Steel City Seekers

I've really been looking at these Lowrance Go units, too, to add some additional units in the family. I have my Pocket PC, which lifts all the weights with its bluetooth SirfIII gps unit. Detailed maps, gpx files, autoroute, etc. there. Don't need a whole lot of features in the additional GPS. We have an eXplorist 100, and it has been great for us. Put in the coords. and hand it to the kids (never hand a Pocket PC to the kids!!!!!), and off they go. It does an impressive job of holding a fix. However, I'm impressed with the Lowrance prices, and I'm thinking that a base map might be kind of nice for another unit. I don't mind entering coords as we only do a couple caches in a days time. I've been wondering about two things. First, the accuracy. I've read and searched here and found that many people are pretty happy with the accuracy of the Lowrance units. But, then, I searched for Lowrance GO reviews and found the following: http://www.todayscacher.com/2006/mar/reviews2.asp I don't think it is too old of a unit yet, so there aren't many reviews, but this one doesn't seem to indicate that the GO2 is so great vs. the Garmins and Magellans. Saving everyone the time of having to read it, it says that you have to wait and let the Lowrance settle down for several minutes for it to be accurate. It also states that the Lowrance GO put people a hundred feet from the location. Any thoughts on this? Also, I wonder what the difference is between the basemaps in the GO and the GO2. It's 32 vs. 64 MB of memory, so I'd think the GO2 would have much more detail, but I can't find anything on the differences. Does anybody know? Are the interstates and highways the same? We don't need too much detail on oceanographic details. Sorry for the long post and the basic questions. I've searched long and hard and can't find too many details on the accuracy of the GO units specifically and the details of the basemaps.

Sorry, misunderstood and made a bad post.

Now, you know that if you make such an exclusive statement as 'bar none' that someone is going to disagree, right? Although I agree you've put up the most popular current models, someone could also suggest a model such as the Asus A636. Maybe not as popular, but the Asus has an integrated SirfIII receiver. Saves carrying an extra bluetooth receiver, and a pretty nice looking device in my opinion. There are also a slew of new telephone Pocket PCs out there with integrated GPS receivers.

Dump your .gpx file directly onto the Pocket PC (skip using GSAK). Open the .gpx in GPXSonar. Tap and hold to reveal hints. Tap once to open a web page in Pocket Internet Explorer that gives the cache description and the last five logs.

Oh, I understand. I thought that GSAK was a PPC program. It's clear you use Mapopolis, as do I. It always annoyed me that a GPXtoMaplet dump used the waypoints and I couldn't search by cache name. Thanks for the reply!

Gosh, what is your "real" PDA if the x30 isn't? I don't understand why you use GSAK. I download queries in .gpx and read them in GPX Sonar with no conversion required on the Pocket PC. What does GSAK tell you that Sonar doesn't?

If you're only going to use it for geocaching, then a Palm would suffice. If you intend to use it for its other handheld features, then a Pocket PC is the best. If you'd like to get a GPS receiver that will 'talk' to the handheld with associated mapping software, you almost have to go with a Pocket PC. I can import .gpx files directly into GPXSonar on my PPC, just sync the file over to the Pocket PC. In fact, since I have my Pocket PC set up for e-mail and have a file explorer that can unzip files, I can get files anywhere, anytime (even in the middle of the woods). No converting through GSAK, no dependency on the desktop whatsoever. But, geocaching is only one of many things I use my Pocket PC for. If you're interested in it only for geocaching, then by all means buy a cheap Palm. The price difference would be a couple hundred dollars because you have to have a newer Pocket PC to run some of the programs like GPXSonar, and many of the topo and road navigation programs.

For those of you that use a Pocket PC, you'll want to check out GPXSonar. I believe it is the equivalent of Cachemate. Kinda new to geocaching, but I've been paperless the whole time. I'm more of a handheld guy that checked out geocaching instead of the other way around. In addition, I use a bluetooth wireless GPS receiver with my handheld to do the work. I can use car navigation software to take me to the posted parking coordinates or closest parking spot to the cache. Then, fire up the topo software or even use the street mapping software, hop out of the car and on your way to the find. In fact, I can import the GPX files directly into the software -- never have to input any coordinates as it's done automatically. Just bought an explorist today, and looking forward to comparing experiences with both.