LifeOnEdge!

When I have a problem with John, I don't run to Mary and ask her to make Sure John is aware of the problem. I talk directly to John. I know some posters here like to voice opinion after opinion here in the forums (usually without having stated specifics of what you are talking about), but calling Garmin directly and talking with them will do the following: - Let them know in real time about any problems - Allows Garmin from having to sort out the good information from the bad (and I mean really bad) (non) information here in the forums - Give you satisfaction of having talking directly with the company that builds the equipment you own - Possibly give you information that you may not have been aware of when you called

Consider that while you are hiking, you've had the unit on for some time (on average.) That said, my Colorado consistantly gives me less than 20 feet estimated error INDOORS. Wearing this on your body or attached to a pack isn't going to effect the reception more than having the unit indoors. This is why a lot of people feel that the bad track logs reported in some posts on this forum are due to other "issues." These issues could be how the unit it set OR could be due to a problem that particular unit is having, or both. If you're anal, want the best signal, and would like a longer, better view of the sky with plans to record a waypoint, you might consider mounting the unit on top of a pole that holds it somewhere above your head while you are hiking. This used to be done quite frequently when the antennas were of lesser design.

You may and you may not, but you will be out $12 and you will most likely have a dulled, scratched up, and peeling hunk of plastic that you payed way too much money for covering that screen that has glue stuck all over it. These screens will not scratch from briars or brush. Just won't happen unless you build a scrubby from these materials and literally rub that over your screen with dirt and gravel as an abrasive. Like I said, it's fine if people want to buy these things, especially if they are prone to putting their units in their pockets with keys and coins and then forgetting them, but its not a good use of money -- not mine at least! I won't belabor the point, but IF I can get one cacher to save $12 and enjoy the GPS they purchased, I did my job!

A lot of people who buy their first GPS units will repurchase a unit, either for another family member, but most likely to ungrade their original purchase. I would ask yourself, which can you afford more: - Buying the best unit you can possibly afford now or - Buying a lesser unit and then buying the unit above in a year or two. Most likely the answer will be to buy the best you would can possibly afford now, getting to know that unit and enjoying it. This is what I would suggest. You will most likely save money and be happier in the process. Also: Since a lot of cachers are upgrading their GPS units, have you considered buying a used unit?

I have never felt the need to spend $12 (or less for that matter) for an invisible shield or other product when the screen on the Colorado is designed to transmit light well and to resist scratching. I've asked what the value of this screen is, but never got a satisfactory response. I have over 3100 finds and only have one short, light scratch on my GPSmap 60CSx and none on my Colorado 400t. I have heard that applying an invisible shield after a disaster that scratched the screen will pervent these scratches from being seen. That sounds logical and worth the money, but not being one prophylactically. _______________________________________________ As for purchasing a case: Anything you buy that will work will block the screen, at least partially, and may limit your satellite reception. Why not use the carabiner strap that comes with the unit? I purchased a Bison Designs locking carabiner that looks great with my Colorado and will keep the unit at my side unless my beltloop breaks.

I think the talk of tracking the dynamic pressure is oversold on the forums. Unless you're out in it, or plan to be, there's not much use of a plot of what was, is there? You might consider testing your barometer by going to a nearby airport and asking the tower (their phone number is generally published in the phone book or online) what the pressure is. Remember two things: That pressure reading is for the tarmac (runway), not the elevation of the tower. Also, they will most likely give you the reading in station pressure (corrected for elevation which means you will have to convert that for your elevation. You can also get the pressure at your local television station, but again, this is position and elevation. (You need to be there to compare.) There will be 1 inch decrease in mercury per 1000 feet increase in elevation. There is also a temperature and humidity component to this correction. Unless its hot or cold out, you can disregard the temperature difference. Humidity will not come in to play for your use. With this information, maybe you know a pilot who would be curious about your new toy and offer to take you up the next time he flys. You can compare the elevation/altitude of the runway and keep him informed with the actual pressure in flight. This gives him information to accurately correct for his/her current altitude. There's one other thing to keep in mind while using your barometer to determine your altitude and comparing this number with the one your GPS unit indicates. The estimated error in position is twice that indicated when considering your elevation/altitude. You could easily know that you're at 750' elevation (plus say 4 feet when you have the unit in your hand while standing) and read 780' elevation on the GPS while it indicates 15' estimated accuracy.

