will turn on, but it will not acquire a satellite position, and so, it will not add spurious points at the end of the track.

In Settings > Routing make sure that you select "Lock to Road" to OFF. Otherwise, it might try to set you to the nearest road.

That's what I meant: I reset it after the satellite lock. I normally switch the unit on and mount it to the bike / backpack. Then I get the rest of the stuff ready. When I am about to start the hike / trip, I check that it has a satellite lock and I reset the trip computer. It failed to reset the trip odometer properly repeatably, several times. I solved this by downgrading the firmware to 4.80, which I remember behaving fine. No more playing with firmware updates for the 62s for me! ;-)

Oh, if the location seems stuck, go to Setup > Routing > and check that you have "Road Lock" OFF. It might be trying to lock to the nearest road.

I have an Etrex 30 with 3.90, and it does not freeze. Overall I like it. Pluses: + Multiple maps + Very fast satellite lock + Very good track quality if set on "more often" + Very sensitive + Little wandering around + Very light Minuses (compared with 62s): - Veeeerrryyy sloooooww with USB 1 (takes 3 minutes to synch to BaseCamp!) - Veery sloow map redraw

I updated the firmware of my 62s, and in the last firmware I have, 5.60, the reset of the trip odometer does not work properly any more. I typically reset the odometer soon after power on at the beginning of a hike. What happens is that once reset it shows 0m (or 0ft), but as soon as you move a bit, it jumps to some long distance (10.7 Km, the last time I did it). What I think it happens is that also the last point of the previous track (before switching the unit off in the previous location) is included in the calculation. This is a major deal, as trip odometer is one of the very basic functions I rely on. It's absolutely no fun to check the GPS, looking for the fork that should be say 1.5 miles from the trailhead, and get some absolutely bogus distance. Is there any way for me to install an older software? Can anyone email me a copy (lda@dealfaro.org) if not? Many thanks!

Thanks for the information... btw my main maps for hiking now are from http://openmtbmap.org/ . I am a fan of open street maps, and the maps from openmtbmap are great, and easy to install. (I am unaffiliated with the project).

I am a bit disappointed in the BirdsEye. I bought them for the USGS Topo option, but they don't show up on my device -- even when they show as "enabled" in the map options. Is there any special trick to get them to show up? Disabling all other maps? Changing some strange setting?

I have just bought a subscription for one year of birdseye topo maps, before I knew that I would be able to use it on only one of my devices (...). So now I have to decide whether to install the topo maps on the Etrex e30 or the Gpsmap 62s. I wanted to ask: is there any reason I should choose one rather than the other, e.g., better display / download? What worries me is the super-slow USB 1 of the Etrex : will that be an issue in downloading the imagery? What about the slower rendering of the Etrex? Is that an issue? If neither download nor rendering are issues with the Etrex E30, I might prefer to use that... Any advice?

I am the original poster, who complained of the far too tight fit with the carabiner clip or bike mounting clip. In the end, I took my set of precision files, and I carefully filed the plastic of the rear clip rail, until I obtained a snug but smooth fit with the various clips. Now I like the unit much better. The main improvement wrt the Etrex HCX, for me, is surely the 3D compass, which gives me a reliable reading even if I tilt the unit. The total ascent, and total descent, fields are new also compared with the Garmin 60s, and I really appreciate them. So all in all, I am happy now, even if it costed me half an hour of careful file work.

Maybe my unit was defective. To remove it from the carabiner clip, I had to pull extremely hard, to the point that I was wondering whether I would break the whole unit. The back would simply jam completely into the clip. I will go to REI to try one with a clip before I buy it. I like it in principle: the form factor of the Vista HCX with the software of the 62 series, but I need something I can clip and unclip easily, as I have to do it each time I change the batteries.

I actually liked the older Etrexes better: I have an Etrex Vista HCX, and the back closes flawlessly, and the bike mount also works properly. On the Etrex 30, there is basically no way to take the carabiner clip off except pulling like mad! I am hoping I got a lemon... I was looking forward to having a GPS that had the flexibility and waypoint memory of my 62, together with the light weight of the Etrex series... (I do a lot of hiking and biking, and I was really looking forward to a GPS that could do it all, so that I could have ONE device on which to store all my waypoints and tracks...).

I have a Garmin 62st which I like quite a bit, but looking for a lighter alternative for biking, I got an Etrex 30. I was very disappointed with construction quality. The rear clip rail is plastic, unlike the one of the 62st which is metal. What's more, the fit with the belt clip is incredibly tight, so much so that I have to pull with very considerable force to separate the two (and yes, I do lift the tongue end of the clip before pulling). It was a mail order, and I will be sending it back, and I will try to buy the next one in person from REI so I can try the fit with the clip, but I was wondering: is my experience typical? Is the Etrex 30 construction quality so inferior to the one of the 62 series? Luca

Has anyone here had the opportunity to compare the number of satellites that can be received with a 60 series GPSr vs. the number that can be receiving by turning on both GPS and GLONASS on an eTrex? Not an answer, but when I mountain bike under tree cover, my Vista HCx is occasionally off by as much as 100m, while my 62s is spot on. So I tend to think that antenna type matters.

??? I use my Delorme with my Mac all the time. Works great. Getting maps requires a PC but once the maps are on everything else works fine with a Mac. Right, but as a Mac user, I have no intention of spending $150 approx for the cheapest version of Windows to run in a virtual machine, just to be able to load stuff on the DeLorme. With Garmin, I get excellent mapping programs for the Mac, such as BaseCamp, that help me plan my hikes, and communicate with the GPS. I might be wrong, because I don't have a DeLorme, but I don't think DeLorme provides a similar software suite to go with their devices on Macs. I really look at the ensemble of (PC or Mac) software + GPS unit, as I use both: the software to plan hikes and retrace / publish my steps afterwards, and the device to carry with me while out.

But, De Lorme do not work well at all with Macs, so thry are simply out of consideration for many of us (like me). Too bad for the maps seem great.