Hertzog

It is possible that this is caused by poor contacts on the German card, or, as the other poster said, poor battery contacts. However, this type of shutdown is also common when the the GPSr encounters software conflicts. In a recent thread a poster reported shutdowns when flying near his home, and I had just happened to have experienced similar shutdowns myself, at a separate location. It turned out that both of these locations were on segement boundaries in CN V8 (I have hopes that the 3.10 firmware upgrade has solved this problem, but I won't have a chance to get back to my problem location for a couple of days to check it). So it is possible that the problem you are having is with the data on the German card, and not a mechanical problem.

I didn't have a problem with the update of the updater (I have a Dell XPS, but not your "weird" stuff; however, after updating the updater it balked at updating the GPS! All in all you are probably better off just downloading the file directly and doing the update yourself. My update looks good - no immediate problems. I can confirm that: Changes made from version 3.00 to 3.10: * * * Corrected issue where some highway shields were blank. * Is now working (text is now black on white instead of white on white, at least on the only two shields in the US that I know of that were a problem I still get dropouts connected to nRoute; was hoping that they might have done something about that, but now a real big issue for me Will check out a few of the other things when I can get out in the field with it.

Take a look at my post in the "lost map segments" thread (too lazy to repeat it here ) This may or may not be what they are talking about. Am about to update to 3.10; just checking this thread one last time before diving in

I haven't seen this or heard of anyone else encountering it, but I'm wondering if you've uncovered a bug in the software. Have you been writing track logs to the card? Since this capability was an add-on to the firmware, it could be that the track log writing over-wrote the map segement file and corrupted it. With a 256MB card that might happen sooner than on a 1 or 2GB card. On a slightly different but related matter, I have at times gotten "garbage" in my gpx files. Usually I find this when MapSource balks at loading them. I can still load these files into Notepad, and if I can figure out where to look I can carefully excise the garbaged data (typically one or two records) and still have a useable file. I sent a bug report to Garmin when I first saw it back in the summer, but as usual got no feedback. To be fair, it could be bad bits on the card (the "garbage" is usually left-over fragments from a previous gpx file); I haven't gotten around to looking at all of my files in detail to see if there is a pattern, or how often it happens. Wonder if this fixed my problem (and/or yours)? Changes made from version 3.00 to 3.10: * * Improve robustness of data card tracklog XML. *

The alarm clock and recording of pressure when the unit is off went away; the Sirf chip apparently isn't compatible with these functions. Not a big deal for most, but some people who liked these features were a little unhappy. Battery life is lower, but still very good (you can get about 18 hours on a pair of alkalines with normal use - with minimal use of backlight). Strangely, turning the compass off and on doesn't affect the battery life way it does on the 60CS. If you like using the Energizer lithium batteries on occasion, the 60CSx shuts off with fresh lithiums - they have a slightly higher initial voltage that it doesn't like. Workaround is to use them in some other device (flashlight, etc.) for a few seconds to take the edge off, but a pain nonetheless. This is my main complaint, but not a back breaker. There are some "peculiarities" in performance that some people see and others don't, but overall people who have used the 60CS previously are impressed and extremely happy with the performance of the 60CSx from the minute they turn it on. I've kept my 60CS for backup and for comparisons, but the 60CSx has been my working unit since I took it out of the box. Regarding the use of two cards: I think you will want to load all of the maps you want on one card. Removing and inserting cards on the 60CSx is not as easy as on a camera or cell phone, and you won't want to be doing this often (the 76CSx is a better design in this regard). Most people are able to load all the maps they want on a 512MB or 1GB card. A lot of us memory addicts have felt the need to get the 2GB cards.

When I got my 60CSx I first got a half Gig, then 1 Gig, then a 2 Gig card for it. The 1 Gig card (with supplied adapter) is now in my camera and my half Gig card is on standby (been thinking of putting it in my cell phone, but may keep it as a spare).

I concur. I do to. And when you get the new one, put some bitter apple on it (unless you were serious about killing the cat )

I concur. I do to. And when you get the new one, put some bitter apple on it (unless you were serious about killing the cat )

Thanks for the tip. After finding where they put it, I just created a new shortcut so I would have both handy. The pointer for gdb had already been set for the Beta version, so opening an existing gdb file was already opening in the Beta version.

