Rotareneg

Just did a little experiment with my PN-40 this morning: there were 16 GPS satellites above the horizon (18 including the two WAAS ones,) but my PN-40 would only show 12 GPS SVs and one WAAS. It would occasionally swap different SVs in or out, but it never had more than 13 total.

Yeah, the GeoXH would be more appropriate for geocaching. It's got real-time 30 cm and post-processed 10 cm accuracy.

Looks like some kind of gall.

I believe some units have a fixed SBAS almanac while others can scan for SBAS SVs and update the almanac. My 60Cx and PN-40 seem to be in the first category as I never seem them scanning for other SVs if they don't have line-of-sight on 48 or 51, while my much older Legend does scan all potential SBAS SVs if it can't find 48 or 51.

The confusion is that most GPS units (like your older eTrex) have separate settings for the coordinates and datum, but your new one apparently doesn't. If the only available option that includes WGS84 is "UTM WGS84" just use that and use the UTM coordinates listed for the caches. I tried looking for a manual for your GPS but the only one I could find didn't have any useful info at all.

For Sedgwick County there's a shapefile with bike and pedestrian paths on the county GIS site: http://gis.sedgwick.gov/ And, while short on trails, the Kansas GIS site ( http://www.kansasgis.org/ ) does have plenty of other mapping data.

Double post, connection timed out while posting first reply...

It's a "lost technology". My old StreetPilot Colormap, while not having autorouting, had a feature that is, IMHO, sorely missing from current GPS units: when making a route it will "rubberband" the route segments onto the road if both waypoints for that segment are on the same road.

The problem is the flexible cable that goes from the circuit board to the LCD can come loose and develop an intermittent connection. I fixed mine by accidentally dropping it about 4 feet onto concrete. It landed on one of the front bottom corners, so you might try rapping it against a solid object in one of those corners. Of course, it's quite possible that doing so might make it come apart even more and totally disable it, break the LCD, case, circuit board, or some other horrible disaster which would be visible from space, so try at your own risk.

I ended up putting the part back in and using the one good corner plus the two that directly attach to both sides of the case at the bottom of the GPS. Then I just taped the sides together using fiber-reinforced tape. I looked at horizonsnordsud.com but couldn't find any dummy cases.

The other day I noticed the case on my 60Cx had separated slightly, so I tried to tighten the screws. Unfortunately I discovered that some seemed to have been stripped as they just turned loosely. I opened the GPS up and discovered the problem: the corners of the plastic frame that the back half of the case screws into had shattered (the GPS has been dropped a couple times, but was otherwise working perfectly.) Here's a photo of it: I called Garmin and the person on the phone was unhelpful, and I haven't gotten a response to my email to them either. Googled the part number and found a German forum with somebody who had the same problem and successfully replaced theirs with one from an old GPSMAP 60, it just needed a little trimming to fit. Anybody have a GPSMAP 60 (any model, new or old, even the original B&W version) that's not working and would be willing to either sell the whole thing or just the part I need?

SRTM is the Shuttle Radar Topography Mission. It used radar to obtain elevation data for most of the Earth. NED is the National Elevation Dataset, it uses aerial photography mostly. SRTM is great in areas where there wasn't any other elevation data, but in the US the NED maps are much higher quality. Here's two screenshots comparing 1/3" NED and 1" SRTM data:

I think they're using SRTM data for elevation now, which is a pretty big step down in quality from the NED data that they should be using.

I've noticed this before too when planning a specific route that I wanted to take with my 60Cx. The StreetPilot Colormap I had a long time ago didn't auto route, but instead had a "rubberband" feature where the route sticks to a road between waypoints. I used it when I drove a truck: I'd plan a route using a proper atlas, compare it to the companies computer provided route, and then spend a few minutes entering it into the Streetpilot to get handy real-time distance and ETA calculations.

That would be the "WEEE symbol":

I just tried copying the entire East CD onto the hard drive, that worked fine. Also, MapSource quits within a second of launching so it never has a chance to try the CD. I'll contact Garmin and see what is up. Thanks! Paul Install the patch (the one on the right side, "MapSource United States TOPO Basemap Patch"): http://www.garmin.com/support/download_details.jsp?id=209

Any GPS should do that. The ephemeris is valid for a couple hours so the GPS doesn't have to wait 30 second to download new ones to get a lock on SVs it had previously seen. My question is whether the 60csx can be set to powerdown automatically if no buttons are pressed for a preset time period. Whoops, sorry, totally misinterpreted your post. I think the battery saver mode turns the receiver off and on to conserve power, not quite as good as powering the whole GPS down, but it should help a bit.

Any GPS should do that. The ephemeris is valid for a couple hours so the GPS doesn't have to wait 30 second to download new ones to get a lock on SVs it had previously seen.

http://www.gpspassion.com/forumsen/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=36196

First, go somewhere with a clear view of the southwest sky down to pretty close to the horizon. Turn the GPS on and make sure you have WAAS enabled. Hold it or sit it down with the screen (and thus the antenna) horizontal and with an unobstructed view of the SW sky and wait, maybe up to 15 minutes. #35 has moved so far west you might not be able to see it any more, but given enough time it'll search through all the possible numbers until it hits 48 and 51 which are the new ones that, while still in testing, work fine with my Legend which is pretty much the same as your Vista but without the compass and altimeter.

Yes, NMEA has standard sentences for depth and temperature. After all, the "M" in NMEA stands for "Marine."

Pretty much every time I've changed a significant piece of hardware (like video or sound card) on my system I've had Garmin's USB drivers suddenly decide to ignore my 60Cx until I moved it to a different USB port.

You could try what I did when my Legend started doing the same thing: drop it a couple feet onto concrete. Ok, I didn't do that intentonally, but it did seem to fix the problem. It seems the ribbon cable that hooks the LCD to the circuit board can ocassionally develop a bad connection. When I dropped my Legend it apparently jarred the connector enough to improve the contact. You might try smacking it against the palm of your hand a couple times to see if it does anything. Or just email Garmin and have them fix it.

Make sure they're both using the same map datum, typically WGS-84.