BigLarry

I wish. But the upgrades only do you the favor of eliminating half the POIs that do work! Don't upgrade for POIs either! I upgraded from City Select v6 to City Navigator v8 and over a third the most useful POIs in the center of towns (like San Jose) disappeared! Only a very few went out of business. Most were just missing. The whole system needs a better method that updates streets and POIs much more frequently. Haven't they heard of computers and the internet? Yahoo and MapQuest and Yellow Pages can update rapidly. Why not Garmin? Those other services are free and we pay for Garmin's software.

I have both National Geographic TOPO! and Garmin MapSource Topo. Only Garmin's MapSource Topo can be downloaded to Garmin's GPS. NG TOPO! is only compatible for transfering data from the GPS to their maps. NG has prettier picture based maps, but is more expensive. Garmin's contours are too widely spaced (160') for some, but I find they're about right to not get cluttered. I use Garmin's Topo on the computer much more because of speed, ease of use, and greater capability in waypoint, route, and track editing. NG only gives one state at a time for $80, Mapsource Topo covers the whole USA for $75

My NiMH rechargeable AA batteries all have around 1.31-1.35 V fully charged, and drop to around 1.2 when drained. Right after taking off the charger, they have a higher voltage, but it quickly settles down to the above value over an hour or two, even while sitting on the counter. That's normal. The charger needs to drive at a higher voltage to pump in current, and it takes a while for the battery to settle down after matching this excess charge voltage. My 2700 mAh batteries from PowerEx last ~25 hours in my 60CSx.

Yea, I got the GMRS license. It's a one time fee of around $75. But one license is good for the whole "family" or group using many radios among themselves for many years. So it's not that bad a cost when averaged out. You need to say your radio call sign every so often, but I've NEVER heard anyone do that. It's universally ignored. Many don't bother. I suspect the FCC doesn't go after such people unless you're running a regular business with them, or doing something stupid like trying to make a data link over the radios, which is forbidden under the rules. Garmin got an FCC exception for data to just transmit your GPS location data to a partner with their Rhinos that are combined radio/GPS.

The Cobra cited by beautyisgod looks like a fine radio. I also find the Motorola T7400 works well with good range. I spent a month tracking down test reports on FRS/GMRS radios to see which were really good versus what they claimed. One of the best, and near the longest range of the Motorola line is the T7400. It only has 3W output (vesus 5 or 7 Watt units). But higher power output only helps little beyond a certain point. What matters much more is the antenna length and receiver senstitivity (0.15 uV on the T7400). A more sensitivity receiver will help pick up signals from all radios, and more important than power. A 3X more senstiive receive is like having 3X the power. Also, a longer, more efficient antennae will help a lot on both transmit AND receive, squaring the value and way more than make up for power output. Again, a 3X better antennae will be like 9X the power becaue the antennae helps on both transmit and receive. You'll see more powerful units with half the range. Lower power transmitter helps keep the batteries lasting longer too. The T7400 rechargeable batteries will last at least two days, maybe three or four but I've never needed that long on a trip. The T7400 comes with rechargable AAs and charger base, but can use regular AAs if you run out of juice in the field. I carry extra AAs for my GPS and flashlight, so I'm covered. I've field tested the Motorola T7400 radios in remote parks out in Nothern California many times with great success. Best example: one day a friend on a mountain bike took a wrong turn riding at the end, and got lost. Then a freak freezing rain, snow, and hail storm hit to add to our problems. We had guys all over trying to find him, some with my extra radios (I have four of these). We finally found him and were able to call in our riders from over 10 miles away who heard us clearly, even some in valleys while I was up top, two mountain peaks over. If we hadn't had the radios, it could have been much worse, surely with rescue and search squads involved at a minimum. Note how you use the radios matters a lot for range. They work best from mountain peak to peak, or peak to valley. Very poor or no reception occurs valley to valley. Also turn towards where you're trying to communicate, so the radio is on the other side of you, so your body doesn't block the signal. Also hold it a little bit away from you.

