canadave

Well, it's fortuitous that this thread came along when it did. My wife and I are fairly experienced geocachers, and we also use a Venture CX. For years it's never been too bad in terms of accuracy. However, the last few times we've been out, we noticed that the GPSr led us pretty far from where the cache coordinates actually were. In one case it was off by about 20 meters. This is in pretty open ground/sky, too. It basically rendered the GPSr unusable--we had to just "get in the vague area" and then hunt around within a large search radius for anything that would likely be a cache hideout. Fun once in a while, but not all the time--especially for micros I just looked at it outside after letting it acquire satellites, and the readout showed "+/- 30 meters" accuracy, with 5 satellites acquired! Is this normal behaviour? Can a GPSr "go bad" over time? It's just so bizarre that the unit would stop functioning normally after three years or so. We tried replacing the batteries, no effect. Everything works fine except the unit is simply inaccurate. Not sure where to go from here with this. I've read other threads that mentioned inaccuracy in the cx units as well, but no one put forward a reason for the inaccuracy

Yes!!! Thank you! That was the trick--that works. Man, could the Garmin documentation be any less complete?? Now I'm wondering what other lovely little "gotchas" lurk with this thing.... Thanks again, Dave

OK, I must be going crazy. In the Venture CX manual, there's a screenshot in the section on Geocaching mode, showing a set of three buttons at the bottom of the Compass screen...the one on the far left is "Found." You're apparently supposed to click that button to mark the cache as found, and then it will put an entry in the calendar. Well, I loaded geocaches from my Mac to the Venture CX using Geocaching Menu software, they show up in my GPS, I can go find them...but the Venture doesn't show the row of three buttons on the bottom of the Compass page. In fact, there's no way I can see to make the buttons appear, and there's no way I can see to mark a geocache as "found". When I go to my Calendar page, there's no entries listed for today's date. Can someone who's used this mode clue me in as to what I must be doing wrong?? p.s. yes, I went into Geocaching Setup and made sure the "set entry in calendar" is set to Yes, and also haven't messed with the standard geocaching "treasure chest" icons. Thanks, Dave

Right...what I meant to say is, I know the contrast is fixed, but I wish I knew whether the dimness in regular light on my unit is normal, or whether the dimness is a failure of some kind. I'm guessing it's normal, but I'd just like to know if anyone else has any problems viewing their CX screens in regular light without the backlight enabled.

That's what I thought too, but the CX isn't like the basic yellow etrex--there's no contrast/brightness setting other than the backlight level (at least, none mentioned in the manual, and none I've found in poking around every menu.) But that is in fact what it looks like--it looks the same as if I had contrast settings turned way up or something like that. There's not enough brightness or contrast to make the items on the screen easily stand out from the screen background under normal conditions. Very frustrating! I just wish I knew whether this is normal, or whether I have a broken unit. I'd call Garmin, but that'll be Tuesday at earliest due to the holiday

This is an INCREDIBLY annoying feature! See my post about my Venture CX backlight. hunt, does your 60csx screen appear pretty dim without the backlight, even when you're in fairly good daylight? I find that I have to turn my backlight on my Venture CX at LEAST 30% in order for the screen to be comfortably readable. Do I have a busted unit, or is that your experience as well? --Dave

The thing is, when I power up the Venture CX, the "default" lighting without the backlight is so dim, it's invisible. Without the backlight on, whatever is on the screen is for all intents and purposes completely invisible, even in plenty of light. I need the backlight quite high in order to use it in any lighting situation at all. That seems really unusual...my old regular eTrex yellow wasn't anywhere near as dim, and certainly never needed a brightness adjustment each time I powered it on. Is this really normal for the Venture??? Or do other people's Ventures seem to be bright enough on startup?

