planewood

Canada right now does not have many control stations from which to build the correction grid. But, they're working on it.

You will get the same reported EPE with, or without, WAAS. But, on average, the coordinates reported will be closer to the actual lat/lon when using WAAS. Find a surveyed bench mark or triangluation station and try it a few dozen times on different days and different times of the day. Try it when the DOP is low (good) and high (not good). Download the Trimble Planning software (free) to see the DOP charts.

Remember, those people having problems are probably the ones that most often post here. Those NOT having any problems probably don't post near as often as the others. Love my 60cx!

Logged in to my Garmin account tonight and it said that I had nothing registered. I should have two devices registered?? Anyone else notice this?

This would certainly be a dull world if all people thought alike!

Hertzog - Hadn't thought of that, but there were 7 or 8 track logs on the card. If I remember right, there was 15meg of empty space on the card. I did try to plot some of those tracks, but couldn't get them to show, except for 1 that did show. They are erased now. However, I had not saved a tracklog since the last time I had used the map with all segments present. Also, for the other responder, It was set to show the CN map. That was the 1st thing I checked. It pains me to see garmin writing gpx format files to the card. If one uses Mapsource to read the files, then why can't mapsource read a binary (compact) file and translate it to gpx format?

I have no idea?? That runs absolutely counter to my experiences with an Gillson antenna on my 60cx. But, that said, the antenna has no effect on the reported EPE. The reported coordinates are still closer, on average, to the actual coordinates. Also, download the Trimble Planning software and try it out. Maybe you have just been out when the DOP was high. www.trimble.com

Picked up my GPSr today for the first time in a week. Turned it on and it acquired satellites fine with a good lock in just a couple or so minutes. But, when I went to the map (City Navigator V8), several segments were missing. It's a 256Meg card and I had most of the southern USA on it. When I zoomed in to the area of my house, there were no streets. Like that for all of Texas and parts of Okla. When I tried an address search, it could find no towns in Texas and only a few in OK. When I zoomed in on the map screen, there were no streets for those segments. Other segments were fine, showing all streets and allowing an address search. Battery life indicator was showing 4 bars. I re-seated the card in the unit several time with no success. Finally, I re-wrote the data file to the card and it's all now working fine. The old data file had been in use for 7 or 8 months with no problems. Any one else have this problem? Do I chalk it up to weak bits?

I have my 60CSx set up to store track logs on the card. I use the "USB Mass Storage" mode to copy the track log files to my PC, and to delete the files on the card when I no longer need them. I also have three different POI databases stored on the card, and I use this mode to rename the databases when needed (when POI Loader transfers a POI database to the unit, it always names the file poi.gpi on the card. If you don't rename the file, any future POI database transferred to the card will replace the existing database, which isn't always what you want). --Larry Fooey! Still does the slow speed transfer. Took 8 minutes to copy 256M from the GPSr to the harddrive. I copied 1 Gig from another MicroSD (using the SD adapter) and that only took 2 minutes. Wonder what Garmin's reasons are for not yet adopting the high speed USB protocol?

Thanks yawl! I shoulda remembered that! (but I didn't)

I thought a recent release of the Garmin software/firmware allowed one to see the MicroSD card as a drive letter while it's still in the GPSr?? Did I just dream that??

With your GPSr plugged in, start up Device Manager. Expand the USB Controller list. Then right click on the one for Garmin and click on Properties. Then click on the Driver tab then the Driver Details button. It should show you the name and location of an executable program being used for the driver. Have you tried the Uninstall on the Driver tab?

Where in Device Manager did you find the Garmin device? I can't find it in my list yet I've been use my 60cx on this puter for about 1 year. I'm running XP pro. Just had a thought. Maybe it doesn't show up in the list until I have my GPSr connected. That's the way it's supposed to work. XP doesn't load the driver until it senses what device has been connected. So, once your GPSr has been connected, go into DM and see what program is being used for the driver. Then disconnect the GPSr, reboot, and use Windows Explorer or Computer Explorer to find and delete the file. Then reload the driver and lastly reboot again with the GPSr plugged in.