Topo maps are topographical features, like lakes, streams, trails, and altitude contour lines. Major roads are shown, but often without names. City Navigator has details of street names, addresses, and autorouting information. For navigating when driving a car, you need City Navigator. For navigating out in the wilderness, you need Topo. Topo is much older but still works fine since mountains don't move fast. Actually, I find the City Navigator more of a problem being out of date with missing POIs, wrong streets, etc..

Garmin Topo works very well for me. I use Topo on my GPS for deep country navigation 30 miles into steep Sierra hills on my bike, where getting lost could run from a very bad day to fatal. But you need to start at home with a good paper topo map of the park or wilderness area with trails and names. You can almost always find a good trail map with contours off the web. (Motion Based also has lots of GPX tracks now that you can search.) Compare your paper map with the detail you can see with Garmin Topo on the big computer screen. Use streams, peaks, roads, ridges, out croppings, elevation lines, etc to mark relevant waypoints and trail intersections, with the waypont name hinting at the trail name. Using Garmin Topo and a good topo trail map to match features on the computer, I can usually place a trail point for a new park within 100'. I use these waypoints to make a route, and leave it with my wife or someone, and don't deviate from my planned route when riding solo. I carry the paper map for backup and support, because trail signs can have names that are on the paper map, but not Garmin Topo. I have my GPS odometer page show the distance to the next waypoint and make sure I'm counting down. I sometimes use the compass page to make sure I'm going in the right general direction if totally off the trail or the trail is grown over. I use the map page to see my route and tracks in relation to everything around me. Sometimes in emergency (like the time I was tracking down a lost friend), I need to take a short cut to a nearby trail that I can see on the map page. National Geographic has nicer art and has more contours. The elevation profiles in NG are super. But I've always found the same information on Garmin Topo. Also Garmin's Topo is much easer to zoom and move around in - nearly instant when loaded onto the computer. Also, Garmin's Topo is much easier to use to rapidly edit waypoints, routes, and tracks. In any case, Garmin Topo is my favorite topo program on the computer. It works great when used right.

Metroguide can only autoroute on the computer, not on the GPS.

There was another thread saying that if you don't want battery bounce - power off from momentary loss of contact with vibration - you need to use a quality battery with proper size. Also they currently make NiMH with the same charge as Alkaline, around 2700 mAh. (milliAmpere-hour) Good batteries are Maha/PowerEx, Sony, Duracell, and other name brands. Maha is often considered the best batteries and chargers. My Maha charger can switch between overnight and 2 hour charge, it also reconditions batteries and charges in a way to preserve life and maximize charge with a "negative pulse" algorithm. Each battery has it's own sensor circuit. Sony's charger is almost as good and half the price of the Maha, it has LCD indicators that show the battery status better than the simple LED on Maha/PowerEx. It also has good battery reconditioning, and separate circuits for each battery. Ii just doesn't have two charge speeeds, only an intermediate speed.

For help navigation you want something that displays maps and lots of memory to store them, like the 60CSx over the Edge or Forerunner. You'll also need Garmin's Topo maps for the woods. It covers the whole US and costs $75 on Amazon. The 60CSx is fairly rugged for most purposes, and may survive fine if it doesn't get thrown off your ATV. The bigger screen is nicer too. My friend also had bad problems with battery bounce when the 60CSx was on the handlebars, where it powers off from momentary loss of power as the battery bounces around in rough terrain. You'll likely have this issue too. What helps that is using name brand batteries that fit properly (like PowerEx, Sony, or Duracell rechargables); paper behind the back to get a very tight fit; and putting soft flexible foam behind the contacts. I use good PowerEx batteries and haven't had this bounce problem and don't need to do the other things. But I also put the GPSr in my pack with less vibration. My friend with battery bounce was using super cheap store discount store Alkaline batteries from Frys.

