Hertzog
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Posts posted by Hertzog
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I haven't seen a 2000 mAh non-ULSD NiMH in AGES. At 2000 mAh capacity, by any chance are they ULSD (aka hybrid aka "pre-charged")?
Probably not. Mine measured only 322 mAh "out of the box"; typically you can expect to get 75-80% for the hybrids under those conditions (by comparison, 8 eneloops I recently checked averaged 1474 mAh out of the box). Before giving up on the Garmins, though, I'll check their long term self-discharge.
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I dropped my 60CSX about 3ft, and now it no longer navigates (shows distance, heading, and ETA on the compass screen). Oddly enough all other functions work just fine. Even more oddly, after picking a waypoint but before hitting goto - it does show the (correct) heading and distance.
I replaced the batteries and did a hard reset, and the problem still remains... Any ideas?
Try reseatng the SD card; it might have gotten dislodged when you dropped it. May not be the solution, but easy enough to try.
John
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A side note on batteries: I got the nice Maha for Christmas and have been checking out my battery collection. I'm finding that they tend to run 15-25% below their printed ratings. Most of them are old but I was especially disappointed with new 2900 mAh Delkins that came in at about 2100 actual after running through the conditioning cycle.
I've had better luck (with eneloop 2000s, Sanyo 2700s and Rayovac 2100s). They tend to come in at about 93% to 95% of the "nominal" capacities (the numbers above). The eneloops are labeled with a "typical" capacity of 2000 mAh and a "minimum" capacity of 1900 mAh, and the Sanyo 2700s similarly are labeled 2700 mAh typical/2500 mAh min, so these are coming in at around 100% of their minimums. The Rayovacs only state the 2100 mAh number, but they do seem to come in with slightly higher capacities than the similar eneloops, so the 2100 mAh rating vs. 2000 for the eneloops seems real (but this is based on limited testing).
One thing I tried that didn't really make any difference is to lower the discharge rate on the MAHA from the default 500 mA to 200 mA. The handhelds I use tend to draw 120 to 250 mA, and I thought that the batteries might exhibit higher capacities at the lower currents. However, I haven't seen any differences (one-time test of 4 eneloops).
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Good ovservation Hertzog. Probably a good idea to shut off track logging on the unit before putting it into USB Mass Storage mode.
I just did a quick experiment, and it turns out that track logging is suspended when you are in mass storage mode. That doesn't necessarily mean the "pause" I mentioned doesn't still occur; it could be still occuring every 30 minutes or so. Then again, we really don't know what all is going on during mass storage mode; they could be suspending all normal operations.
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I have had my 60csx for over 3 years and it suddenly will not receive all satelites and accuracy is way down.
What do I do now? Is it just tired and in need of repacement? Help please!
The first thing I would check is to make sure I hadn't set it to "Battery Saver" mode. That always results in a noticable decrease in accuracy. I don't think it should make a large difference in satellite reception, but it's easy to check quickly.
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I have had my 60csx for over 3 years and it suddenly will not receive all satelites and accuracy is way down.
What do I do now? Is it just tired and in need of repacement? Help please!
The first thing I would check is to make sure I hadn't set it to "Battery Saver" mode. That always results in a noticable decrease in accuracy. I don't think it should make a large difference in satellite reception, but it's easy to check quickly.
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There is a characteristic of 60CSx operation that few people know about: every once in a while it "pauses" for about 5 seconds, apparently to do some housekeeping tasks. The frequency of these pauses varies from once every 6 minutes or so to once about every 30 minutes, depending on how often you are logging track points (if you aren't logging at all it still pauses every 30 minutes or so).
I've noticed that every once in a while if you are writing tracks to a gpx file, garbage will be introduced into the gpx file during this pause. I don't know that that is what you are seeing here, but if you happened to be doing something like removing it from mass storage during one of these pauses it could very well put it into some abnormal mode. The infrequency of trying to attempt something like that during the 5 seconds of the pause would explain why it is not seen more often.
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When he says "topo doesn't have it", he's talking about the base Topo USA 7.0 maps and software that come with the unit. As for what the 1:24k USGS Quads you can download have on them, I'm really not sure, I've only downloaded one little section of it so far, and I don't even really know how to read it.
If they are on the USGS quad for the area of interest, they will be on it when you download it to Topo USA 7.0; I've downloaded some areas I'm interested in, and viewed the section lines in Topo USA 7.0.