Since my previous post I played around with it, and finally saw it on my 60CSx. It's very touchy on the 60CSx, only at certain zoom levels, and I had to tinker with map settings to see it. There is also one to the north, where the I5 and 99 split. I believe these are the same ones I've noticed before. I don't see them in either MapSource or nRoute. These seem to be some sort of artifact associated with the truck bypass road. If you click on the road it straddles, its label is "I-5-Truck Byp S", and if you look closely at the symbol, it has "5-" on the left and "YP" on the right, with just about enough room in the middle to cover up "Truck-B" (don't know what happens to "I-" on the left and " S" on the right). The bypass road at the I-5/99 split has the same label and the symbol is the same. There is also an "I-5-Truck Byp N" road, but the symbol seems to be associated with the I-5-Truck Byp S road. I haven't found any "non I-5-" roads; would be interesting to see what those might show. It doesn't seem to be a very functional symbol; I think it might be something in the NavTeq database that has some functionality in other mapping programs, but gets accidentally displayed by the Garmin handheld algorithms. A few additional observations - The symbol is the same one used as a label on the basemap for some highways in Canada and Mexico (but not in the US as far as I can tell). On those the text is black against a white background. The two that are showing up on I-5 seem to be associated with the CN maps and have white text, which is why the only text that shows is the text sticking out on either side of the box. I looked at the same areas on my 60CS, and they are there, but with black text and "Truck-B" can be seen. I keep both the 60CS and 60CSx in the default daytime color scheme; out of curiosity I just tried some of the other schemes, but it doesn't change the box or the text color.

Yes. The only real reason for getting a lower level model would be economics. The ease of use is about the same - probably better on the 60Cx - and if you are inclined to upgrade later anyway, you will not have spent the extra money on the lower level model, or used up any unlock codes on it.

I've seen those before; I think they are freeway exit/entrances, but not sure. However, I can't see that one or any others tonight, either in MapSource or on my 60CSx.

I've seen those before; I think they are freeway exit/entrances, but not sure. However, I can't see that one or any others tonight, either in MapSource or own my 60CSx.

To answer your other question, you don't have any control over it in normal operation (I think it does go away when you choose "lock on roads". There was a recent thread on it; scroll back a few days, or a search of the forum for "blue circle" should reveal plenty of discussions.

Couple of things to try: Can you transfer tracks and waypoints back and forth to the GPSr? That would verify that the USB connection and interface settings are OK. Can you load maps to the original card? If so, that would indicate problems with the new card. If you have a card reader try to load the maps that way; if that works it would vindicate the card and suggest a communications problem. Try having the GPSr write tracks to the card, and see if you can access them on the computer.

With the "x" model, I've gotten to the point where I just always leave the track log set to 1 second and forget about it. If I don't need the data immediately, every couple of weeks I just copy all the gpx files that have been created over to my computer and delete them for the GPSr. That way in the future I can always go back to a particular day and see what was happening (exactly where did I take that picture back on June 25th 2006?)

One potential problem to be aware of here is that when you turn off auto cal, the elevation readout reverts back to the last manual calibration, but the auto cal continues to work on elevation data as if it had remained on; when you switch back into auto cal it will be as if you had never turned it off (this is an interesting little aspect of the auto cal operation that I only recently discovered). If the reception was sufficiently bad during the period you had it off, then the GPSr probably will go into the fast "catch up" mode after regaining lock, so it may not present any major operational problems.

One good bit of information though - they indicate the astro has a 3-axis compass, so we can hope that this will carry over to future Garmin handhelds.

It's a continuous autocal; the barometric altimeter is incrementally adjusted toward the GPS elevation each second. You can see it by manually calibrating the elevation to a large error, say 1000 feet, then watching the elevation correct itself over a period of time. Assuming the Vista now has a decent elevation profile page (the original didn't, but they should have corrected that by now), you can see the elevation changing exponentially with a time constant of about 30 min. There is also a fast "catch up" mode, where the time constant is changed to about 30 seconds; this comes into play when the GPSr loses and regains track.

Yours for one Look for an "Auto Calibration" selection somewhere. On the 60/76 series it's on the Altimeter Setup page, but on my old (pre Cx) Vista it's on the System Setup page, under "Altimeter"; so it may still be there on the newer Vista models.

One of the things you are supposedly "calibrating out" are magnetic fields from the batteries, so you want to run a calibration after changing them anyway.

I think it's definitely the map segment. I recently experienced the same kind of shutdown with my 60CSx at a particular location over a period of several days. If I drive the route in my car it always shuts down (but didn't the one time I walked the path). Always in traveling the same direction, but only once in the reverse direction (that time I had autorouting on). After rereading this thread I checked the location, and it is right on an edge in CN NA V8. Non of the other map products I have have a segment border at this location. My 60CS which was along for the ride didn't shut down, but it still has CS NA V5 loaded; I've never gotten around to loading the latest maps on it.

Your old copy should be fine; they've never updated it.

On the route setup page, "Follow Road Options," you can select pedestrian or bicycle instead of car/motorcycle in the "Calculate Routes for" window (I suspect you already know this, since you have used routing for walking and bicycling, and routing would have been very odd if you had left it in car/motorcycle, but its the only thing that comes to mind). I personally haven't paid much attention to it walking, but will check it next time I'm out.

Thanks, I'll be hunting one down on eBay. Just be sure the card you get is not one labeled "Ultra"; these get fried in the Garmins (not likely to be a problem - most of the cards available are not the "Ultra" variety - but something to be aware of).