dumketu

60csx works fine in both our cars (though one is a convertable, so not fair!) with no external antenna. The only time you should need an external antenna is if you have one of those heat reflective windscreens as they deflect the signal. In fact the other car has a heated front windscreen, which I did think might affect it, but it doesn't, nor the Tomtom. Always best to get a signal before moving off though! I have been overseas in a couple of not-so-nice countries and have been able to use my 60csx inside armored landcruisers with absolutely no problem. Should work fine in a regualr car.

I just has something similar happen. I switched out some batteries that were going dead for fresh ones. When I turned on the unit, it worked for about 10 seconds then died. Switched out bateries several times with the same results. Finally, I managed to get to the menu and turned GPS off. The unit stayed on and so I turned GPS back on. Everything works fine now. Not sure what the problem was. I would be interested to know if anyone else has had this problem. There was a thread on strange battery behavior earlier, I wonder if this might be related? Brian

Interesting test. I was wondering how this would work. I usually find using the AUTO setting to be adequate, but having the capability to be very precise has its uses. I may never use the capability, but it is nice to know it is there. Glad to see the problem is with other software and not the GPS. Brian

The ultimate in technology for the couch potato who has everything!

Check out this link on nimh batteries - http://www.imaging-resource.com/ACCS/BATTS/BATTS.HTM Brian

I had the same thing happen today, same configuration. Lasted about 5 hours on slightly less than fully charged batts. I'll try agan with fully charged batteries and see what happens. Saw the fluxuations from 2-3 and back. *** UPDATE*** Ran my GPS with fully charged batteries while I was at work today. It is going on 9 hours and is fluxuating between 2 and three bars. I'll see how long it will go before finally dying. Brian GPS finally ran out of steam after 14 hrs 47 minutes. I did note that I had 2100 NiMH batteries rather than the 2500 I thought I had. I have read that NiMH batteries can be finicky, but that does not explain why the problem emerged after the 2.70 firmware. We will have to see what heppens. Brian

This should still be "idiot-proofed" a bit better. A new GPS user might accidentally do this while just exploring around the menus. Brian

I had the same thing happen today, same configuration. Lasted about 5 hours on slightly less than fully charged batts. I'll try agan with fully charged batteries and see what happens. Saw the fluxuations from 2-3 and back. *** UPDATE*** Ran my GPS with fully charged batteries while I was at work today. It is going on 9 hours and is fluxuating between 2 and three bars. I'll see how long it will go before finally dying. Brian

Interesting that they don't explain any of this in the manual. Thanks. Brian

Anyone know what the battery saver feature does on Garmin units? I have the 60csx. I just wonder what I loose when it is on. Brian

Amen. I am very pleased with my unit now. A few nuisances, but otherwise a very capable unit. I look forward to more improvements and tweaks to reslove the remaining issues, and having a really solid GPS that I will use for years. Brian

You have to realize that most of their customer service reps are probably outsourced outside the US and just have a checklist of "canned" responses. I'm not impressed with Garmins customer service or hardly any other big company for that matter. Little or no personal touch. That having been said, I do think Garmin is listening and their response is to implement and publish updated firmware to fix the problem. In this regard they do seem to be listening. I don't care if I get a personal e-mail from the Garmin President; I just want the darn problem fixed. As long as they do that is a reasonable amount of time, I will be satisfied. At this point they have fixed up the 60csx to the point that there are still bugs, but they are now only nuisances rather then outright flaws. I'm satisfied and look forward to the CSX becoming a mainstay of the Gamin line as they clean up th remaining issues and add more features. Brian Brian

This sounds like the memory card rather than the GPS itself. The microSD cards are fragile. Do you have access to another card to try that out? I don't know if you were planning on getting a larger card for your unit, but a 128mb card probably won't be much more than the cost of shipping the unit back to Garmin. Although if it is a bad card, Garmin should replace it for you. Call and ask. Brian