Just got a Venture CX...I set the backlight to be "always on," and set the light to be as bright as possible. But when I power off the unit, then power it back on, the backlight is off again, and the brightness level is back to the minimum. I've checked the firmware, I'm at 2.60, which seems to be the latest FW version if I'm not mistaken. Is this normal behaviour? It's quite annoying to have to reset the brightness each time I turn the unit on! --Dave

If it makes you feel any better, I haven't received mine either--and I'm just outside the US (in Canada!)

Hi all, Just was looking at the Venture CX's user guide online (I bought one for my wife as a present, so I haven't had a chance to handle it yet). It mentions a setting in the system setup for "Battery Type", where you specify either lithium or alkaline. Does anyone happen to know what happens if that setting is incorrect? (i.e. it's set to alkaline but you have lithium batteries in the GPS, or vice versa)? Does the GPSr blow up, does the battery life get diminished........? Thanks Dave

Thanks--based on that, I think the 256MB will be way more than enough for my needs. Perfect! Cheers, Dave

I guess I should elaborate on my post a bit...first off, although I'd love to buy from buy.com, it's either more expensive to ship to Canada, or they don't ship here at all--I forget which. I looked into it once. Second, I ask about the 256MB because I can get a 256MB card, plus a USB adapter, for free here with a $20 gift certificate. So if I can get away with a 256MB card, that would work best. However, if that's insufficient, I'll apply the gift certificate to a larger "denomination" of card I guess the main question is: how large in MB would a collection of maps for a large city and its immediate environs be, approximately?

Hi all, Just got a Venture cx for the holidays, and I also plan to get Metroguide Canada shortly. I'm just wondering--what size microSD card would you recommend to hold the maps? Specifically, would a 256MB card be enough? I don't geocache all over the world or anything, I just go around the area of my city (Edmonton) and environs. Thanks, Dave

Too cool...BD must've clicked Send at the same moment I did Thanks guys, that'll work just perfectly!! Much appreciated. --Dave

Hmmm...that sounds like it'd work, but I don't see how or where to do that.

Hi all, The other day I received a TB I'd ordered. I'm trying to get my mother into geocaching, and I thought I'd send her a GPS and a TB for the holidays. Since she's not all that computer literate, I figured I'd do some initial legwork for her and activate the TB for her, then mail it to her. Big mistake. I didn't realize that the TB activation process "assigns" the TB to the activator's username--namely, me (canadave). Now I have the TB linked to my user account. Since I'd been hoping to help her set up her own geocaching.com user account and have the TB assigned to it, I now find myself in a quandary. What do I do? I've already sent an email query to contact@geocaching.com, asking them to deactivate the TB. Is there any other step I should be taking? Thanks, Dave

Hi, I've just downloaded GSAK and I've loaded a few .LOC files. When I go to load those .LOC files, because they don't have detailed information GSAK keeps popping up a dialog prompting me to enter a state where the cache is located...as it is, they default to "No State". Problem is, I live in Alberta, Canada I did a global replace for the waypoints I have and fixed them so they now read "Alberta" rather than "No State", but I was wondering if there's any way to set something in the Options that defaults any .LOC file's location to "Alberta"? I looked through the options and couldn't see any way to do it. Thanks, Dave

Hi, Not sure if this is the proper place to put this comment, and I apologize in advance if someone else has posted this already (since search is *still* down) If you hover your mouse over the last posting shown in the far right of the menu view of any Groundspeak forum or subforum here, it says "Go to first unread post." But if you click that, it actually takes you to the LAST post of the thread, even if all the preceding posts are unread as well. It's just a bit disconcerting, especially since I keep forgetting, and then wind up having to scroll all the way up to read a thread from the beginning. Cheers, Dave