I've heard the biggest difference is the size of map segments between v7 and v8. V7 had bigger segments and v8 has smaller again, but not as small as v6. Segment size matters if you have big memory cards, as you're limited to 2025 files. You want big segments for big memory, small segments for small memory like my 24 MB vista. I upgraded from City Select v6 to City Navigator v8. In retrospect, the only reason to upgrade was to go from CS to CN for compatability with my 60CSx. I found the streets were slightly upgraded to show changes happening in downtown San Jose. And the turn information now match the street signs better. Although the POI were updated removing closed shops, many good POIs were now missing relative to my old City Select. I need to go back to my old City Select to find many things. I'd say the upgrade was a wash, as many things retrograding as improving. It's disappointing. Not sure about CN v7 versus v8. But I've read many places the updates are very minor, which I'd believe from what little I see going from CS v6. So I'd say don't upgrade if you don't need the smaller map segments. The updates are not worth it.

Several units can work. What I'd recommend is the eTrex VistaCx. It has has everything you want and more: nice daylight readable color screen, barometric alitmeter, magnetic compass, expandable memory for maps via microSD card, AA batteries, it's also very rugged and lasted 3 years on my mountain bike through lots of crashes and three frame breaks. It's been tossed hundreds and times and bounced down the road too often, with no effect. The only downside is the weaker receiver. I can briefly loose signal in thick trees on the north side of steep hills. It's not often and then only momentarily. It works well for me. The GPSMAP 60CSx has everything of the eTrex Vista but with the better new SiRFIII receiver. The screen is slightly larger, but the same number of pixels as the VistaCx. I use the 60CSx as a second GPS "safely" wrapped up in my camelbak to get more consistent tracks, with my Vista on the bars for navigation. My biking friends and I have all broken the 60CSx within weeks of it being on the handlebars. The antenna sticks out and breaks off if the GPS gets thrown. I also broke the buttons off my 60CSx while it was wrapped in my pack when I fell down a hill and landed on my back. Garmin replaced it under warranty, even though I said it was my fault. But my Vista on the bars didn't get a scratch, as usual. Garmin's new Edge line is rugged and has the new SiRFIII recevier that can get signal anywhere. It can't store or display maps. It's more of a fancy odometer that can also track your ride, including altitude with a barometric altimeter on the 305. It's more for biking than ATV. It also runs on Li battery rather than AA. I don't like that it only lasts 12 hours. I can get a couple days with rechargeable AAs. All the GPS units can record tracks, even the wrist mounted foretrex and forerunner. One of them even has the new SiRFIII receiver, like a wrist mounted version of the Edge. You can upload your tracks to Motion Based for nice plots of your tracks and mining all sorts of data (ride time, distance, ascent, ...) and plot your track on topo or street or satellite views. It's free for ten uploads stored at a time, and only a small fee for more features and infinite storage. See one of my examples here.

Yes, it works great. I use one on the Quest and take it between many cars and it mounts in second or two. It only falls off if the windsheild is dirty and the suction cup is very dry. But if you very slightly moisten/clean the rubber, and place it on a clean spot of the windsheild (wipe with a tissue if needed), it will hold like cement. Even after I release the suction, I need to slowly pry it off by picking up the rubber on one side with a fingernail. I sometimes get vibration if I stick the mount out too far, Try different locations and mount orientations to avoid resonances that cause excessive shaking. Sometimes resting it on the dash, as suggested above, can help eliminate vibrations in bad situations. But I've also seen that technique hurt sometimes.

