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That's bizarre enough to merit a call to DeLorme's tech support, and perhaps cross-posting to their own user forums. Not bizzare at all, it's the nature of LCD units. Where I found this issue to be the most interesting is back when I was peak bagging, and bought one of those little Brunton wind watch units to measure temperature and wind speeds on some of my climbs. My first winter climb I was experiencing some significant wind and cold, and I figured I'd have some significant bragging rights thanks to the little brunton. Imagine my surprise when I learned it doesn't work in sub zero temperatures. That was mentioned in the specs of course, but who takes the time to read the instruction book.

I don't think anyone's claimed that the autorouting is that great. I think the slow redraws are probably related to the cold alkaline batteries, not so much the device itself slowing down due to cold. Aside from low-capacity rechargeables, alkaline batteries are just about the worst-performing batteries you can put into a PN-40. Over in the DeLorme forum, a number of folks have done quite a few battery rundown tests. Battery voltage won't have any effect on the LCD speed. That said, alkaline batteries don't work all that well in low temperatures. When I'm out playing in the winter, I put lithiums in my units most of the time. That said, different Displays do tend to slow down, then fail completely when it's really cold. I haven't played with my PN-40 yet in temperatures that were very cold yet so I can't comment on how it behaves.

Interesting. When I tried comparing against benchmarks, I found my errors were almost always less than 15 feet with either unit. Of course, the benchmarks I found were all in fairly open areas, so terrain/cover didn't come in to play. For repeatability, I set the units to 5 second track recording, left them setting for anywhere from about an hour to battery exhaustion, then compared the track blob to see how much variance/wandering I was getting. I didn't observe anything that could call a consistant difference between the units other than the PN-40 was slightly more prone to being a bit off when first fired up. Both units seemed pretty accurate and consistant to me. What sort of terrain/treecover were you doing the comparisons in?

Yea, on the cache page, you hit the save as waypoint button, then enter the new coordinates and off you go. Of course should you need to read the cache page you have to pull up the one for the original cache as there won't be any info there on the waypoint page other than what you entered. It's much easier to do than try to describe. How are you liking the Dakota so far? Notice anything I missed when I attempted to compare them? Since the behavior of GPS units varies by conditions, it would be interesting to see inputs and comparisons from others. One thing I really like about the dakota lately is the ability to save 200 tracks of 10,000 trackpoints. I've got the new geocaching mobile (Okay, so far I haven't got out of it long enough to actually go get a cache) I find I can cover a lot of mileage in a single day, with tracks not being available for a large number of them from any sources I have found so far. It's going to be fun logging as many ATV trails as I can.

Angels Landing For those who haven't been there, here is a photo of the lower portion of the trail: edited to add: I didn't really answer here what I meant by "different" the non "High sensitivity" units generally just quite working in the canyons, or on occasion bounced all over to the point the output wasn't usable, while the units with better sensitivity often work, but don't really know where they are, and the results unreliable. The issue, or problem when they do work with multipath is that they often remain fairly stable, and appear to be working but you can be half a mile off or more from your real position. Nice photo. Thanks for the clarification about "different", and thanks to everybody for the advice. My 60CSX was losing and regaining signals on that segment and the tracklog put me on top of Cathedral Mountain. Anyone who hasn't been there but is taken with the view should be aware that this shot is one of the LESS exposed portions of the hike. When you get to the "Steps of Faith" the trail is maybe 6' wide and with a drop of at least 600 feet on each side. Of course they give you a chain to hold on to and I've seen locals skipping over this portion with no hands. That was indeed taken from low down on the trail. I've got many photos stored away somewhere from all portions of that hike, taken in many different seasons. It's one of those spots I end up going back to over and over again through the last 35 years or so. The narrow portion of the trail you're describing always instills a great deal of pucker factor in me, no matter how many times I do it. Yes, there is a chain, and yes, bending down some to grab it makes you feel even less stable. Of course there are those who venture too close from time to time, the last I remember from this year is described here: KSL news story If you search the local news database, you'll see someone manages to fall off here every few years.

