arthurking83

Yeah! Most people call it a GPS, but they tend to type it as GPSr Personally I prefer GPSr, even though it requires more effort!!

Freebies from Magellan?

The quote was abbreviated for the sake of clarity, quoting too much text is a bad thing...... KeepItSimpleS*****!!!! I'm assuming the readers are probably tired of your twisted arguments, as much as I was, so I felt compelled to reply(point out the errors of your ways!) The quoted text are in your own words! I never re-arranged your text, to make it sound like you said something else... YOU said and (exactly what can this be referring to....I only see one definitive meaning here!!!) The only other possible explanation of what you attempted to say, is that Garmin owners don't actually operate their GPSr, in the traditional sense. ie. turn the GPS on and download waypoints to the GPS. What do Garmin owners downlaod waypoints to?Magellan owners tend to download waypoints to the GPSr So on one hand..... You don't need groups because Garmins are so easy to operate.......and yet on the other hand you are here( in this group) in large numbers because Garmins are really easy to use and users don't need any guidance???............ (why?.... you explain, in unambiguous terms, exactly what you REALLY meant!!!) So are the few unfortunates that are here because they need help on managing data on their Garmins, 'a figment of your imagination', or real?.....and just how many of them are there? Do they account for the numbers in the 2:1 ratio? You are going to have to supply some figures, or lose more credibility!!! (next time be careful of your propensity to boastful claims) I think you just didn't realise you had contradicted what you had previously said..... Learn to understand what you are talking about, and try to remember your previous arguments, and try to make fewer assumptions! I wasn't born with all the knowledge I've gathered on operating any of my GPSrs' to their fullest potential....none of the manufacturers will post info on the hidden menus, and ability to modify and load third party maps...etc" I use 'groups' to gather such info, and I suspect many other users do also (hence the need for this group!) So be careful when YOU state that (ps. that is not taken out of context! That is what you wrote, and I can only gather one meaning in this text! If you really were trying to say something other than what I just quoted, then maybe you should have written that!) Now..... can I go home with my "WIN!" ?

You don't need "groups" because Garmin are easy to operate, yet here you are in a "group" to learn how to operate your Garmin!! That makes much more sense now...... I think I get it?? You were right!!!!!............. "You Win" (What you won, may be below my level of understanding........) So therefore all Garmin groups are there only for the purpose of teaching people ...... Is your Garmin that difficult to understand that you can't remember how to download/save/upload waypoints or files? Must be those 'easy to operate Garmins' are causing severe cerebral side effects! You should dump the Garmin and get a Magellan!! They are really easy on waypoint mangement...........! I win!! .........(next please!!) )

So by your reasoning........... again!! Anyone that buys a Garmin is a lemmings............. so the Lemmings count on Geocaching.com is 2:1? ......therefore......... I win!! So you're not actually a part of this group? You're not actually here? 2:1 huh? After having bought a Garmin...... ........you really needed a win!!

So, in summary, it seems that Magellan's have the better recievers, and Garmin rely heavily on their better customer support to keep their customers happy! Easy choice then..... If your worried that you're $400 toy is going to break down.....get the Garmin! If you want to play with your $400 toy 'care free' get the Magellan! too easy!! The most likely explanation of the 2:1 Garmin to Magellan owners statistic!!! So by this reasoning.......I can safely say that Magellans must be better!....Because the 10 people I know with GPSrs' all have Magellans!! (and Meridians at that!!) So that gives Magellan a 10:0 ratio.................. and that means............? So we base our assumptions of how much better brand x is over brand y because a small group of individuals use brand x....regardless of the facts that brand y may have a more rugged reciever, and marketed towards a different social group! OK...put another way! On the Yahoo Meridian group, there are 10000 members!! (not to mention the 1000 explorists...2000sportrack.....etc..etc) the CLOSEST Garmin Group is 5000!!..... and that's for the, Foretrex/Forerunner models...fantastic geocaching receivers!! The two main Garmin GPS groups would have to be the GPSMap and Etrex groups with a combined 5500 membership!! Just goes to show what figure really mean!! I'll see your 2(Garmin):1(Magellan) users , and raise it to 3(Magellan):1(Garmin)!!! If you want a GPSr that is accurate, reliable, rugged, accurate, cheap, has a good user support base, and last of all accurate.............there is no chioce past the Magellan! And does it not occur to someone why Garmin needs so many models to compete with a real GPS??? like JohhnyV said Neo_Geo!! You got your head is so far up your.........................GPS! ....... ... it's a wonder you can even read the forums!! Next time you go making assumptions centred around baseless facts and figures, do a little research first!

I think you have to use the value of 1 Gig in binary bits?? Therefore for your 1gig, you may need 1048576 as opposed to 1000000. I have a 1 gig card......I may have a shot on my MeriColor!