There is the problem of the last point in a log having a "retrograde" time stamp. Only affects the log in the GPS memory and also occurs in the 2.70 firmware. I just posted the following in another thread noting that the GPS memory and SD card do not have EXACTLY the same information -- I conducted a little experiment after downloading the 2.71 beta which allowed me to save tracklogs onto the SD card. I made the unit record three tracks by either turning off the unit or obscuring the signal. Conclusion - there were some notable differences between the two logs, which I discuss below. Track log 1 - This log was created by turning on the unit, walking around the yard and turning off the unit again. The track log from the GPS memory had 16 points and the one from the SD card had 14 points. The first 14 points were basically identical, but the gps memory had a 15th point a few seconds later. The last point on GPS memory log had the retrograde time stamp. Track log 2 - Created by turning on the unit, walking around the yard and then going inside to block the signal (in the inside room of a 2 story house, I had to sit on the unit to get it to loose the signal). This time I had 15 points on the SD card and 16 on the GPS memory. The GPS memory somply had one extra point a few seconds later, but this time no retrograde time. Track log 3 - Created by walking back outside and regaining the signal walking around the yard and turning off the unit. This time there were 6 points on the SD card and 8 on the GPS memory. The GPS memory had one extra point a few seconds after the last one on the SD card, plus the retrograde time point. Additionally, for corresponding points on the SD card and GPS memory the coordinates were identical, but the elevation varied between the two from 0 to 2 feet. Brian

Has anyone figured out what problem they fixed here? I didn't know there was a problem! Hmmm, maybe related to the timestamps going backwards in time when the elevation ----- issue would occur? Here's a post on it: http://forums.Groundspeak.com/GC/index.php...c=129478&st=44# Perhaps this was actually a distinct problem, apart from when it occurred when the altimeter would go screwy... That was my thought also, and it may be the case. However, now that I am looking, I see that 24 out of the 30 active track logs I've generated since updating have a "retrograde" time for the final track point! (But at least no elevation anomolies). Looking at the 25 track logs prior to upgrading, none had a retrograde time (but 6 were single point tracklogs with a bad elevation). It looks like they may have fixed the bad elevation problem, but introduced a new problem in doing so! Here is some more info on the retrograde time... I conducted a little experiment after downloading the 2.71 beta which allowed me to save tracklogs onto the SD card. I made the unit record three tracks by either turning off the unit or obscuring the signal. Conclusion - there were some notable differences between the two logs, which I discuss below. Track log 1 - This log was created by turning on the unit, walking around the yard and turning off the unit again. The track log from the GPS memory had 16 points and the one from the SD card had 14 points. The first 14 points were basically identical, but the gps memory had a 15th point a few seconds later. The last point on GPS memory log had the retrograde time stamp. Track log 2 - Created by turning on the unit, walking around the yard and then going inside to block the signal (in the inside room of a 2 story house, I had to sit on the unit to get it to loose the signal). This time I had 15 points on the SD card and 16 on the GPS memory. The GPS memory simply had one extra point a few seconds later, but this time no retrograde time. Track log 3 - Created by walking back outside and regaining the signal walking around the yard and turning off the unit. This time there were 6 points on the SD card and 8 on the GPS memory. The GPS memory had one extra point a few seconds after the last one on the SD card, plus the retrograde time point. Additionally, for corresponding points on the SD card and GPS memory the coordinates were identical, but the elevation varied between the two from 0 to 2 feet. This is probably why the save to SD card feature is still in the BETA version and not the 2.70. Brian

You may have to run the updater twice - once to upgrade the firmware, the second time it will update the software if need be. Brian

Has anyone figured out what problem they fixed here? I didn't know there was a problem! Hmmm, maybe related to the timestamps going backwards in time when the elevation ----- issue would occur? Here's a post on it: http://forums.Groundspeak.com/GC/index.php...c=129478&st=44# Perhaps this was actually a distinct problem, apart from when it occurred when the altimeter would go screwy... That was my thought also, and it may be the case. However, now that I am looking, I see that 24 out of the 30 active track logs I've generated since updating have a "retrograde" time for the final track point! (But at least no elevation anomolies). Looking at the 25 track logs prior to upgrading, none had a retrograde time (but 6 were single point tracklogs with a bad elevation). It looks like they may have fixed the bad elevation problem, but introduced a new problem in doing so! Interesting. I had seen this retrograde time in conjunction with the elevation problem in the old firmware. I no longer have the elevation problem, and since you mentined it I went back and ran a quick track log and sure enough, there it was. Interestingly, the last point was just prior to the time stamp of the first point. This was a single track log, so I don't know what it would have done with multiple tracks in the log. Brian Brian