Congrats on the new toy. They're addictive, and really enhance your outdoor adventures other than geocaching as well. You'll be amazed at how much easire you find backcountry navigation. You're doing great if you've got a spot on your dash to wedge the unit into. The way mine is set up makes it difficult to find a goot place to place my gps units.

What I was refering to is multipath problems. By design, GPS receeivers count on a straight line path for the signal to travel in from the satellite to the receiver. That's the assumption that is made by the receiver when it calculates how long it took for the signal to get from satellite to receiver. In a canyon, terrain often blocks out enough of the sky that your receiver doesn't have a straight line shot to 3 or more satellites depending on where they are in the sky at that given time. The system was designed so GPS receivers wouldn't pick up on reflected signals, but it happens in conditions like this sometimes, and from what I've seen it happens much more with the "High Sensitivity" receivers. Bottom line, GPS receivers only work right when you have and unobstructed (By anthing that blocks/absorbs the signal) line of sight to the satellite. If you do receive a solution fix in conditions where you don't have this ability, all bets are off as to how bad the results might be. Here is something I put up on the web back when my Sportrak was new. It's an example of issues I had climbing Angels Landing. Angels Landing For those who haven't been there, here is a photo of the lower portion of the trail: edited to add: I didn't really answer here what I meant by "different" the non "High sensitivity" units generally just quite working in the canyons, or on occasion bounced all over to the point the output wasn't usable, while the units with better sensitivity often work, but don't really know where they are, and the results unreliable. The issue, or problem when they do work with multipath is that they often remain fairly stable, and appear to be working but you can be half a mile off or more from your real position.

WARNING: DeLorme Fanboy PRESIDENT comment coming: ......... ........... I'll have to disagree with you on the statement that if a person is having troubles with the accuracy of an H model GPSr that a PN-40 is basically made with the same type of components so therefore it will not work any better for them. I bought a Garmin Vista HCx this spring and straight out of the box it had troubles trying to figure out which way to send me. I was to the point of recalibrating the compass every 2 hours and that only had a minimal positive impact. Towards the end it got to where I wouldn't even follow my Vista HCx into the woods because it was very consistently sending me off in the wrong direction. Instead I'd follow my nephew who had a non H model eTrex and his was almost always heading in the right direction while the Vista HCx was almost always trying to point me in the wrong direction. ......... Have you been sharing a beer with ol Roddy there? You’ve very much got the same passion going on there… Are you sure you two aren’t related? It’s hard to say what you might have been seeing, but from the description, it sounds like it was probably compass issue rather than reception or accuracy. There is significant differences in the way a 3 axis compass works when compared to the single axis kind. Which people prefer is very much a personal preference thing, but myself I find the 3 axis units fit my usage style very nicely. To do a good assessment or comparison you have to use both receivers in the same place, at the same time since conditions vary so much with even slight changes in satellite geometry, moisture content of vegetation etc. One of the best ways to compare units in the field is analyze actual your tracks, especially if you have them set to a time based recording. This enables you to record literally thousands of samples of where the receiver thought it was at any given time, and makes it easier to asses what you perceived at the time, vs. data you can actually analyze. As to why perception is sometimes bad, the fastest vehicle I’ve ever been in was a “Mini” I bought the first time I was stationed in England. While the speedometer would only read something like 60 mph when I was really cruising, My perception is that it was closer to 160 mph.

Nice setup. What sort of mount are you using, and how is it attached to your sled? It seems my feeling sorry for myself for not being able to go out to play with the guys this weekend payed off, and the wife just let me pick up a Polaris of my own. It's not really a snow machine though, it a Silver Ranger RZR. Now I'm just waiting for the local trailer store to open because it's too big to fit in my shortbed truck. I've also got to try and figure out how to mount the GPS, and which GPS unit would work out best in it. I'm thinking I might go with a NUVI running TOPO maps, but haven't actually tried loading TOPO into a nuvi yet. I think it is a good choice. I have a Colorado which is similiar to an oregon. I have a mount on my snowmoible dash. I can see the screen just fine. The built in topos has never not got me out of a remote location that I did not know where I was. The thing with snowmobiling, your not looking at the screen the entire time. You usually slow down or stop so you can study where you are. The larger screen size of the colorado/Oregon is nice for a quick glance and shows more area. I also found no reason to run power. With NIMH rechargables I can get 8-12 hours with the backlight on. I carry at least 2 extra sets. The paperless geocaching is nice as well. My friend has teh 60CSX and I like the colorado much better in both outdoor activities and geocaching.