I'm 99.9% sure they are not interchangeable, and that (depending on which model Fuji) the camera won't accept SD cards!! Reason I say this......my sister recently got a Fuji 3500 (something or aother!!) It came with a 8meg xD card. I have lots of SD cards!!! None would fit So of course she had to seek out a xD card of reaonable capacity......... They appear to be 2x the price of SD cards of equal capacity! I think Fuji deliberately made the xD card incompatible with cheaper SD(etc...) cards to protect it's vested interests!!! AND Magellans don't accept anything other than SD compatible card.......they should accept transflash carsds in the appropriate adapter???? (I'm about to test that out!! )

Geez! I always thought that the GPS sats had hi-res video cameras, and that men in black suits were watching everyone, and were sending positional info to the ones they could see carrying a GPSr......... I guess my paranoia comes from watching too many X-flies( ) episodes!!!.............(you never know!!)

If you have a laptop, or access to one, or a PDA, or access to one of those too (eg from work??) you will find that "mouse" or "puck" type GPS recievers are much cheaper!! Note they will not work stand alone, and need the Host....Laptop or PDA to work. For this reason they are cheaper(mobility), but sometimes it pays to spend an extra $50 on a basic handheld. Just some info...... that $50 GPSr's exist, and what they are, and do!! as you said....."but I am coming to you all with no knowlage at all of GPS's"

Sounds great but I hope you aren't making a "chalk and cheese" comparison with a "night and day" conclusion?????? What version of Mapsend Topo v's Mapcreate? I see you are trying to compare an Sportrack Map with an Expedition C!!!! These GPSr are not really comparable, and you should have really chosen a explorist x00, or a GarminABCD!!! As the explorist is as old as the hills and the expedition is.......well, not quite old tech!!! Now did I mention that my Lowrance GlobalMapper is not quite as effective as my Meridian Color!!!

I don't have any experience with either the etrex or the sirfIII chipset, but I do know that it's always more accurate to "log" the GPSr output, rather than rely on the resulting track log! The reason seems fairly obvious (to me??) that the GPSr has to attempt to log x kilometers of track log to a limited amount of file space, and thus deletes what it considers "uneccessary track points" This results in what you are describing as inaccurate track. eg to illustrate my point! today I did 406klm (yesterday I did 320, on Monday I did 160) The GPSr doesn't know how many kilometers I'm going to do, any more than I do! But it has to attempt to fit this tracklog into a 2000 file. I can't(don't) understand how it knows, that tomorrow I'm going to do 1600klms and try to squeeze it onto 1 log file!!! Somewhere in between my pressing the power button for the first time, and downloading the tracklog to the PC, it knows that I only needed 974(out of 2000) track points!!! I have heard that there is a way to get the raw tracklog data off a Garmin! My personal choice is a Magellan, but I haven't heard of any method to retrieve the raw track log (if it exists??). Another method is to use a datalogger to log the GPSr output. cheers.

I can understand, "where you are coming from", with the young boys bit!! (I have a 5 year old, I'd like to take treasure hunting...one day! But a half broken knee that won't hold out!!) But as a non-technical person!!! Some advice...... save your money on autorouting recievers! They can be handy, but when it fails (as electronic devices are prone to do!!), you will be stuck in no-mans land, with 3 young boys, with no clue on how to get home!! Save $100 and the associated cost of the mapping, and get to understand an unfamiliar environment! My motto is "plan for the worst, and hope for the best". Spend 10 bucks and get a book on, 'how to read a map'! Spend $50 bucks on good maps. They will always get you home(as long as you know how to read them) Get out there on some easy hunts, or better still! Create some of your own, in a park, and set the young boys onto them with a GPS. Any old GPS! Hide some stuff yourself and take the boys out there, let them find your hidden treasure! Beats sitting, playing some mindless shooting gallery computer game! Then slowly get into the real thing!! Whatever suits your style It sometimes seems hard against the rising tide of popularity, but I still don't trust autorouting software.

I reckon he's just copied and pasted all the info off the yahoo sites, and made a PowerPoint presentation, because people like bell, whistles and pretty blinking lights!! You want to make large maps on your SD card???? ...... just edit the Mapsend.ini file in the installation directory. Look under the the [DEVICE_DEFAULTS] section. Find the line that begins with Conv_Memory_Size=......... (with the 16384..... or whatever value is there) Change the number to anything you like, but be warned that, a number too large can slow down or crash the GPSr!! A good practical limit, is 64Megabytes or the number 65536 This gives you the ability to load region files of 64Meg, which add up to 256 Meg for each imag(.img) file. You can then load 9 image files onto a 2 gig SD card, and you're right to go!!! There!!!........... just saved you $6!!

