robotneil

Try going to the preferences screen and selecting (Restart GPS) then put it outside for like 5 minutes. It should be finding sats. Mine finds them pretty quickly.

Yes, try turning it on and leaving it in your backyard away from structures and a clear view of the open sky for about 5 minutes and allow it to find the sats. You may also need to set the time and date and your general area using preferences so that the internal almanac can help the GPS receiver find the sats. allthat stuff has been set, umm i left it out there for 10 minutes, with it on the main screen, it found 1 satelite still.

Yes, try turning it on and leaving it in your backyard away from structures and a clear view of the open sky for about 5 minutes and allow it to find the sats. You may also need to set the time and date and your general area using preferences so that the internal almanac can help the GPS receiver find the sats.

Ok clean slate here. I own a Magellan eXplorist 300 and I think I can help if this is the model you own. How much help do you need? I assume you know how to turn it on already. So I will start off my instructing you on how to set a waypoint from the Geocaching website. 1) Turn the unit on by pressing and holding the button on the right side of the unit for about 2 seconds. Then push in on the enter button (the one that has an arrow pointing down and to your left), This is a thumbstick and you move around to screens with it and press it in to select a field. So you need to press it in before the unit turns itself off when you first power up the unit. 2) Wait for the unit to aquire a GPS fix. 3) Press the buttom named Mark (thumbtack) 4) use the thumbstick to more up to the name field and press it in. Then type in a name for your waypoint by using the thumbstick and on-screen keyboard. When you are finished go down to the OK and press the tumbstick in. 5) The next field with the coordinates should be highlighted, use the thumbstick to enter coordinates here from the data on the Geocaching.com website. 6) You can scroll down to create message or elevation and set those if desired (optional). 7) Scroll down to Save and select it. Setting a goto; Next you want to goto this way point. Here is how I do it. 1) Press the goto button on the front of the unit. 2) Select "My Pts of Interest" 3) Scroll to the waypoint you just set. 4) Press the thumbstick in. 5) A street-level map will appear. You can use this for long distance like driving to the waypoint. 6) When you get close about 500 feet or so, press the button on the front named NAV. A compass will appear and you can home in on the cache this way. Just follow the compass bearing and watch the distance box. I hope this helped a little if you have advanced questions feel free to ask.

That is very good news!

You should name the geocoin store. I also have a Garmin Rhino 110 and there was one thing that was driving me crazy about it. I did not think that I could enter notes or comments in it. I knew I could do that with the Magellan. Well today I found out that I could enter notes in the Garmin and now I think it will be my GPSr or choice. I will use the Magellan as a back-up.

I like my explorist 300, I have had no problems with it yet, I hope I will not have any in the future.

Using the Garmin, how do I average the waypoint? It sounds like a manual process. And why would I want to do this when finding a cache?

Just out of curiosity, what was wrong with your 600 when you sent it in for repair?

I have not used them yet but I have: 1 x eXplorist 300 1 x Rhino 110 Cannot decide which one I like better yet.

Do either or both of these units use averaging? I have been reading about this in the forums and I think I would prefer a unit not to average and give me a true reading even if it means not having lock at times.

It resets itself based on the satellite data once it gets a lock, but you may have noticed that the receiver already knows the approximate time before it acquires the satellite signals. Reasonably quick acquisition of the satellite signals requires that the unit know the approximate location and time so it knows for which particular satellites it should look. Therefore each receiver has an internal clock that runs even when the unit is turned off. When the batteries are removed it can still run for a couple weeks on the charge stored in a capacitor. If the clock or almanac data ever gets corrupted then the unit would need to go through a longer 'Auto-Locate' search to find the satellite signals and properly reset the clock and/or almanac. Wow, that is pretty cool. Glad I was enlightned.

It resets itself based on the satellite data once it gets a lock, but you may have noticed that the receiver already knows the approximate time before it acquires the satellite signals. Reasonably quick acquisition of the satellite signals requires that the unit know the approximate location and time so it knows for which particular satellites it should look. Therefore each receiver has an internal clock that runs even when the unit is turned off. When the batteries are removed it can still run for a couple weeks on the charge stored in a capacitor. If the clock or almanac data ever gets corrupted then the unit would need to go through a longer 'Auto-Locate' search to find the satellite signals and properly reset the clock and/or almanac.

NOT always.... Most system draw a minute amount of battery power while unit is off to "keep alive" some memory functions, also it keeps the internal clock, calander running.... Turning switch off/on only turns off/on main user and screen fuctions. Dale Dosn't the clock set itself by the sats?

Hey! I just got a 300 also! I am learning it and it seems pretty straight-forward. You can even change the little icon on the POIs. Yes, I love mine, my first GPSr was an eTrex yellow and it was a nightmare to enter waypoints. I like the eXplotist because it has the thumb stick.

Lazy! Wow, when I got my Explorist 300, it was defaulted for magnetic? Is that because it has an electronic compass? If so should I leave the default of should I turn the magnetic compass off and use true? Or any combination of the above? What would you do for geocaching?

Hey! I just got a 300 also! I am learning it and it seems pretty straight-forward. You can even change the little icon on the POIs.

My GPS unit says it is 3 degrees off with magnetic. So I just set it back to true north. Thank You.

Which one should I use and what is the difference?

Turning the unit on and off is operating a switch that connects and disconnects the battery to the internal circuitry. So, removing the battery is no different than turning the unit on and off. GPS units use static memory. Data placed in static memory will remain there until a command is given to remove it. Thank you, the manual says that it will not lose stored information when you remove the batteries, I am testing it now, had the batteries out for 5 minutes now. Perhaps it is written to some type of flash memory. Here goes nothing...Eureka! They are still there. God bless technology...

I will look it up in the manual, I do not know why I did not look for this stuff there first. Good suggestion about testing it. Thank You

Yes, now that I look on page 83 of the manual I see an accessory for this. Should have looked there first. Now I am just wondering about losing my waypoints when I change the batteries. And the software of course.

I have spent some time entering Middle Tennessee waypoints and the task is tedious doing it manually. 1) When I need to change the batteries, will my stored waypoints remain in memory? (I am guessing the answer is yes unless Garmin is a sadistic company.) 2) is there any way to hook this thing up to my computer? What will I need i.e. Hardware and Software? Thank You, Sincerely, robotneil

I have a solution, just buy a Magellan and a Garmin and own both.

Thats pretty cool, but what about the maps on them? I know the 110 only has a points of interest map. But what exactly does that show you? Just cities?