As an update to the Dakota performance, Garmin has changed the firmware resulting in the compass performing quite differently. I haven’t had a calibration issue since the change, having gone through a couple sets of batteries now. While the calibration failure thing seems to be fixed, the compass isn’t the smooth scrolling unit it used to be. As you tilt the unit, it now fluxgates plus or minus ten degrees or so, and is a fair bit more jumpy as compared to the quite a bit slower and smoother behavior it displayed with the older firmware. I like the fact that the calibration issue is gone, but liked the smoother compass behavior better than what it does now. That said, I like the 3 axis version of a compass when compared to the regular Garmin offerings. With the latest firmware though I prefer the Delorme compass behavior over that on the Dakota, at least based on my limited experience with the new software.

Like when I'm going from Pipe Springs NM to Kanab Point, I do it with the factory installed GPS/NAV in the dash on my Jeep GC turned off and my PN-40 turned on. No clown faces intended. Hmmm, someone is trying to make me jealous again. Seems the wife is working most of this weekend, and I didn’t get to head south to play with the guys. It’s a big off roading shindig involving over 200 vehicles. Even worse, had I been able to go, it would have only been as a navigator/spotter. My rock crawler was costing me way to much money, so I got rid of it a few years back now. My wife gets scared to death driving a quad, so that option doesn’t really work, but I’m politicking hard for a Polaris RZR. My 4X4 stock pickup has the turning radius of a bus, and hangs up on everything ruling it out for even moderate trail running. On the plus side, thanks to GPS I don’t have to work on her fear of my getting us lost. One thing I might mention though, is that if you’re someplace where you can see the GPS in your jeep, you’re most likely not really off road, unless of course you just rolled off the mountain. In most areas, should you actually get off the road in your vehicle, you’re looking at a very expensive potential fine.

WARNING: DeLorme Fanboy PRESIDENT comment coming: ......... Roddy my man, you do indeed have passion for your GPS. I wouldn’t want you any other way than your highly passionate self. I would however suggest you might want to watch for areas where you passion might be somewhat affecting your powers of observation so to speak, and lead you to over hype the product so to the point where I think many may be somewhat disappointed in their Delorme GPS if they purchase one, then have to deal with the reality of it. As some examples: If someone is venturing into areas where terrain or canopy cover are causing their “H” model eTrex, or 60 series unit some reception or accuracy issues, switching to a PN-40 isn’t going to solve that for them. It isn’t any more sensitive or accurate. On the other hand, in some situations it displays a more steady position indication, so if interpreting the screen (Jumping around stuff) is causing the individual issues, the Delorme unit might be something worth looking into. If an individual is looking to upgrade from a modern non expandable memory unit because they can’t keep enough map data in their unit for their purposes, making it sound like you can cover all the area the individual might be looking to explore in aerial photos. When discussing using aerial photos with the unit, failing to spell out the memory, and downloading time requirements could result in individuals being quite disappointed in the unit. Finally, while Delorme appears to be up and coming in the handheld GPS market, do you really think they represent more than maybe 1 or 2 percent of the handheld units out there right now? I haven’t seen any data that would help, but I see a lot of people using GPS on the trails, and back country roads. Of the hundreds of units I’ve seen out there, I think I’ve only seen one person that had a Delorme handheld. Even if they find a way to totally dominate sales, I would think it would take years to take a significant portion of the handheld user base. Store wise in my region of the US, which has a lot of outdoors types, the only two stores I've seen that even carry Delorme are REI, and Cabelas. Keep the passion, and extol the virtues of the unit such as value, stable indications, paperless capability, and aerial photo capabilities. At the same time, don’t mislead, or avoid the shortcomings of the unit.