I use the eTrex Vista face up on my handlebars and rarely loose signal for more than a couple seconds. The only time I loose signal for more than a few feet is on the north side of steep hills AND with thick foilage. Even then it's intermittent. A big city with tall buidings all around is a problem with any receiver. Hold the eTrex face up and a little away from you (to not block signal with yourself). While looking at the satellite page, try to find a spot where you can get a better signal from lots of satellites by turning around and moving to clearer areas. Once you lock on some satellites, the GPS will often be able to contine to hold it in weaker locations where it couldn't get reception before. I've been able to tet the eTrex to work in SF with extra care as mentioned. In all these cases, hold the eTrex face up, when hiking or geocaching, I mount the GPS on my hiking pole face up, or hold it in my hand looking at it face down, with it away from my body a little bit so I don't block signal - sort of like reading a book. I also have a 60CSx and it gets a signal just about anywhere in any way. I use it for making more detailed tracks without breaks on rides, and for it's bigger screen for geocaching. But I don't find the accuracy is much better. And even in occasional bad reception areas, I can usually get the eTrex to get a signal if positioned right. A minor annoyance but it works. Even though the 60CSx is much better reception, I still use my eTrex Vista on the bars because it's more rugged for my tough riding. The Vista works very well for me in the trees of Northern California. There's some occasional drops, but it does pretty well overall.

1. The screen on the 60CSx is the same as my Quest in size and pixels, which I use for the road with not so great eyes and it works fine. The screen is small, but put far out on the bottom of the windshield, it's in my far field vision and I can read all the street names and instructions that are in a relatively large type. I normally can't read books or papers without my reading glasses, but I can read the GPS just fine. 2. I have used City Select with the 60CSx and it works fine and I see all the street maps and POI just fine. I also recently got City Navigator, and some of the directions are much more accurate, but many of the POIs are not as good with City Navigator. The biggest difference is CN has much bigger map segments than CS. 3. I haven't used either CS or CN map sets with autorouting since I use the Quest for that in the car. 4. As said before, just flip the map set in MapSource and keep selecting the other map set before downloading. Each download wipes out the other, so you need to download everything at once. You can easly flip between Topo and Street map sets via a Hide/Show menu item on the Map setup page. There's a memory and map file limit. The City Navigator is designed with bigger map segments for less map count - around 280 for the US in 1,500 MB. But the Topo maps have smaller regions so they can be more flexible for the smaller memory devices like my 24 MB Vista. Just the Topo West is 2600 maps and 650 MB. So because of map count, you can't fit all the Topo due to map segment count, especially with the smaller map segement size (more maps) of City Select. Maybe for 2000 segments, you can get the eastern third or quarter of the US for both topo and street, even with a 1 GB card.

My friends and I like the Vista over the 60CSx on our mountain bikes as it's much more rugged and compact size. The 60CSx seems to have a lifetime between repairs of only a couple months versus a few years for the Vista. If it weren't for the much better ruggedness of the Vista compared to the 60CSx, we'd all be using the 60CSx on our handlebars as it has much better performance. Unfortunately, the Vista doesn't have the SiRF receiver as you mention. But everything else important is about the same: expandable memory, good interrace, software for geocaching, number of pixels on the screen (just smaller screen but same pixel count), same waypoint and track capability, USB port, altimeter and compass function, and so on. So just how important is the better SiRF receiver in the 60CSx? Enough that I purchased a 60CSx as a second GPS, and leave it wrapped safely in my back pack when I ride. It is mostly to get a slight improvement on tracks from my rides. But I use the Vista on the handlebars for my primary navigation and I am very happy with the Vista performance in that role. In Northern California, I rarely loose reception with the Vista, oriented face up on my handlebars. When I get good reception, the accuracy between the Vista and the 60CSx is comparable. I only loose reception on the north side of steep hills with lots of trees. I have a couple images of the tracks between the two on a recent mountain bike trip to Oregon. You may need to log into the post on this site to see the pictures. I'd post them here, but don't can't link to them for some reason. 1. One picture is a worst case I rarely see gong down Larison Rock. It's indeed on the north face (north is up in the pictures) of a steep hill thick with trees. The Vista track is the white straight lines between widely spaced track points and the 60CSx is yellow track. Ignore the first big straight white line, I had the Vista turned off on the bus shuttling us up to the top. If you look at the tracks, you see the Vista tracks only start getting very jagged at the bottom of the steep 3000' hill, which is the top of the picture. The 60CSx has high precision the whole route. 2. The other picture is a moderately difficult reception, in the narrow valley along the Middle Fork stream thick with thick trees. Here you see the Vista (in yellow this time) only lost reception for a mile or so in the middle of the 28 miles, going by a steep hill just to the south. The Vista and 60CSx tracks are virtually the same elsewhere. You can see the Vista looses badly on the very steep north-facing wooded hill, but does OK on the wooded valley. Again, these are the most demanding situations: steep mountans and thick woods, and I usually get better. Most of my tracks from the Vista and 60CSx are on top of one another on 90% of my rides. The better SiRF receiver helps a lot though on those last 10% of places. If you don't need the more rugged Vista, I'd go with the 60CSx as it's the receiver is much better in those occasional situations that need it, depending on where you use the GPS. It's just about worth the extra $150 price. On the other hand, the Vista is very usable in most all situations. Whereas I'd like just a little better reception with the Vista, the much superior 60CSx reception is often overkill. You really don't need to pick up GPS reception inside your house or local store. And you can wait a minute or two for it to start up.