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Go on a parachuting expedition to find out. Your horizontal speed there would be close to zero but your vertical speed could get up to 120MPH before you open your chute.
I suggested this on a similar thread about a year or two ago, but if there were any takers they didn't report back on their results
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I'm sure we come across as a crazed cult a lot of the time, but what you're seeing is our enthusiasm for the product...and the company, too, that's a part of it. The only employees who post here do so under the Team Delorme account, all others are non-paid users. I think the people who were beta testers of the PN-40 identified themselves as such at least several times as such. Now that the PN-40 is getting into more people's hands, there should be more user-provided information and I don't think we'll feel the drive to provide our experiences as much.
If you go back and look at posts about 3 years ago, when the 60C/CSx units first came out, you will see a similar enthusiasm for those units (with the notable exception that Garmin remained aloof and there were no "official" beta testers - just us folks who "paid" to be beta testers by buying the first units
). I feel the same enthusiasm for the PN40 that I did then for the 60CSx (my PN40 is currently "out for delivery", so should see it today - hopefully sooner than later).That's not to say that all of the 60C/Sx threads at the time were all enthusiatic - my own first post at the time was very enthusiastic and resembled some of the "first impressions" type of messages you've seen here over the last week; but later I posted some critical posts as well as I used the unit and found things I didn't like (most were later corrected by firmware updates). I think we will see a similar mix of enthusiasm and critique on the PN40 as users get familiar with it.
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Now, for #1, assuming that the algorithm estimating EPE takes into account the map accuracy, exactly how does it know the map's accuracy attribute? From metadata attached to the map?
They don't include map error in the EPE; it gets added when they calculate the radius of the blue circle. The map error could come from metadata attached to the maps or it could be just one number associated with each map product; I for one don't know. They may also include an error term for zoom levels, but I don't have a clue about that either. What we do know for sure is that different map products have different errors associated with them.
PS - Wish I had seen the Delorme thread before I went out this morning; I think I would have "wandered" by the Manhattan Beach REI store on the chance of seing the PN40.
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In my own figures posted last night (Summit HC, current software & firmware), with no map loaded at all (and therefore presumably no additional allowance for "map error"), I was seeing EPE of 5 m and a radius of about 15 m, indicating the circle radius for GPS error alone was about 3 times EPE.
When I had my highest resolution maps loaded (MetroGuide Australia v6), I saw an EPE of 5 metres with a circle radius of about 20 metres, indicating an additional "map error" of about 5 metres for this map set.
With my lowest resolution map loaded (built-in base map), the radius blew out to about 250 metres with an EPE of 4 metres, indicating the "map error" for the coarse base map is about 200 to 250 metres.
Good point about "no map" eliminating the map error; I get the same results on my 60CSx. With the 60CSx basemap I'm getting a little higher radius than you: 320m; could be a difference in errors they assigned for the 60CSx and Summit basemaps, or maybe there are different errors for different locations.
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2. It is always exactly 2 times, not approximate. That is because the EPE is radius and the display is a circle and D=2R.
no - I meant the radius is 2 times the reported EPE - I often see an EPE of 12 feet or so an a circle around 48 feet across.
I once measured it on a 60CSx and got the best fit by assuming they multiplied the EPE by 3.4 and then rss'd in a 28ft map error to get the blue cirlce radius (this matches your data pretty well by the way: a 12ft EPE would translate to a 49ft radius). I doubt that they really go to the trouble of rssing in an error though - the math would be more trouble than it is worth for a small device. I'm guessing that they multiply the EPE by a factor and then simply add in a map error; in that case my best fit would be a factor of 3.2 and an additive error of 11 feet. I couldn't get the EPE low enough to actually see whether there is a "floor" due to rssing the errors. It occurs to me that I might be able to do some tests using the base map to generate large map errors and the power save mode to get larger EPEs; sometime if I can muster the energy I'll do that test.
After posting I noticed that you said "48 feet across", which would be seriously fifferent than my results (I was speaking of the circle radius)! I can only speak for the 60CSx (and earlier models that I have used), but I would be very surprised to see a 48 foot diameter circle with a 12 foot EPE.
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I just started using nRoute with a 60csx and nRoute loses satellites about every 10 min. Messes with the tracks. Anyone know why this is.?