I have the 60csx and love it, especially now that they have fixed some of its flaws with the latest firmware update. I could live without the altimeter - I don't find it any better than the gps elevation at times and sometimes worse. I like having the compass avaliable, but I don't have a real need. At the price point these things are at, a bit more for the compass and altimeter didn't seem like much. I just wish I could turn off the altimeter at times. Brian

That is the problem with using a barometer for elevation; not that the GPS altitude doesn't vary a lot too. I have set my gps to plot pressure, and the pressure plot varies quite a bit, just as the altitude does. If the wind blows, pressure changes; if the sun goes behind a cloud, pressure changes; and if I squeeze the gps with my hand, pressure changes. At the end of the day I would just prefer to be able to turn off the altimeter altogether and rely on the gps altitude for all its flaws. Glad they fixed the other things though. Two steps forward, one step back. Brian

You are right, it did work! I now have Firmware 2.7 and software 2.5. Brian

That's a good observation. Check the number of trackpoints in the log from the unit's internal memory. If it's 10000 (I don't remember the exact value), the earlier part must have been overwritten. I didn't realize that the tracklog on the data card could exceed the 10000 limit. That IS a good feature. Perhaps in the process of making the GPS write to both the card and internal memory, they could have inadvertantly screwed up something in the way it writes to memory. I'll bet we see a 2.7x beta soon or another update that includes this new feature if they sort out all the issues. Brian

Yup. For whatever reason, Garmin took that feature away in the new firmware update. Many are writing to Garmin to voice their complaints. I advise you to do the same. In the mean time, you can roll-back to 2.62Beta if you need that feature... Perhaps this is a glitch that still exists in the save tracklog to card feature and is why it was not included in the 2.70 release. That's why they call it BETA.

It does seem that Garmin has listened to its customers and fixed many of the problems with the 2.70 release. That is encouraging. Still need to see if it actually fixes the problems, but I am hopeful. I did notice though that 2.70 DOES NOT add the feature in the 2.62 beta to save tracklogs to the SD card. I guess this feature needs to work out a few kinks yet. Brian

Looks like the fix is on the street.... Lets give it a try..... Garmin is pleased to announce that new software is available for the GPSMAP 60CSx. The new software is: GPSMAP 60CSx Ver. 2.70 Garmin recommends that you install this software by using our WebUpdater software. You can learn about WebUpdater on this page: http://www.garmin.com/products/webupdater/ You can download the new software from our website by clicking the following link: http://www.garmin.com/support/collection.j...ct=010-00422-00 Changes made from version 2.60 to 2.70: * Improve path nighttime color for map Topo Great Britain v2. * Enhance layout and functionality of tide station chart information. * Add new time zones for major cities in the U.S. and Europe. * Improve By-Name city search to use all available maps. * Improve layout of airport information display. * Improve reset function of timer lap distance. * Improve route calculation performance by setting recalculation distance farther ahead. * Fix issue where extremely high or low altitude readings could occur when baro auto-calibration was enabled. * Prevent Poor Satellite Reception popup from repeatedly occurring when GPS is off. * Add GPRMB sentence to the NMEA output. * Improve stability when using Lithium Ion Battery. * Fix track log time stamps. * Improve Custom POI banner display on map preview page. * Fix issue where total ascent and total descent were incorrectly computed.

My own tests indicate this to be the case. EPE is what is often called "circular error probable," a term used when describing the accuracy of missiles or artillery fire. I'm not sure how it works in the GPS, but there is some fairly high probability (probably greater than 95%) that at any given time your GPS will be giving you a location INSIDE that circle. Because of the way probabilities work, you are normally going to be much closer than the EPE says you are.