So do the folks who market these things As far as I'm concerned, saying a GPSR has an "electronic compass" is ALMOST meaningless -- because it could mean too many things. At the very least, it means no moving parts (e.g., no physical compass needle). But beyond that it only mean "it uses electronics to tell your direction..." If the GPSR guesses your direction by plotting your points when you move, it can simulate what a real compass does... without any kind of magnetic sensor. Some would call that an "electronic compass" and others wouldn't. Saying "magnetic compass" is a little better. This could be the swinging needle of yore, or it could be any variety of magnetometers. There's a fairly long article over on GPS World ... http://www.gpsworld.com/gps/the-magnetic-compass-and-gps-828 that discusses how they work - and it does refer to "Needle Compasses" and "Electronic Compasses" Whether or not your personal jewelry has affected your own GPSR's compass in any way that you notice, ANY magnetic compass (mechanical or electronic) will be affected by metal objects nearby. That's what calibration is for -- to adjust the device for its environment. I remember a conversation about this recently actually, something about using a metal carbiner to hook your GPS to yourself? However, a watch or other jewelry messing with my compass...I'll pay closer attention and see.... OK, question time...if jewelty can mess with the compass, what would a motorcycle's gas tank do? I'll tell you my observation...stopped and moving, the compass was still stable and true. All day. Roddy, It looks like somehow, the orange glow from your PN-40 might be blinding your observation powers somewhat. Magnetic needle, flux valve, or any type of compass, the basics still apply. The compass simply detects magnetic fields. No matter how you compensate for the conditions as they exist when you do your calibration, the minute you change something, accuracy of the compass in regards to the earths magnetic fields will change. Electrical fields, magnetic metals etc all alter the magnetic field around them. As these items move closer, or farther away from your sensor, they're going to change your reading somewhat, with some changes being very slight, others being quite extreme. The neat thing about GPS units is that once you're moving, they don't have to rely on magnetic fields, and can instead do very accurate calculations of your direction of travel through other means. Knowing your location and direction of travel allows your unit to compute all the other "Compass" information quite accurately, and without interference from magnetic fields.

Wow, it’s amazing how “Interesting” these discussions can get. To me, it kind of looks like the Fan boy thing with PN-40 is getting a little out of control again. To throw in my two cents worth of reality (Admittedly, like everyone else it‘s “MY VERSION“ of reality), while the PN-40 is a respectable unit, and a very decent bargain in my opinion: It’s no more accurate than any of the other modern units out there such as the Oregons, Dakota’s, etrex’s, 60’s etc. In flat areas with open skies it can be accurate to within feet, in the canyons it’s often off by hundreds of feet. It’s no more sensitive than any of the other units around. It will loose reception in heavy treecover, canyons etc at least as often if not more so than most modern units. While it does auto route, it is probably the worst at it of any GPS unit I’ve used with this capability. Much of this is due to the maps, and there aren’t any options at this time to improve on that. It’s very hard to get an idea of the PN-40 through reviews/opinions because compared to other units there are not many PN-40’s out there. For whatever reason, the PN-40 does seem to have a fan boy base though. Maybe it’s the quality of the unit, maybe the bright color changes brain chemistry, hard to say which…. Of all the GPS units I’ve used over the years, the PN-40 crashes the most, although I must say it’s always been recoverable, and most of the problems I’ve experienced are related to it shutting down improperly when the batteries get low. Others have mentioned ways to overcome this. Whether or not you care to Myself, I don’t think the capability of the PN-40 acceptable at all for road routing, so I completely discount that capability and recommend that people owe it to themselves to get something that does this job competently such as a NUVI. If you have a nuvi, it can take care of the paperless stuff for you, allowing you to use virtually any handheld for the navigation stuff. Depending on how you do your off road exploring, there are a lot of good choices out there.