The 60CSx takes a five second or so "pause that refreshes" periodically. If you are logging tracks at a 1 second rate it will be about every 6 minutes; logging at longer intervals increases the time between pauses - for no logging at all it's about 25 minutes.
Most people never realize this; every once in a while during typical operation you may see the unit suddenly seem to act "sluggish" for a few seconds, then forget about it once it is back to normal. The 60CSx doesn't start a new active track internally, so you won't notice anything there either. However, things become very evident when you connect to nRoute: nRoute gives you a very loud LOST TRACK and starts a new active track.
Another thing I've very recently linked to this: the 60CSx will occasionally write garbage in the gpx track file during one of these pauses (not enough data analyzed to give a probability of this occurance; certainly less than 1% of the time and probably less than 0.1%). I've known about both of these problems since first seeing them back in 2006, but didn't connect them until taking a close look at a "garbaged" file this summer. And I'm pretty sure I reported both to Garmin at the time but never got any feedback from them.
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I think the $150 has been pretty much their stated policy for out of warranty repairs for a long time, but in the past they have gone out of their way to accomodate people; I recall at least one instance reported here where the unit was pretty much demolished by the owner, and they replaced it no charge. The company seems to be changing in the last year or so in their customer relations policies, but I have heard of people getting different results with different Garmin contacts, so you might get lucky by contacting them again and getting a different representative. I seriously doubt they will send you the screen, but they might waive the $150. Good luck.
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Garmin is not known for good manuals. In the numerous threads that have come up over the years on this subject, I don't believe I've seen a single favorable comment on them.
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Is there a way to use the information on our property survey and put
it into MapSource. On the survey I see a location that says Beg Point:
D.BK 1430 pg 119. From that point there are lines with lengths and
angles but nothing I see that has coordinates of any format.
Thanks for any and all help.
The first thing you need to do is find "D.BK 1430 pg 119" to see how the beginning point is described. In my (very limited) experience with property descriptions this is probably in terms of the local section (i.e. "the NW corner of the SW quadrant of the NE quadrant of Sec 36 15S 4E"). Then you would need to find a map or other source that shows the sections. A good place to look is the local USGS topo, which may show the section lines. You might even get lucky and find them in one of the Garmin topos. In my case I found a pdf file of the county I was interested in and interpolated from that (not particularly accurate, but fine for my purposes). You might get some help from your local county offices (I'm guessing you will have to contact them to look at "D.BK 1430 pg 119" anyway).
Once you have the beginning point lat/lon, the angles would just be headings (from true north probably) and path lengths. One thing you will find irritating about MapSource is that it in rounds lengths to the nearest 0.1 mile for lengths greater than 526 feet as you try to lay out the boundary (you can get aroung this somewhat by going to metric, but if your property description is in feet this is not a great work around).
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nowhere does it say Sirf in any of the literature, on any of the software screens, or on the start up screen.
Look closely at the first startup screen, 2nd line from the bottom. On mine (early model, purchased in 2006) it says:
"Copyright SiRF Technology, 2005"
It would be very interesting if that has changed on recent models.
Looking back at JBnW's earlier post in this thread, I see that in his the SW versions are now listed on the startup screen; he has 3.70 and I am still at 3.60, so what is shown was changed between 3.60 and 3.70. Have you got a later SW version? They may have simply deleted the SiRF copyright in an update to the firmware.
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How big is the internal memory on the GPSMap60Cx? I cannot find this information in the manual or on the Garmin website. --Seems-- like they reduced it considerably from the advertised 56meg on the 60C. Anyone know for sure?
The 56MB on the 60C models was only the memory for storing maps, so that "internal memory" went to 0: you need an SD card to store maps on the "x" models, but that can be up to 2GB, so that represents a tremendous inprovement over the non x models.
Garmin has never said what the internal memory for tracks/waypoints/routes is in MB; I believe people have made estimates of it in the past, but don't recall any specific numbers. To evaluate the internal memory capacity you need to look at the specs in terms of trackpoints, waypoints, saved tracks and routes that can be held in internal memory. Basically that didn't change from the "non-x" to "x' models (could be wrong about the number of waypoints, but I don't believe so). As I recall, the ability to add custon POI's came with the "x" models, but could be wrong about that, as I haven't made use of those on either model (I have both the 60CS and 60CSx).