Thanks again for the helpful replies. My buddy decided to get Topo Canada, and I went over and helped him install it and we took another look at everything, and it all makes a lot more sense. We just have a couple more questions if I may: We didn't find this to be the case (although the manual seemed to imply this as well). We loaded a Topo map (a single square, about 500KB) to the GPSr, then loaded another different map (again, a single square). Instead of replacing the previous map, it simply went into the GPSr in addition to it. Is that not the type of behaviour we should expect? Also, does the basemap "count" in terms of maps loaded into the 8MB of memory? i.e. is it a separate map that can be loaded and unloaded or replaced, or is it just a built-in, untouchable map separate from everything else? We were afraid to load 8MB of Topo maps for fear that we'd wind up unwittingly replacing the street basemap that came with the GPSr. thanks everybody, you are all the GPSr direction arrows to my cache waypoints of understanding Dave

John, I'm almost certain the problem isn't with the adapter; if your GPSr has been recognized by Windows XP, it's probably working fine. More likely, something's "wrong" (which could mean "not set correctly" or "disabled" or something like that) with the way the computer is set up, specifically with regards to the USB port or possibly even the driver. In other words, if EasyGPS is "seeing" the Legend, then the adapter is functioning. I don't know if you've read the .PDF manual that came with the Dynex driver, but I highly recommend that you do if you haven't yet. For instance, the manual shows several components that need to be properly displayed in Device Manager; without those components, I'm guessing you'd run into problems such as the one you describe. Double-check what your Device Manager is showing you against the illustration in the manual and make sure they match; if not, you may have to uninstall and reinstall the driver. Hope that helps, Dave

Thanks, guys, for your responses--they explained a lot. So how big are maps exactly in terms of megabytes? In other words, is 8MB enough for one map, 10 maps, 100? And I guess the last follow-up question is: once you load 8MB worth of maps into the GPSr, then if you try to load another map it'll give you an error, right...at which point you have to delete an existing map before a new one can be loaded? Thanks, Dave

Hi all, A buddy of mine just got an etrex Legend. I was looking at the specs and so on, and I'm a little confused as to its capabilities. Actually, I'm a little confused about some specific concepts relating to what a GPS can do, so I was hoping someone could help answer some questions. 1. First of all, he uses an ATV to go quadding out in the bush, and was hoping to be able to load a topographical map of the area he's quadding in onto the Legend (with software, I'm assuming). Is that possible? (we live in Canada) 2. When specs refer to the amount of memory onboard (I believe the Legend has 8MB), what is that memory used for? i.e., what is the benefit of having 1MB, 8MB, 24MB, etc? 3. A Canadian GPS site (GPSCentral.ca) says in its product comparison that the Legend doesn't have altitude or compass...yet my buddy told me yesterday that his unit does indeed show altitude. Is this just a case of Garmin updating its firmware to allow a new feature, and GPSCentral is just "behind the times"? 4. When a unit says it comes with a "built-in basemap", what does that mean? Thanks, I know these are pretty basic questions, but I'm having some trouble looking up the answers. --Dave

I'm a relative newcomer, and I'm not sure I fully understand the exact sequence of events that took place (my fault not yours), but here's my take on it: --If you've confirmed that the cache was there to be found (which was the case, correct?), and you didn't find it, then it seems only fair to log a DNF. That seems pretty straightforward to me. I think your adventure would also make a great detail to put in the log (I found it entertaining, albeit a bit confusing). --But if the cache was not there to be found, and you did not find it, then you should just post a note. Just as a side question--from the OP and subsequent replies, I get the impression that DNF logs have a negative connotation in the GC community. Is that really the case? If so, it puzzles me as to why that would be so.... Cheers, Dave

I agree. That would solve two problems at once. Dave

I use a Garmin yellow etrex classic, and I've experienced the same disorientation once close to the cache. What I do (just from learning recently on these forums) is I just find a bit of a clearing where I can walk a few paces in one direction, and then closely watch the direction arrow as I walk. If, by the end of my short walk, it tells me the cache is 6 meters away, then I'll just keep walking in that direction, guesstimate about 6 meters, and then just see if I can find it in that area. Don't expect to find a cache based on the GPS direction arrow and coordinates alone. It'll get you close, but then (even with the higher-end GPSr's) you just have to "get down and dirty" and start poking around to find it cheers, Dave