You should normally be downloading the pocket queries, uncompressing the files, then dragging and dropping them into your unit. Its a simple process. I am sure that GSAK will have some nice things you can do with the files eventually, but until that's an easier process or you learn more about the program, take the easy steps and enjoy your unit. You might also seriously consider backing up the files on your Colorado, but make certain you don't delete the files and keep the backup in a safe place.

sorry about that...I'm looking in the $200-$250 range. For about $50 more, you can get the Garmin GPSmap 60CSx at walmart.com. For about $12 more than that, you can get the same GPS in a bundle: http://www.walmart.com/catalog/product.do?product_id=5334279

I just saw this (what I consider) rude comment. I don't either pick a fight with or try to pick a fight with anyone. I just fail to understand why someone would place a plastic "shield" over a display that has been designed to be both transmissive and scratch resistant. Few claim to understand this, but putting something between you and the thing you are trying to see DOES block light. This promotes a higher backlighting setting and we all know what that does to your battery life. Also, my Colorado "shield" came with the device. I didn't waste hard-earned money on a piece of plastic to cover that which already works well. It seems that most argue that they abuse their GPS units and "need" a shield like this. What do you do when your shield gets warn? Replace it and spend more money? Hey, if you guys are sold on a product that works for you, spend your money. I spend mine on other things. I just bought a giant invisible shield for my Cadillac Escalade. It took a while to get it to lay flat over my easily scratched and nicked windshield, but boy, its worth it. I leave the $300 receipt for the thing on my dash as a badge of honor. No one's gonna catch this boy with a scratched up view of the road. I wish I would have bought this thing before I did. With over 3000 finds between my unprotected Garmin GPSmap 60CSx and my equally unprotected Garmin Colorado, that between them have one tiny scratch, my windshield has a couple deep stone pits. Live and Learn I guess, eh?

Food For Thought A big part of the "problems" that some Colorado owners are having seems to be that the owners with poor units OR poor understanding of their units are posting "issues," while other Colorado owners are very pleased with their units and are having few or no issues with their units. These guys generally don't post "look at how great this unit works" posts with comparisons or tables of data (except for this happy owner). Instead, they are scratching their heads and wondering why these disappointed Colorado owners aren't calling Garmin for advice and returning their units after further explanation fails to solves certain issues. I am not saying that half the Colorado owners are daft. I am saying that I have it very hard to believe that there are multiple Colorado owners who have returned 3 to 4 units where they are all defective. It's much more probable that these guys are having the same issues with multiple units because of an incorrect setting and/or a misunderstanding. I think there is a widespread belief by a small percentage of forum posters that the Colorado has major issues. This "following" is giving the unit an increasingly negative stigma. For all we know, these people are competing unit company employees trying to get a rise from the lot of forum readers, convincing them that Garmin Colorado is, as has been sung here, "not ready for prime time." There IS a problem and it IS widespread, but its this posters belief that the problem doesn't not lie with the unit itself. Think about it. Have you ever read a post by one of these owners who returned their Colorado 400 four times where they explain what the issues were with each of these units? I have not. Is it the same problem? (We assume so, don't we?) Is it a different problem? (What's the chance this would ever happen?) As far as I know, Garmin is still shipping their Colorado units. If the problems were this widespread, would these units still be available? No. Garmin would have a full recall of these units AND have stopped shipment of existing units. I'm not saying that there aren't users out there having problems. I am saying that it is more likely that the problems arise from not understand how these units work OR are fabrications designed to keep cachers from buying these units. If your Garmin GPS, regardless of model, is having issues with accuracy, you need to return your unit and get your money back, but only After calling Garmin directly and asking them to walk you through possible solutions. If your Garmin GPS, again regardless of model, is having issues with any other area, you need to follow the same steps above. Regardless, if you post "issues" on the forum, you need to supply information and data. Tell us that you have the unit set to NiMH batteries. That you have the latest software revisions installed. That you have called Garmin and sat through a troubleshooting session with them AND that you are still having specific problems (state these clearly and specifically) with your unit. [This is my humble opinion and not necessarily that of the next several posters.] If we continue to see posts like I have described, we need to ask ourselves if these posters are ones with real unit problems, ones with real learning curve issues, or fabrications designs to give potential buyers the wrong impression about these units.