Personally, I don't think the 24K SD cards are going to be very useful on the 60Cx/CSx models. For one thing, if I were doing the "1000 Mile Summer" I wouldn't want to be switching those tiny cards along the way; I damned near lost one on the carpet in my bedroom! I would just load the main card with all the 24K national park maps and the 100K topos that I could load in for the trip; on a 2GB card that should still leave you with plenty of space to log your tracks to the card as well (if not, go to a 4GB card; I haven't tried it, but those who have say the extra space is useable for the tracks even though the maps are limited to 2GB).
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Signed up. The SE is just the ticket. Thanks for the notice and link!
Likewise. I'm a seven year dedicated Garmin fan, and had one of the first 60CSx's. To date I've haven't found anything that I thought topped it, and was going to wait for some user reviews on the PN-40 before jumping in. But this thread and Delorme's extensive use of experienced users for their beta testers has convinced me that this is a winner.
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Hertzog: No, not Badwater, yet. But I did take it to Kennedy Meadows up in the Sierras. The barometric altimeter worked well and I located all the caches that I sought.
I'll meet you in Borrego Springs in Nov and we can check it there.
The last time I was in Anza Borrego I almost stepped on a rattler
(somewhere I've still got pictures of him/her). Since then I've gotten a bit soft, and traded my Jeep in for an Avalon; I'm not sure how it would handle Anza Borrego. -
Just to be sure I understand, are you saying that because you can save to card that you have a great capacity for recording tracks? It sounds like aside from the card-writing capability, the two models can deal with tracks in a similar manner.
When set to do so the 60CSx writes the same data it is saving in its active track file to a gpx file on the card, except that you are limited to one active track of 10,000 points internally whereas the gpx file on the card continues to grow (one file per day). The gpx file is essentially a text file, so can be very big; if you log 24/7 at a 1 second rate then you would end up with about a 9.7 MB file per day (I actually have two of those, obviously not typical field use). I have a 2GB card installed, loaded 90% with maps, so I have about 200MB available for track files. Checking my most recent use, today I had all files back to June 20 still on the GPSr, taking only 15MB of space. This is actually relatively light use for me; a more intensive use was when I was on an extended road trip in April 2007, with about 45MB of data. The 60CSx can take a 4GB card, so if I anticipated somehow needing more track storage capability I could simply use a larger card (but don't anticipate that need). It sounds to me like the internal tracks of the PN-40 and 60CSx are similar, except that the 60CSx can have only one 10,000 point file whereas the PN-40 can have several.
Sorry I didn't chime in on this when Chip originally described the PN-40 capabilities; I thought about it at the time, but just didn't get around to it. I think this kind of capability on the PN-40 would be very useful.
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Those of us who have been Beta testing the PN-40 have been under a strict NDA. This NDA has been somewhat relaxed earlier today.
In that light, please allow me to respond that in my side by side tests, the 40 is noticeably faster than the 20, particularly with respect to map redraws.
Any other questions?
Did you take it to Badwater
Earlier I was going to suggest as a joke that letting you beta test one my give them that data; didn't know you were already doing it
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11 finds, 1 DNF today along the Sonoma coast after abalone diving. The DNF turns out was due to the cache being pulled due to muggles. Eventually I got a battery low message and the last find took awhile. At what point do you give up due to error associated w/ battery?
11 finds on a colorado 400T...btw. T/C
When it shuts down; at least that's my experience
That might not be true of all GPSrs of course, but I've never encountered a situation with 3 different GPSrs where I thought low battery power was degrading performance. But that doesn't include the Colorado.
). I feel the same enthusiasm for the PN40 that I did then for the 60CSx (my PN40 is currently "out for delivery", so should see it today - hopefully sooner than later).
(somewhere I've still got pictures of him/her). Since then I've gotten a bit soft, and traded my Jeep in for an Avalon; I'm not sure how it would handle Anza Borrego.
Oregon 550t waypoint save
in GPS technology and devices
Posted
Appologies if this has already been asked and answered, but I haven't found it searching the forums.
I am trying to save waypoints and tracks from the 550t to MapSource using the "Receive From Device" dialog; when I do this, I can check both the "waypoints" and "tracks" boxes, but only the tracks are transfered. In the reverse direction, I have no trouble in saving waypoints to the 550t using the "Send To Device" dialog. I know that all the information is available in the gpx files on the 550t, but I would still like to be able to save my GPS data the way I have been doing it for the last 9 years!