Didjerrydo

Yeah, the Colorado's display does seem a bit harder to see in average room light than the display of previous units like the 60's. It's fine outdoors or with the backlight though. Garmin must have to use some sort of polorization material over the LCD display that has an unfortunate side effect of reducing the visibility of the display somehow.

Yes, I have delt extensively with both, and find the Colorado's display hard to see in average room light. Maybe a little harder to see than the 60's. It's fine in sunlight, or indoors with the backlight on. Garmin must have to use some sort of polorization filter over the display to make it work properly. Apparently this is the problem that makes it so hard to see indoors. Looks like they could fix this issue.

I'm beginning to notice that my Colorado 300 is occasionally failing to acquire automatically when I boot it up. It did this yesterday after I had moved it about 15 miles while it was off. It would open the satellite status page, but never acquire. Finally I pressed "Options" and chose "AutoLocate Position" and it immediatly located. Again, this morning, here at home, no location change, it did the same thing but failed to respond to the "AutoLocate Position" command even after several attempts. I turned it off, then back on and it finally acquired. Sounds like an issue getting worse I'm afraid. I am a dealer and I say one other 300 at the store boot up fine once but on the second attempt completely fail. After talking at lenght to Garmin's tech weenies, we decided it was time for it to go home to Garmin. This bothers me. I'm wondering if this more of a software issue or a hardware failure? Perhaps G-O-Cashers should add this one to his screw-up list. Has anyone else out there encountered anything like this?

I was just wondering what is the signaficance of the number on the right side of the listing of each waypoint in the "Waypoint Manager" on the Garmin Colorado's?

Nope, I listed as an issue on the list but I haven't raised with Garmin. Probably worth a call because I miss it as well when finding caches. GO$Rs Funny thing. I noticed today that the Zoom Level settings for the map configuration DO go down to 20'. I wonder if the max zoom level is map specific? Can anyone with city nav or something other than the default map set on the 400t comment if you can zoom in further than 80' with that map set selected? GO$Rs I have both City Nav NT & Topo 2008 in my Colorado 300, and no matter which maps are "switched" on or off, the best I can zoom in is 80'. How did you get it in to 20'?

I just noticed a strange thing today with my Colorado 300. I was about 15 miles from home (where I had turned the unit off) when I turned it back on and found it wasn't locating. It was just showing 3 or 4 satellites but was not showing any signal from them. Finally I went to Options>Autolocate and it poped right up as located. I've never seen this happen with prior units. What do you think was going on here?

What exactly is the difference between software version so & so and GPS version so & so anyway?

Does nobody out there know anything about this?

Heck, there's no security restrictions whatsoever on TOPO 2008 like there is on City Navigator (one shot and that's it). Just borrow a friend DVD and install it in your computer. I don't think that's unethical since Garmin puts no limits on it!

I've noticed with the new Colorado's, that Garmin has brought back the feature of barometric pressure plotting with the unit turned off. I always thought this was really a neat function that the old 60 CS and C had but it went away with the Cx and CSx units (just like the alarm clock). Anyway, it's back, but what I was wondering, was the fact that Garmin warns about removing the batteries from the Colorado while this function is activated (obviously), but never makes it clear if it is harmful to the unit itself or simply messes up and interrupts the pressure plot itself? Does anyone have any insight to this issue?

Does anybody have an answer as to why Garmin chose to limit its map zoom-in scale to 80 feet? That seems kinda' dumb with a high resolution display such a the Colorado has. It's always been all the way into 20 feet with previous units. This is really agravating when you're trying to find an exact point. Is there some way that I haven't discovered to override this and get in closer?

I don't have my Colorado with me but I'm guessing the first screen is the first Shortcut listed in the current Profile's list of Shortcuts. Set your profile and then go to Shortcuts->Setup->Shortcuts (I think!). You can move Shortcuts around by selecting them and selecting move up or move down. I'm guessing the one at the top is the one that shows up first. BTW, I'm not sure I've ever seen anything other than the map screen show up first but I haven't played with it. GO$Rs I don't quite follow you here. I've tried to do this but it don't seem to work, or I just don't understand the process. Select Shortcuts->Setup->Shortcuts. From the list select the page you want as your startup page and select "Move Up" until this is at the top of the Shortcuts list. When you power up with this profile set, this will be the start screen. Since the startup screen is dependent on the profile, the specific screen you get will be the one for the profile selected when you power off. GO$Rs Got it finally! That's the trick- thanks greatly. Jerry

What is, and where do you get this "chip set" firmware anyway?