Unfortunately this isn't degrees, feet, and inches. Those are apples and oranges (different units) What you are seeing is Degrees, minutes, and seconds of arc. NO! We are not talking about time here. 360 degrees = one circle 60 minutes of arc = 1 degree of arc 60 seconds arc= 1 minute of arc You're obviously left something out in the East coordinates. There needs to be DD MM ss.sss as in the first number. Lets look at that for a moment, since there are numbers there we can chew on. N 34° 19' 27" Where do you want to go with this? How about DD MM.mmm (degrees, minutes, decimal minutes) 27/60= .45 so 27" equals 0.450' (minutes of arc) So N 34° 19' 27" is the same as N 34° 19.450' Notice that the minutes ( ' symbol ) is always 59 or less. Notice that the seconds ( " symbol) is always 59 or less. Degrees of arc North or South is always 90 degrees or less. This is why you see N expressed as two numbers, while W is expressed as three numbers with a leading zero if the number is less than 100 degrees. Degrees of arc East or West can be any positive number, but will generally be expressed as 180 degrees or less. If the West (or East) coordinate exceeds 180 degrees, that number is subracted from 360 degrees and then expressed in the other direction. 190 degree East is the same as 170 degrees West. You can take this further, if you care to. Let say you want it expressed as Degrees and decimal degrees, or DD.ddd. Take the minutes 19.450 and divide this by 60 to get the decimal portion of the degrees. Take that number and add it to the whole degrees, 34, to get the complete number. 19.450/60 = 0.32417 so the final number is N 34.324° I hope that helps.

I would have to agree whole-heartedly with this. There is currently a fight going on about the Garmin Colorado not having an averaging feature when you mark a waypoint. Personally, I fell that the averaging on the GPSmap 60 units, when you actually have a good, settled signal, is useless. I rarely saw the final coordinates differ by more than .001' (minutes of arc) and usually in just one of the two numbers. Now the "community" thinks that Garmin "needs to get their act together" and give the Colorado an average function. I (secretly) feel that this is probably needed ONLY due to the fact that most GPS users don't wait long enough to let their units actually function optimally before they start taking waypoints OR looking for caches. Imagine the frustration when a cache owner used the old little yellow eTrex in a rush and then published those numbers and expected others to come look for their caches. I gave up on one central Texas couple's caches for this very reason. Oh the fun we had after finding one of their caches over 700 feet from ground zero! Original Poster: you've learned that you need to get a good signal and possibly even a lock before you mark your waypoint. Doing so will give you an accurate point to return to.

Remember that your estimated accuracy has a lot to do with the satellite configuration. Unless the GPS software is updated (and you state that this is 2.60), you're not going to see an appreciable difference in the accuracy of the unit itself.

