whichway?

for the money..................the i finder by lowrance has a pretty decent basemap of streams/rivers/lakes. the i finder is priced reasonable too. only drawback is the availability of used software for this brand. i had a global100 a few years ago and was amazed at the water detail in the basemap. keep in mind that the ifinder is not "waterproof" but comes with a durable water bag. i now use a garmin map76 but it originally cost more than twice the ifinder and i had to purchase the topo software to get the great water "detail".

i think they should back up what it says on the package. how do you interpret your "bumper to bumper" warranty on your vehicle? waterproof and water resistant are two fairly defined concepts in the realm of commerce. manufacturers shoudnt be using the common definition to sell something and then when being called on it whip out industry standard to avoid a claim. i noticed when the i finder series came out it was not advertised as waterproof and came with a zipstyle bag. i shelled out $150 bucks more for the garmin 76 over the ifinder in large part because of the waterproof/floating feature. i sail a catamaran and keeping anything dry is impossible. i also kayak. im gonna be pissed if my unit falls into the water and poof its ruined. i dont expect it to hit the water at 50mph and not get damaged but if i choose to lay it on the surface of the water i expect it to function just like it says it will on the box and manual. (not withstanding the drying of the battery well). gps dont just live in cars and long walks in the woods and the manufacturers know it. seems like they tilt marketing to the units "go anywhere/ go anytime" when that is not what they mean. good grief how hard is it to really waterproof the things anyway? an o ring and some nitrogen gas? watches have been doing this for years. did we find it?

i sense some confusion here. im not concerned with the maps that download into the gpsr ie mapsource topos. im talking about the maps you find online such as the ones from topozone. they had to be scanned at some point to be put in a format we can see online. how accurate are these scans? if i move the cursor over a feature on the online map, is that coordinate given accurate? i believe these maps were of 1976 vintage. did we find it?

im using the usgs maps from topozone like the ones used on this site. when you go to topozone, a map downloads and then there is a crosshair that gives the lat/long. best i can tell its nad27conus and utm. my question is how accurate is the transfer from their map to digital. if i put the crosshair on a road, is it going to be there or off 200ft. if you are off 200ft on land, you can see what is up. if im in the middle of the lake and im off 200ft, well im just wasting time. there are very specific things that im looking for that are now underwater such as: gravel pits roadbeds bends in rivers bridges ponds houses some of these items i can confirm with a depthfinder as in river channels and pond dams. concrete slabs, bridges, and roadbeds usually wont have enough depth change for me to see. did we find it?

the "measure distance" function lets you measure between points. in this case i measured from current position on the screen to the edge of the accuracy circle(radius) and multiplied by two. did we find it?

here is the deal. my epe is inside 15ft but when i use the measure distance function to measure the accuracy circle, it reads 140ft. what is going on? i thought epe was a radius measurment. anybody know? did we find it?

here is my question. how accurate are these digital topos. if i crosshair position A and enter that coordinate into my gps, how close is it in the real world. im a fisherman who is lucky enough to have access to topos of areas before a lake was built. if i can locate these now underwater features, i could be catching fish that others dont know about. since i cant go underwater to confirm where a house or roadbed is, i need to be reasonably close to start with. did we find it?

the 76 is the third gps unit i have owned and i was happy with most of its features. i was very disappointed in the base map in regards to water features. ie creeks, rivers and lakes. there was so little detail. it took the $100 topo cds to fix that. the resolution and size of the screen is very nice. ive got 475 bucks tied up in this unit and am pretty happy with it. my last gps lowrance global 100 gave me more of what i was looking for for less than $150. a pretty good bang for the buck unit. did we find it?

there are so many lakes that have been built and i know that there has to have been some benchmarks that are now underwater. has anybody uh dove in and found one? geocache with scuba gear!! thanks for the replies. did we find it?