Download nRoute from the Garmin web site (free) to your laptop. That program will do the autorouting using the CN data.

Run those new rechargeables through 3 or 4 charging cycles.

Screens smudged with finger prints drive me batty! Something about wearing bifocals, I guess.

I bought 3 of the Garmin eTrex Legend Cx units as Christmas presents for my sons and s-i-l. I tested two of them beside my 60cx (with external antenna) and they both differed by less than 5' from the 60cx coordinates. Weather conditions for the test were clear, cold, and dry and all were using WAAS corrections. I gave them all 10 minutes to lock in and think about it. This was after they had been updated to the latest software and firmware.

How about something like the Garmin Rino units that are a combination of a GPS unit and a walkie talkie? I think that you can even send & receive locations between other Rino units. The Rino 530 has an advertised 14 mile walkie talkie range. The Rino 530 is listed at $535 on the Garmin site. I don't think one would want to land a helicoper soley with the coordinates from a consumer grade GPS. Maybe just get them into the right area where manual directions can take over. The Elevation on my 60cx can be 30' or 40' off at times. Bad weather conditions are usually the worst conditions for GPS accuracy. I think you would definitely want waas and Sirf to get a better accuracy. There are other types of coordinate correction systems out there. If you are near an airport, you might check into what they use. I would think that every fire dept vehicle should have a good compass on board as well as a weather thermometer and a wind speed indicator. Sometimes the old manual things are more reliable than electronic things. 12V in the truck is fine, but if your away from the truck, the GPS should run off of batteries, too. It may be possible to subscribe to a map updating service. That possibility should be checked out. The shortest road to my son's house is 0.5 miles but the City Navigator maps calculate a route that is 1.5 miles long. The short road had been in existence for 3 years, but not yet updated to the CN map. Unfortunately, it doesn't look like any of the Rino units have external antenna cabilities. http://www.garmin.com/products/rino530/

Get the DVD. Memory cards often go bad. Also, dup the DVD if you can. And, you can't auto-route using nRoute if you ever so desire when the maps are just on the card.

Anyone done this yet? In a format that can be downloaded to anyone's GPSr? Showing the trails as GPS tracks and dangerous points along the track as waypoints or POI's? Maybe something like this could be sponsored by Garmin?? With appropriate disclaimers, of course. Maybe have a data base (or folders) for each national park. Just wondering.

This is not a direct answer to your questions. I do have a 60cx and love it! But, a great service would to be map out the entire Cumberland Trail using Google Earth and then to mark those points along the trail where one could easily get off the trail if not careful. A national trails data base would be nice. GPS tracks for the most used trails done in such a way that they could be downloaded to anyone's GPSr.

You can hook it up to a laptop using Nroute and Mapsource software using the USB cable. In that way the gps is just working as a sensor, sending your present location to the laptop every second. Or, just get you a $75 sensor/antenna with waas and sirf and use the laptop. But, does the etrex yellow have a USB connection or a serial port connection??

Everyone needs a walking stick on the trail, right? So, just affix a steel washer to the top of a walking stick. And, if you want, rig up a deal to hold the GPSr at about eye level onto the walking stick. Or, just carry it in your breast pocket.

When power is applied via the external port, the batteries will not recharge, nor power the unit. The batteries will only be used to power the unit when external power is not being applied.

You got a map of the golf course? Scan it in and save the image as a jpg file. Then overlay the image onto Google Earth using about 50% opacity. Stretch and squeeze as necessary to fit. Then you should be able to make waypoints and/or tracks and then import those to your GPS. If you make a track for each hole, then you should be able to tell how far off the freeway you are and how far it is to the green. If you don't have a scanner then a digital cam will work if you shoot the pic square on and with good focus. It looks like the Google Earth images around Lackland AFB are registered pretty well. I betcha someone somewhere sells gps maps of golf courses.