Basically, piggybacked on the GPS signal is data on where the satellites will be at any given time in the future. With this data, by knowing the time, and approximate location the gps receiver knows what satellites to look for, and approximately where they should be. For the GPS receiver to obtain this information and store it for future reference takes 15 minutes or so of uninterrupted reception.

I wouldn't expect any of the newer units to do any better accuracy wise than your old trusty eTrex. You'll find some differences in the way they behave while moving through canyons and stuff, but they are just different methods of handling signal loss, multipath etc. Basic accuracy has pretty much remained the same. Myself, I think the H series GPS units are greatly under rated. Hiking the backcountry, you see lots of people using them. They're rugged, small and lightweight, fantastic battery life, easy to use one handed, and extremely dependable. I know if I'm headed deep into the wilderness on a hiking trip and the choice is either my PN-40 or eTrex C, the eTrex is the one that will guide me in and out.

Just a thought, but make sure you select off road when you are trying to route to the cache. If not, it will try to route you on the road and do all sorts of strange stuff when you're looking at the compass screen

Roddy, Sounds like you let the rain wash away your enthusiasm. (You can build a fire in the woods even after days of rain, and you could have bought a new stove in Cody) Been there, almost did the bail out thing on a tour of Britain from John O’groats to Lands End. Only having 7 days to allot for the actual ride meant we had to average about 137 miles a day on rack laden bikes for the route we had picked. The first day, we faced extreme winds, horizontal rain, and only made it to Inverness (approx 120 miles), which was quite demoralizing. Believe me, no matter how good the rain gear, it’s of no value while riding hard. The next two days it continued to rain, but the wind backed off which allowed our spirits to pick up some, (Wet clothes chaff everywhere, and Vaseline was my best friend) We also had stove problems (a little butane unit that leaked all the gas out when you punctured the canister with the needle because the o-ring split.) In addition, we found we drastically underestimated our food requirements, but managed to work around those issues (the first day we soaked our dehydrated stuff in cold water and ate it uncooked, next day bought a new stove). At the time, as I recall it felt more like a death march than a fun trip, but now I look back on it as a great adventure….. Back to the original question, it wasn’t mentioned as to whether or not the Road Biker wants to use the GPS as a navigation or training aid while on the bike. Is mapping a requirement? Trip computer/speed indication and the like? How about pulse and Cadence capability? For basic navigation to the cache, any modern 12 channel or above receiver will do fine. Myself I really like the eTrex units along those lines. If he wants maps, paperless capability or anything like that my suggestions might be different.

I’ve pretty much quit doing side by side tests, but the wife and I did head out Sunday for a days adventure that included about half a dozen geocaches, with her using the PN-40, me using the Dakota. The caches wer scattered over 20 miles or so, terrain was a combination, canyons, somewhat light treecover in areas, open skies in others. A large part of the day was working the top of a mountain range. Reception wise, both units again seem quite similar in performance. The PN-40 position indications seemed slightly more stable, with the Dakota jumping around just a hair more, but at least based on where we found the geocaches, it seemed to zero out slightly better on this day. As a general rule, the PN-40 seems to do somewhat better in flat terrain, the Dakota in Mountains, but the rule seems to get broken fairly often. One thing that surprised me on this trip is that both units needed the compass to be recalibrated just about every time we got out of the truck. (The units remained on the whole time, both for the short hikes, and while driving the very rough trails/roads) I’ve had issues with the Dakota compass loosing calibration, and the unit needing re-booted before I could re-calibrate, so this didn’t surprise me, but normally the PN-40 only needs to be calibrated once per set of batteries. I don’t know if it was the extreme bouncing around on the 4 wheel drive tracks or what. The other issue I ran into is that the PN-40 wasn’t able to make it through the whole trip on a single set of batteries, and we let it go until it shut itself down. When initially re-booted after changing the batteries, it didn’t even try to lock on to any satellites (Zero bars for over 5 minutes) I had to re-boot one more time and it worked fine. As a final observation, I carried the Dakota in a small camera bag on my belt this trip, and found that when I do so it’s important to lock the screen or strange things can happen with my data fields, configuration etc. Evidently I was pushing buttons so to speak as I blasted through the brush in areas.