Just a quick reply....! I just got myself a 1Gb "Astone" SD card (yep that's right Astone, I never heard of them before too!) . I'm about to recieve a very nice digital camera as a gift, and I purchased the SDcard in preparation So, of course I load some files to the card, to see if the thing is recognised by the MeriColor...... No Problems!! The new SD card is a faster generation SD card (so now I'm looking for a USB2.0 card reader!), and I assumed the worst, when attempting to mate it to the Meridian. ps. it was 3/4 the price of a similar Toshiba/SanDisk/etc brand name!! Hope this helps!

That's a very strange reaction from Magellan!!???? For several months, they kept us salivating for the release of the Explorist XL!! Now they say "new models" due for release!! I somehow don't feel compelled to "give a stuff"!! It will be overpriced, have too many bugs, will be only for in car navigation, and they won't have a 12volt charger, and mounting bracket available for about 1 year!!! Sound cynical?..........Nah!! not me!

I'm with Moun10bike! I used both some years back ('98??) and I found Ozi was better back then. Haven't tried Fugawi since then, but the support Ozi gets from third party software developers is incredible!!

I think the general consensus was that 64Meg(Conv_Memory_Size=65536) seemed to be the best all round limit for regions (ie. 256Meg for each detail image file) While some peolpe found that 128 or 256Meg regions created woefully slow map refresh rates on the GPSr screen, and locked the GPSr and had to do a three-fingered reset...etc.

Do they make batteries with dilithium crystals in them yet?

The other day I noticed at a local camping superstore chain outlet (Rays Outdoor), they had a Magellan ColorTrack, and a Map330, NEW!! for sale in the glass cabinet! At about the same, or more than the price of an explorist 500!! Any wonder they were still for sale!

Don't feel stupid!! This is a setting in the Power button menu! [Menu] -> SetUp -> "scroll up" to "Power Key". You have somehow managed to set the Power Key to "On/Off protected" This is for accidental power on while in a shirt pocket, bag, etc..... If you prefer the old setting (the quick press - On), then set the Power Key to "No protection" should be easy as that! (I hope??)

So the success of the explorist sales 'disaster' is based on the fact that Garmin produce a new model GPSr every couple of months? It seems a bit strange that magellan are perservering with a sales disaster model lineup, while Garmin continue to produce winners in all categories??? One would have to assume that if Magellan are only concentrating now on the sales of the explorist, and that the sales disaster of the 400/500/600 will lead the company into receivership? So Magellans/Thales managment, will be looking at the sales figures of the handheld lineup, and see that the explorists are not selling, then decide that the Meridians are to be discontinued (does that make sense?) I think the problems with threads of this nature, are not the "mine is better than yours" argument, like in the Bike and 4WD forums, it's more to do with misinformation!! Most models of GPSr are about equal in terms of reception, and accuracy, but until recently(maybe 2 years??) Garmin have struggled to keep up with any Magellan..... I think you will find that the explorist has been the sales success, and that it has eroded into the Meridian sales, and that's why the Meridian has been discontinued!! Although that's only an educated guess, that's based on an assumption that in business you stop producing the item that IS NOT selling well and concentrate on the ones THAT ARE!! I think JohnnyVegas may be onto something when he proposed that the reason that you won't see a 400-600 in the shops is because it's already been snapped up! In fact all the camping shops I've been to, all have stock of the 400-600, and the E-trex models! I've yet to see an explorist XL, or any other "non E-trex" Garmin. Some of the electrical superstores have stocks of Navmans and C320's and 2620's etc....not much in the handhelds department. cheers.

OK so the new, improved signal will lead to a 15% improvement accuracy? 15% improvement to what component of the accuracy? 15% of the positional measurement, or the probability of the positional estimate? ie is the EPE now going to be 8.5ft (as opposed to 10ft), 95% probability, or 10ft, 95.75% probability? there is more to GPS accuracy than just the positional data, it also needs to consider the probability of the estimate to be within the bounds of the reported error. EPE? Don't trust it!!

This is just the type of antenna that the GPS uses. It doesn't seem to make as much of a difference as the quality of the receiver chipset!! The SportTrack is a good unit! And comparing it to the Garmin 60 series is a bit unfortunate!! The SportTrack is so much older in design!.......... The Mapsend (and Mapsource) maps are only as accurate as the data source they came from, and you may find that you have an old version of Mapsend! Never fear, as the Mapsend data is editable, thanks to some very industrious folks...... very industrious folks here! Warning! Map editing can be harmful to your social life....may be addictive, frustratingly difficult and confusing, and may lead to conversations of an incomprehensible nature to your non-GPS friends! The only 'real' problem with Magellan mapping software is it's infrequent update schedule, and a lack of minor updates/bugfixes!! cheers.

A good quality USB-Serial converter/adapter should work perfectly, so there's no real need to update your GPS based on that problem!! One of the better USB-Serial chipsets I have found is the Prolific PL2303 (with the latest drivers!), is rock solid and fuss free They cost about $10 from ebay (or wherever). But, of course, if you need to have a new GPSr......well, I understand then! ( I'd recommend the Explorist400)