I don't have my Colorado with me but I'm guessing the first screen is the first Shortcut listed in the current Profile's list of Shortcuts. Set your profile and then go to Shortcuts->Setup->Shortcuts (I think!). You can move Shortcuts around by selecting them and selecting move up or move down. I'm guessing the one at the top is the one that shows up first. BTW, I'm not sure I've ever seen anything other than the map screen show up first but I haven't played with it. GO$Rs I don't quite follow you here. I've tried to do this but it don't seem to work, or I just don't understand the process.

Did you try adjusting the following setting? Shortcuts -> Setup -> Map -> Options -> Advanced -> Zoom Levels -> Street Label Everyone that finds this to be a poor decision and a very needed software update should all call Garmin at 1-800-800-1020 and gripe en mass about this screw-up. I think they base their updates on the number of complaints of any given issue. If all the folks that have commented on this subject here gave them a call about it, maybe they'd get a clue!

I find it rather irritating that I never know exactly what will be the first screen that will appear when my Colorado 300 boots up. On my 60CSx it was always the old satellite status screen. Seems as though it is "profile dependent" with the Colorado though. Is there any way to control or set which screen appears at boot up? I kinda' liked the satellite status screen first off to be able to see what was happening. Also, I was just wondering if there was anything one could do to change the boring black screen as the unit is powering up. I can't believe Garmin didn't use some cutsy little animation here with a new whiz bang unit like the Colorado!

As already said, copy .jpg files to the Profiles directory. I don't know if it will size them on the fly, but they should be 240x400 pixels. I'm using various photos as backgrounds on my 400. It's cute, but for the sake of legibility I'll probably create an off-white rectangle to use once I get over the novelty of pictures. Cool, I resized in PhotoShop to 240X400 pixels, 72 dpi, and 3.333" X 5.556 " then added text with my personal data (if found stuff) and put it in the Profiles directory and it worked like a charm! Thanks.

Nope, in the manual it specifically says that you can choose from preloaded backgrounds or "load your own". Trouble is it doesn't say how. I've tried to choose an image in "picture viewer, but that's not an option apparently.

OK, I give up- what's the trick to supposedly being able to "load your own" display background in the Garmin Colorado's? I assume you can somehow use a .jpg image taken with a digital camera but I've yet to figure out how to make it happen.

I know this is perhaps a bit trivial but does it bug you a bit that the "weather cap" on the new Garmin Colorado's seems pretty wimpy? Mine comes loose (open) so easily that it is practically useless. Seems as though Garmin could have better engineered this part. If it's open can water get in the unit or just corrode and screw up the plug sockets?

I have loaded everything but Hawaii & Puerto Rica from City Navigator NT onto a 2 GB SD card plus 15 or so maps from Topo 2008. I loaded all these thru the card slot in my computer and they all function perfectly in my Colorado 300. I can easily switch map sets to view, although it seems that the road & street maps have priority if all map selection boxes are checked. What I'm wondering (since it took so long to do this) is, would I be able to stick this loaded SD card back into the computer and re-select a somewhat larger group of topo maps and load them to the card without erasing all the City Navigator stuff?

I am the "GPS guy" at a local outdoor outfitter here in Western North Carolina and we just got in the first Colorado 300's yesterday. I've got to admit, they're pretty slick although out of the 3 units that came in, one failed. It initially booted up and acquired fine, then on the next attempt, it just failed to acquire- on the second attempt to boot up, it acted as though it was in the "GPS Off" mode and would not acquire. I hope this isn't indicative of the units as a whole! I am currently wrestling with loading City Navigator into it (which is usually a pain at best, due to all the security hassels. I was a bit dissapointed to see that you can only zoom in to the 80 foot scale on the map page. I thought that was a bit wierd since this is such a hi-res display. Wonder what Garmin was thinking there? It's good to see that Garmin has brought back both the "Alarm Clock" and the ability to plot barometric pressure with the unit turned off. These features were both missing in the 60Cx & 60CSx units.

I know this topic has been mentioned in previous posts, but I have yet to see a clear explination of it. How do you use the USB mass storage mode and exactly what can you do with it anyway?

The 60 CSx cannot handle the 1.7 V that lithiums put out. You can put them in some other device, such as a flashlight, for a little while till the voltage gets reduced to at least 1.5 V and they'll work fine.