Say I do a typical 16 mile ride. and I loose signal during 2 miles (a worst case that happens maybe once a year, usually on a steep north facing hill also with lots of thick trees). Now if I zig and zag a bit, that 2 miles of trail may be 1.5 miles of straight line. So the GPS odometer will read 14.0, instead of the 16.0 I see on my bike's mechanical odometer. It lost the entire 2 miles. If I climbed during that time, my elevation gain also failed to accumulate without signal reception. But when I save the track into one (which loses time information, incidentally), then I see that track's distance is 15.5 miles. The GPS odometer is still 14.0. It wasn't fixed by saving the track. You just look at the track distance instead. Also, my eTex on average reads about 5% lower miles than my bike odometer. The 60CSx comes a bit closer, maybe only 2-3% lower. I think this is because the GPS smooths out all the little turns the bike picks up. The 60CSx just has more agressive software to catch turns, I think. A minor effect anyway.

Silly question, but ...you've turned it on? Easiest way is by holding down the Page key until you see the compass icon. Hold it down again and the compass will toggle off. Keep it off to save power when you're not using it. The compass will always work from the GPS without the magnetic compass on or off above a certain speed. This is set in one of the setup menus. So it may look like it's working until you drop below that speed, at which point it reverts to the magnetic based compass instead, but only if the magnetic compass is turned on.

I used a 60CSx as copilot/navigator on a Cessna 206 going from San Jose to Oregon a couple weeks ago. I pre-programmed in waypoints for airports and sight seeing spots like Crater Lake and Mt. Shasta. We used it quite nicely, and it plotted our tracks correctly. The only thing missing is an aviation map. I just flipped between Topo and City Navigator, but Topo worked better. The biggest problem is that we couldn't easily tell if we were in the TCA or other restricted air zones, which are virtual boundaries and would very nice to have on a GPS map. We had to refer to the aviation maps and my GPS for names of the feature near by. It was sometimes easier to just look for landmarks out the window and compare it to the aviation maps. I don't think they sell the aviation maps for the 60CSx, but you'd want a more dedicated unit for air navigatin anyway. Garmin's Aviation units like the GPSMAP 496 are amazing. For a mere $3K, you can see aviation map data, have airspace alerts highlighted, get weather and radar displayed from XM satellite, have all of City Navigator streets for the US along with POI in memory (when on ground), 650 airport taxi ways included, with info for another 5300 airports, display of nearby air traffic information from a transponder,....

I've used an eTrex Vista for 3 years, and have only seen that with batteries out of charge. It could be a bad software or hardware glitch. You could try downloading the latest flash software from Garmin.com and reinstalling. In any case, I'd say it's time to give Garmin techs a call. If it's under a year, it will be under warranty. Garmin is very good about servicing their units and keeping customers happy.

