hurley_108

Actually the issue is that when you're very close to the cache, your GPS position can go from one side of the cache to the other. The unit uses your position plus the compass to draw the arrow. When your position bounces around, the arrow will as well, pointing one direction and then the complete opposite bcause it thinks you've gone from one side of teh cache to the other.

TFT info! The regular download update page doesn't show this (yet?). Thanks for posting the change list here!

No and No. I have a 60CSx. I wish I'd gone for the Cx. The compass is a fine compass, but it's of dubious value to geocaching because you really want it when you're close to the cache, but your reference position is bouncing a lot on the GPS error so you get a compass needle the bounces around a lot. It's fine, therefor, if you're trying to get to something a long way away and you're standing still, but how often are you in that kind fo situation? The altimeter is more precise than the GPS altimeter, but it's only accurate if it's calibrated. The calibration drifts with changing weather, and the auto calibration can put it way off. There's no way to ignore it either, so if you want to monitor altitude on a holiday flight, you can't. I just don't think they're worth the extra money, and that the alitmeter is sometime more harm than good.

I think they missed the smiley. :-) I'm glad someone caught it.

Hi everyone. I want to get a GPS. I don't have any idea what's good, and i'm too lazy to learn and judge for myself. My needs are simple: It has to be accurate. My friend took me geocaching with his GPS and when it said we were there, the cache was actually 3m away. I want one that will put me right on top of the cache because I don't want to have to look too hard. I also need it to have road maps, and they have to be good and up to date. When my friend and I were out, we took the new road that opened up last week, and it wasn't on his GPS. I need one that stays up to date. I also don't want to spend more than about $100. So which one should I buy?

Yes, it is okay. Several come this way, and some puck-type recievers do too. Magnetic fields have no effect on radio waves.

Glad you got it working! Do you know what was different the fourth time?

Tried installing it a second time? Ive seen other posts on here reccomending that.

Probably, particularly if the benchmark is nearby. The alternative is you could leave your GPS somewhere in your yard and let it average for hours and hours. You'll probably get a pretty good altitude that way too.

Probably because there's no universal standard for GPS communications over USB. Every company does it differently, therefore no standard driver.

no, no, no you didn't read that stuff good enough. They did not really remove anything. They added an interface for data mining companies to make it easier for them to record user data. Yea, I installed the plugin and it prompted me the personal info could be sent back. This is kind of disturbing, as these "content providers" can now know precisely where you live, where you go, where you shop. Brave new world... Oh yeah baby! That would really make the "grassroots moving". - Forget about it. It's Garmin Oliver Edit: Shouldn't we rename the topic to "Garmin Embarrasses Third-Party Development" Totally. They should take a hint from Roomba. They've come out with a model whose entire purpose is to aid in development of robotics, directly responding to consumer demand.

Fantastic - they removed a trivial step in getting waypoints into GPSrs. How about opening up device firmware to third-party developers? You know, so others can do what Garmin won't and make a full-fledged geocaching mode, display DOPs, allow the altimeter to be ignored, perhaps even record raw GPS measurements to SD card to allow for post-processing, fix POIs so there can be more than 4 lines of info, etc, etc, etc....

Battery life: Lemme put it this way, I've accidentally left it on overnight and come back to it 8+ hours later and it's still on, after a day's caching. Things I don't like: The fact that I paid more for an inferior product to the Cx. Both the compass and barometric altimeter are in constant need of recalibration. The compass I have almost never used, and the barometric altimeter cannot be turned off. Also, since the 76 is now cheaper, floats, and comes with a bigger microSD card, I'd probably go for that one instead if I were buying now. I'd reccomend the 76Cx over the 60CSx.

I've read in a number of places that CF GPSrs just don't work right with Windows Mobile 5, which the X51v runs. There are a few SD GPSrs out there that might work that are Sirf III, but there are also a number of Sirf III bluetooth units too. Check out Semsons, they've got a lot of units.