Your (I think you mean "you're" here) sadly very wrong about not needing the averaging feature on the Colorado. I have had two instances this year already where the waypoints that field techs have marked were, what appeared to be, abberrant points caused by an abberrant reading at the time of the "snapshot". Granted, this is out of about a hundred or so points but the fact remains, averaging WOULD HAVE smoothed out these abberrant readings. Its good that we caught them, but it sucks that we now have to double check each point in ArcView. When Garmin finally gets their act together with the Colorado's I have no doubt that the averaging feature will be included. I just wish that everyone who feels its not needed would stop making excuses for Garmin's oversight. It is needed. I have experienced first hand that it IS needed. And I'm telling you that it was not a concious descision made by garmin not to include it rather a simple oversight. LifeOnEdge, you said that the number only typically varies by .001'.Well if your in DD.DDDD lat/long thats about 50 feet. Rather crapy readings if you ask me. I want to follow up on this topic with some facts. I won't make any claims (since the one I already made is valid and stands on firm ground.) I will just share the information on todays measurements and data. I will summarize the data points that I took since if I gave you the raw data, you'd surely think I was fabricating this: This afternoon in (we'll call it) Dallas was beautiful. The sky was clear. Temperatures were in the mid 70's. I took my Garmin GPSmap 60CSX (one of the very first units delivered) and my Garmin Colorado 400t out in my backyard, installed fresh batteries, turned both units on, and hung them both from a banner/flag pole that hand horizontally from trellis that covers by patio. I allowed both units to bake with a clear view of the sky for 75 (or so) minutes. Both units were back-to-back with a similar view of the sky. Both units had WAAS enabled and had a differential lock with estimated accuracy of 9 feet. I separated the units and initiated an averaged waypoint measurement on the 60CSx. I allowed this unit to take an averaged reading for 12 minutes (720 data points.) While the 60CSx was taking readings, I manually marked 108 waypoints with the 400t. This is the tabulated data for both units: GARMIN GPSmap 60CSx: N 32° 4x.x45' W 096° 3x.x71' estimated accuracy 5.1 feet GARMIN Colorado 400t: Number of waypoints ... Coordinates .......... 0 .......... N 32° 4x.x43' W 096° 3x.x70' .......... 0 .......... N 32° 4x.x43' W 096° 3x.x71' .......... 0 .......... N 32° 4x.x43' W 096° 3x.x72' .......... 0 .......... N 32° 4x.x44' W 096° 3x.x70' ........ 108 ........ N 32° 4x.x44' W 096° 3x.x71' .......... 0 .......... N 32° 4x.x44' W 096° 3x.x72' .......... 0 .......... N 32° 4x.x45' W 096° 3x.x70' .......... 0 .......... N 32° 4x.x45' W 096° 3x.x71' .......... 0 .......... N 32° 4x.x45' W 096° 3x.x72' There is obviously variability, as you would expect, but the data points are very tight. From the 108 waypoints, viewing them on the map zoomed down to 20 feet, show what appears to be 4 waypoints overlapping each by one pixel like 4 slices of turkey sitting in a vacuum pack. As most of you know, .001' in the north coordinate relates to approximately 6 feet. As I indicated before, if you have a good unit, fresh batteries, a reasonably clear view of the sky, you're going to get a good reading from your Colorado GPS unit. If you don't, there's something wrong that can be addressed. Is there a need for waypoint averaging? I think that there's a need to own a good GPS. I think there's a need to let your GPS unit bake sometime before you plan on taking coordinates for publication. I think there's a need to let your GPS unit settle on site regardless of whether you are seeking a cache or planting a cache. I feel there's a need to monitor your estimated GPS accuracy and make a decision about how to determine the proper way to measure the coordinates. If we're going to start insisting that we get accuracy to .0001' of arc or less, YES, I think your GPS unit needs an averaging feature, especially if you're going to indicate your coordinates to this degree of accuracy. Until then, the time you spend "averaging" your waypoint coordinates could just as well be spent allowing your unit to settle into its surrounding. As far as Garmin finally getting "their act together," I think they do a great job. I know some of these people. They're not your average business people sitting behind a desk wishing they were on the other side of the window. yogazoo YOUR turn to take your GPS units out and take readings! Oh wait. You sold YOUR 60CSx. Oops!

You're (edited for spelling error) sadly very wrong about not needing the averaging feature on the Colorado. I have had two instances this year already where the waypoints that field techs have marked were, what appeared to be, abberrant points caused by an abberrant reading at the time of the "snapshot". Granted, this is out of about a hundred or so points but the fact remains, averaging WOULD HAVE smoothed out these abberrant readings. Its good that we caught them, but it sucks that we now have to double check each point in ArcView. When Garmin finally gets their act together with the Colorado's I have no doubt that the averaging feature will be included. I just wish that everyone who feels its not needed would stop making excuses for Garmin's oversight. It is needed. I have experienced first hand that it IS needed. And I'm telling you that it was not a concious descision made by garmin not to include it rather a simple oversight. LifeOnEdge, you said that the number only typically varies by .001'.Well if your in DD.DDDD lat/long thats about 50 feet. Rather crapy readings if you ask me. - First of all, I'm a scientist. I know how to take good measurements, and yes, checking to see if the data makes sense is a part of that activity, GPSmap 60CSx or Colorado400t equally. - Secondly, I said what I meant and meant what I said. +/- .001' That is 1 1000th of a minute, NOT 1 1000th of a Degree as you stated. Sadly, most don't even know the difference. This is why I INSIST that units be used 100% of the time. Use the units and LEARN the units and you won't be making silly mistakes like this. - It sounds to me that you really need to sell your Colorado and buy a brand new GPSmap 60CSx and be happy with that. I for one am tired of all the bellyaching and whining I'm hearing on here. If you don't like the unit, RETURN IT!!!