Boy, I'm all sorts of jealous here. I haven't gotten around to sending in for my TOPO 8 upgrade yet. I'll take this thread as my reminder to do it before my 6 months expires. I'm also jealous because it looks like someone else is heading down to Escalante to play and I haven't had the chance to in awhile. If you're heading that way, even the road in between Escalante and Boulder can be a worthwhile trip if you like views. Caches are a little bit scare, but the ones in the area are pretty much all worth checking out. There is one right by Calf creek Falls as I recal, one of the must see spots in the area:

I guess that you mean the new etrexes with a H before the Cx, that have high-sensitivity receivers? Mine is older, without H. So it's not as good as them, atleast not under treecover.. ............. Actually, I don't think you'll find accuracy to be any better than even the old grayscale etrex series, at least the ones that had WAAS. The new units are more sensitive, which is nice under treecover, but can be somewhat of a curse in the canyons where you could get some multipath errors. Seems there are always tradeoffs somewhere. .....The Dakota and Oregon are almost identical operationally. The Dakota cannot do terrain shading or 3D rendering of maps like the Oregon can. This would be helpful if you plan on using the GPS with Topo maps as you can see a relative depiction of what the terrain ahead might look like on the GPS. Aside from the 3-axis compass, the Dakota does not have anything that the Oregon doesn't. The Dakota does shading with the DEM based topo maps. I don't turn it on though because the shaded parts of the "Green" forest areas on the map appear way to dark with the shading turned on. The Dakotas don't however do 3D views.

I have the Dakota 20 (a few hours old) and am trying to figure it out. Field notes seem to be a tough one. When you have a geocache selected as a "Go to", from the main menu (Where you select map, setup, compass etc) hit the geocaches icon and you will get an options page where you can amongst other things "log attempt" with options to input whatever notes, data etc that you feel like doing on the little touch screen.

Just a few days for the scab to go away and I'll be good as new. Actually, I shouldn't admit it, but I've taken a branch or two because I was looking at the GPS instead of paying attention to where I was going, and when I first started wearing bifocals, I would turn my whole head way down at first and got a bump or two then as well. Being tall doesn't help I guess, and the fact I tend to wander off the beaten path means a a scratch or two from time to time. I admit, I had no good reason to buy either unit. My Vista works pretty good other than needing minor repairs to the rubber band. Using the paperless feature doesn't really work for me because Most of the time, even when I find a cache I don't bother opening it, and if I do I often don't get around to logging. I tend to use geocaching as a road map so to speak for interesting areas to explore. It's also a good place to find people who actually know how to use their GPS units.

I just recently purchased the Dakota 20 even though I could have picked up the oregon 300 cheaper. I liked the slightly smaller size, 3 axis compass (Although it has calibration issues), longer battery life, and the fact that the Dakota feels a little tougher. I still worry about the ruggedness of the touch screen as I beat my receivers up over time. If I wan't the unit for road use as well, I may have gone for the Oregon for the higher res display. I would imagine if you wait a little while though, the Dakota should start being discounted so you can pick it up for less than an oregon. Edited to add: As for basic accuracy, I haven't seen anything that would indicate the new units are any more accurate than you etrex. All you'll really gain is paperless capability and touchscreen with either unit.

I've been logging tracks, and comparing reception for years now. The first unit I noticed that made a significant trade off between sensitivity and multipath was the sportrak. Here is a link to a track of the same trail I made many years ago with an Etrex legend. It had reception issues a couple times, but in no way would I say it was any less accurate. Since they've gone to 12 channel receivers, the only real accuracy improvements I've noticed were when they turned off SA, and WAAS. The rest has been whistles and bells, with a little sensitivity improvement that has mostly come at the expense of Multipath susceptibility. Virtually all of the High sensitivity receivers seem to do it.