I have an eTrex Vista and use it in many environments: car, biking, geocaching, city, woods,... I will generally only loose signal on the north side of steep wooded hills and the very middle of cities with very tall buildings. It should be noted the eTrex uses a patch antennae that works best with the unit face up to the sky, so you're looking directly down at it to read it. If you toss it in a pocket or pack and it's facing another way, the reception can be greatly affected. So it could be that when you move, you put it away and it's oriented differently with poor reception. On the bike I put it on the handlebars flat face up. When hiking, I have it mounted on top of a hiking pole face up. For geocaching I just hold it face up while navigating to the cache. When using the eTrex in the car, I find I need to get it close to a window to get reception. Up on the dashboard is best, but I can get signal next to a side window if there's not lots of other obstructions around. If I loose signal, a new "Active Log" track is made when it recovers the satellite. So you'll have lots of active log tracks on your system. When you save, it can combine all the logs into one track depending on the period you select to save. I just clear before a trip and then save all tracks into one. The saved track will record the missing section as a straight line between the points and add the distance into the total distance of the track. So if you had did a lot of zigs and zags, it will be off a little. However, I've found the eTrex will not accumulate miles or altitude climb on the odometer and elevation pages without a signal. Fortunately, I don't often loose signal, and then only briefly, even in thick trees. So this is not a big issue for me. These days, I also carry a Garmin 60CSx with me to get the very best tracks on rides. It never looses signal even in the worst conditions of trees and hills. It can sit on the floor of my car and still get reception. It's much better than the eTrex. Nevertheless, I find the eTrex is more rugged and I use it for navigation on my bike and it works quite well for me. If the eTrex gets a good signal, the accuracy is about the same as the 60CSx anyway. The tracks practically overlap.

I had the same thing happen to my 60CSx when it was 3 days old, when I went over the bars on my bike and rolled down a steep hill. The 60CSx was in my pack, but still got two of the buttons snapped off just like you said. I was thinking of gluing them back, but figured it would never be quite right. I called Garmin and honestly explained what happened. They covered it under warranty, no charge. Even better, when I got the unit back, they tossed in a carry case, MapSource Topo software, extra microSD card, and other freebies! What a company! If needed, for Garmin's 60CSx, the full refurbish price for out of warranty is $175. See here. But if you're less than a year, call to see if you can get a sympathetic support person.

I carry both an older eTrex Vista with the older receiver, and a 60CSx with the new SiRFIII receiver. The new SiRFIII receiver is only available in the 60CSx, 76Cx, Edge, Foretrex and a couple other Garmin units. But the SiRFIII is NOT used in the new eTrex Cx line. Nevertheless I find the Vista mostly very good in reception, with an occasional short drop, usually in north facing steep hill sides and heavy foilage. The 60CSx never looses signal, even then. The 60CSx is around $370 or so on Amazon and other places, and Garmin had a $50 rebate that may be expiring about now. Check their web site. The 60Cx is even cheaper.

Be careful of the reverse logic: Hide Topo means it's now showing. Since the street makes like City Select take precedence, you can just leave both types showing (both types say "Hide" on the menu), and then show or hide just the street maps to toggle between them.

The barometric altimeter can improve the altitude accuracy. Although the GPS satellites can determine altitude, it's about 3X less accurate that horizontal, because all satellites are on one side of you (above the earth) and less difference in signal is seen. In spite of averaging, I can see 50-100' error, or more. Also, this error can go both ways and change every few minutes, depending on averaging time, adding lots of altitude noise. When calibrating the barometric (air pressure) altimeter, I can get 1' resolution and accuacy of a few feet. The barometric altimeter can drift from weather (pressure changes). Over a 3-8 hour ride, I see a drift (coming back to the same point) of around 25-50', respectively. But this drift is smooth and can be compensated in my ride profiles. The 60CSx receiver improves reception, but not accuracy that much. I still find the barometric altimeter, when properly calibrated at the beginnig of a ride, by far more accurate.