I know some people (myself included) have had issues plugging the GPS in via a USB hub. Directly connecting it to ones computer seems to afford the best connection. I don't know if that might solve your issue.

Oh for the love of Pete! Why on Earth would he set one to one datum and the other to another? It would defeat the purpose of doing a side-by-sode comparison wouldn't it? Also I don't understand what people's fetish is about datums. The only reason you ever need to worry about datum is if you're doing specialized work in a datum other than WGS84 - like if you're doing surveying and all your mapping is in NAD27. But other than that, if there's no explicit, compelling reason to go TO NAD27, every single GPS out there will be in WGS84. I'm sick to death of hearing people talk about datum like there's something in it. There's not. </rant>

While that is a little bit of a large separation, note that 1: There are only five satellites being used 2: Those satellites are all on one side of the sky 3: Two of the bars on the 76 and four on the 60 are rather weak This all adds up to a very poor fix, and is probably due to being under what appears to be a concrete roof rather than something in the units themselves. Besides, neither unit is going to be reporting true position and they could be on opposite sides of it from each other, contributing to a large difference without necessarily implying poor acuracy on the part of either unit individually.

I just got this message from Garmin. So the way I see it, second unlocks that we've got but haven't used are safe. The only change is that in future products, as of June 1, this second unlock will not continue to be offered. I think this is fair and proper. There was never a guarantee that second unlocks would be offered on new products forever.

My two cents: ¢1: Much as this policy change sucks, its impact on me is that it was the kick my wife and I needed to get around to getting that second unit for her. We were probably going to get one anyways eventually, but now we've actually done it. ¢2: Garmin maps are pretty good. Garmin hardware is awesome. Garmin customer support I've heard is second to none. I'm not going to let this force me into accepting inferior products. It sucks that Garmin can be jerks this way, but all this is is one more factor. It's not the sole factor.

Hurley_108, that's brilliant! How the heck did you discover that little trick. That is an elegant solution to the OP's original question. Just by poking around.

Instead of left clicking the PDF print button, right click and copy shortcut. Paste that into the address bar, and change the "n" on the end to a "y." Then hit enter.

It's different. GPS will always be close to the true altitude, but with some large error. Averaged out, the errors will cancel each other, and you can get an idea of true altitude. If a barometric altimeter is properly calibrated, its error will be small and it'll give you a good altitude, but if it's calibrated badly, it will show small deviations from an altitude which is always wrong. Take it into a pressure-controlled environment and you might as well give up. Thing is, the weather changes the pressure enough to screw up barometric altimetry, so you have to constantly recalibrate the altimeter, even when you're not in a plane. The unit does this for you if you tell it to, based on the altitude of the first GPS fix after powering up it seems, but this fix is always bad and so your calibration is always hopelessly screwed up, unless you know your accurate pressure, accurate elevation, or have a few minutes to average a waypoint and get a good altitude. Sometimes you don't know your correct pressure because you don't carry a barometer around with you, or you don't know your correct altitude because you're out in the field trying to determine exactly that, and you don't have time to spend five minutes getting a good average waypoint. And then the weather changes over a few hours and you have to start all over again. In short, barometric altitude is not better, it's different, and it's really sucky of garmin to force a different set of problems on its users who paid more for "better." I bought the CSx, but I'll recommend to anyone to buy the Cx instead. It's no worse and costs less.

Yes, there is something you should know. A bigger card will not increase your waypoint limit at all because waypoints are stored in a different memory in the unit not on the card, and you are permanently limited to 1000 waypoints.

Can't do it on the unit alone. Only way to do it is to hook it up to a computer and read off the NMEA sentences, as those don't use the baro altimeter. I really hate that - I bought a $50 higer unit expecting more, but all I got was a different way of doing altitude, one with its own pros and cons.

Anyone found this yet? Main menu > setup > system > press menu button > card info Ah, thanks!