Fortunately, the Colorado units don't need the averaging feature. I allow my unit to settle in an area for several minutes. I verify that the esimated accuracy is minimized. Then I take a couple waypoints. You'll notice that the waypoints normally vary only in the last digit and by only +/- .001'. As far as the comment about looking on Google Earth to verify if the waypoint is good: That's a very crude approach. If your waypoint is off enough to see the variation in Google Earth, you have a very bad reading and possibly a problem with your GPS unit.

The article was interesting. I do have to say: use and calibrate the electronic compass, especially if you set Track Up on the map. As far as turning it off at ground zero: I don't see the point. You're really not following the arrow once you've arrived, are you? Why aren't you sitting the GPS unit down or hanging it on a tree? Doing this, you'll be allowing your GPS a clear view of the sky on site and letting it settle into the area. I check on mine ever couple of minutes if I'm not finding the cache and see if I'm actually where I want to be. I'm not standing there following the arrow and hopping around. Some people call this the geocacher's bee dance. I do agree that you need to recalibrate frequently. The unit pretty much tells you when its off -- when its off, its way off.

For $2.50 a month (if you pay for a year in advance) you're looking at about 8 cents per day. If you can't afford 8 cents per day, you certainly can't afford the gas to go geocaching. And if you're caching by bike or some other mode of transportation ... you're buying bike tires, tennis shoes, or something at the rate of 8 cents per mile to support your time or travel. There are LOTS of reasons to have a premium membership. Zooming on the maps alone could be worth 8 cents per day, depending on what you are doing. Pocket Queries aren't hard to figure out. You're paying for them so why not use them? I'm glad that you joined and I hope you keep your membership. It's important to support the sport from the geocaching.com side. They aren't perfect, but I'd hate to try to do this without them.

Ricbob, Welcome to Geocaching! I think you'll enjoy your time in this sport/hobby. Several things come to mind, only a few of which others have touched on with their replies. Eventually, after finding 100+ caches or so, you'll have a list of things that you want to know or look for while searching for the cache. Here are a few: - coordinates (How good are they?) - container (What are you looking for?) - cache owner (Who put this out and what are their hides like?) - recent activity (Have others been finding this? Has the weather been bad? Could the public been through and messed with the cache?) Also consider the following: - Your experience - How many different types of caches you've seen or found - The type of GPS unit you use for your hunt - Your condition during the hunt (tired, frustrated, full bladder, talking on your cell phone, etc.) - Area conditions during the hunt (night, dusk, raining, around high buildings or under dense tree cover) All these things have their effect on your ability to find the cache. Remember, just because you aren't finding it in a certain location doesn't mean that its at that location. - It could be missing. - You could be looking in the wrong place. - It may be just above your head or right below your line-of-sight. You could also have painted an incorrect picture of the situation. We all visualize the cache from what we know or think we know. I have a cache called Rockaby. It's hidden very close to a rock wall with PVC drain pipes that poke through the rocks. The cache is actually hidden somewhere very close, but not having anything to do with the rock wall. I used to hunt for a certain cacher's hides who would place them near an obvious "thing," but not associated with that thing. His caching buddy would do the opposite and hide his caches on, under, or near the "obvious" object near ground zero. When you read the cache page, look at the difficulty, the terrain, the cache name, cache hider, and any mention of a container/size. Read the last 5 logs and notice the number of finds and DNFs. If this is an older cache with lots of finds, the ratio of DNFs to Finds will tell you something about how difficult this will be to find. If several of these DNFs are grouped together, then followed by an owner's log stating that the cache was missing and was replaced, it may not be as hard as it first appears. _____________________ Posting Did Not Finds This is something you'll want to think about and do according to your plan. Being new, you may want to hold off posting a DNF until you've looked once or twice. Or you may want to log one each time you search and come up empty. Personally, if you feel you've given it a good try, log the DNF. Come cachers log each time. Some post on their second, failed attempt. Some never claim a DNF << this is Bad Caching, in my opinion. As a cache owner, I want to know that someone's been to my cache and looked. If they found it, great. If they didn't, that's fine too.

All these responses and no one has answered the question. Yes, there were responses, but they were not telling you what's going on here. When you submit a cache for publication, you fill out the form telling geocaching specifics about the cache. One of those pieces of information is the cache owner. This blank field is filled in by you, the cache owner. Whatever you type in this field is what is displayed as the cache owner. On the cache page, this becomes a link to the cache owner's geocaching.com profile. Every profile indicates that cacher's name. We have a "character" in our area who has placed something on the order of 700 caches to date. On some of his caches he makes up a name. On several of his caches (and I do this same thing on some of my caches) he includes his dog as cache owner. You will commonly see event caches by groups. Groups generally are not represented by a geocaching game name. Sometimes two cachers will be hosting the event and the person whose cache it actually is types in both of their names. There are many other examples of what can happen. Generally, whatever the cache owner types under the "Cache Owner" slot is what is displayed on the cache page, in searches of nearby caches, and in the weekly notifications. As someone already mentioned, if you look at these caches in a database, the actual cache owner's name will be displayed. There may be a space for a comment field that indicates the "claimed name" of the cache owner.

You're most welcome. As an added bonus, go back in to geocaching.com, my accounts page (click on your game name on the top right of any page), look in the right margin for the pocket queries link and click on that, THEN look for the Preview in Google Maps under the Preview heading and click on that. This will generate a map of the area you are interested in with the geocaches listed as icons on this map. You can zoom down and pan on this map for additional planning. Look for groups of caches near areas you know you'll be nearby. Play around with that. Its very helpful, especially if you choose to ignore caches found by you (in the pocket query) and then post Find logs on these caches. You can return to this preview link and see the updated information. Found caches disappear from the map, leaving you with caches of interest to you.

People are trying to confuse you here. Keep it simple. You need the larger file. You can use the smaller file. Drag and drop it into the Colorado as well, if you like. Those are ... other waypoints related to certain (but very few) caches. These are parking locations, trailheads, or other waypoints a cache owner wants you to be aware of before or while you are attempting their geocache.

It could be a problem with your computer, but I think there's a more likely explaination. You said that it hung when you ran the .exe file. Did you only run this once? If no, did you shutdown your computer, bring it back up, and then try to run this program? If this didn't work, did you delete the download and re-download the program and re-run the program? If all of this didn't work, what about your GPS unit. Did you check to see that it was properly connected with the proper driver software installed beforehand? _______________________________________ I'm going to guess that somewhere in this process, what you did differs with what I asked above. I would try this all again and rule out the "problems" that you are suggesting. I'll bet there's a different solution/problem than the one you are suggesting.

I don't get it! It's now, basically, a one-step process, but you're unimpressed? The Colorado needs at least one file to load the caches. I assume that you want the most recent information and maximum caches allowed for the pocket query (You are loading the file from the pocket query, aren't you?) Now you're telling me that you WANT to have to delete found caches and then load a different file? Why go to all that work? - Remove old file (previous gpx from pq) - Load new file (current gpx from pq) THAT'S ALL YOU NEED! As I have stated before: Not all geocachers are sutible Colorado owners. Some don't like it. Some simply aren't ready. I love mine. One laptop. One USB cord. One GPS unit. I'm caching!

I don't believe early man had GPS units. No satellites, eh? Look, the GPS unit in question could have a problem, but until other things are investigated, YOU DON'T KNOW. He could take back the unit, but a new unit will most likely have the same issues. As for what I described, I had to learn to do that. I wasn't born with a GPS in my hand. I guess I was born a "neaderthal." As for what you describe ... you're clearly not a sutible Colorado owner. Guess you should buy something else!