Geode2

quote:Originally posted by mrcpu: Walmart is probably the best price I've seen. At most the difference in prices will be $5 so you need to decide what your time, gas and frustration are worth! Crappy Tire also carries these as does Radio Shack, although radshack is probably the most expensive. Rob Mobile Cache Command Well, I tried one of the local Wal-Marts, and one of the local Canadian tire stores here in Edmonton. Neither stocked the data cable for the Mag315. Both, however, did sell the GPS itself. I suppose I may have to order on-line; my preference is to buy local, but on-line is OK too. Has anybody dealt with Prairie Geomatics? How is their service?

A couple of questions: 1) Will this work with S&T 2001, or is the current version (2002) required? 2) Where can I download these lists? Thanks for the service - sounds really handy!

quote:Originally posted by walkinfool: I find myself without a cable right now. And it has been a long time since I had to convert Lat/Longs. How does one convert xx.xxxxx E/W xx.xxxxx N/S to xx xx.xxx? Thanks It has something to do with dividing by 60. I don't bother with the math, though. Take a look at this link for an online conversion tool.

quote:Originally posted by walkinfool: I find myself without a cable right now. And it has been a long time since I had to convert Lat/Longs. How does one convert xx.xxxxx E/W xx.xxxxx N/S to xx xx.xxx? Thanks It has something to do with dividing by 60. I don't bother with the math, though. Take a look at this link for an online conversion tool.

quote:Originally posted by Jumpmaster:You're a flaming moron. (most of the post snipped) I think everybody who has been posting to this thread needs to take a deep breath and calm down. Name-calling and flaming don't get anybody anywhere. Jumpmaster: If you think the S&H charges are too high at any particular dealer, then DO NOT BUY THERE. Free market economy, and all that. If their charges are too high, they'll go out of business. Like any business in the USA, they are free to charge whatever the market will stand.

A couple of things are likely. There's always some degree of error with commercial GPS units. When a cache is placed, there is some error introduced by the GPS unit of the cache-hider, and when you go looking, more error is introduced by the cache-finder. This can result in having the actual cache not quite where you think it 'should' be. This is normal. I'm still a newbie with GPS, but I wouldn't expect my Magellan 315 to get me closer than 15 metres from a cache. If it gets me closer, great, but I'm certainly not going to expect it.

quote:Originally posted by mrcpu: I'm sure the price difference was not more then $15 from power/data to data only. I love my power/data cable because when I turn on the backlight while driving with it plugged into power, it doesn't time out and turn off again. From what I've seen, the difference in price doesn't seem too high - perhaps $15 or $20 (about $35-40CDN for data only, and up to $60 for power/data). I'm not planning on using the GPS while driving - for Geocaching, Mapquest works well to get me close enough while leaving the GPS turned off. The extra $15 or $20 is enough for me to buy an extra set of NiMH rechargables, which should provide more than enough power for a cache hunt (I have a set in the GPS, and two fully-charged backups). As a result, I'm not really worried about having power. Being able to download waypoints does sound handy, though. So far, I've just been entering them manually.

quote:Originally posted by PDOP's: Other vendors are The Fishin Hole http://www.thefishinhole.com/ and Prairie Geomatics http://www.prairie.mb.ca/. You've got the right idea to just pick up the power cable - the extra $40 they want for the power/data cable is better spent on a charger and batteries. I take it you mean I should just pick up the data cable. I'll take a look at Wal-Mart and see what I can find. Thanks to everybody for the advice.

quote:Originally posted by PDOP's: Other vendors are The Fishin Hole http://www.thefishinhole.com/ and Prairie Geomatics http://www.prairie.mb.ca/. You've got the right idea to just pick up the power cable - the extra $40 they want for the power/data cable is better spent on a charger and batteries. I take it you mean I should just pick up the data cable. I'll take a look at Wal-Mart and see what I can find. Thanks to everybody for the advice.

I suppose I may have to buy a cable, then. I guess I'll revise my original question - does anybody know a good place to pick up a Magellan 315 cable in Edmonton? I don't mind ordering online, but I'd like to attempt to get a good deal on the (kind of overpriced) data cable. I'm using NiMH batteries, and I've got lots of them, so I'm not too worried about having the car adapter - only the data cable. Any help anybody can provide would be appreciated! quote:Originally posted by mrcpu: What are you sadistic or something?!?! I could not imagine NOT having a cable. I've got 400 waypoints in my GPS, most of which are downloaded from here. Do you know how long it would have taken me to enter them by hand!!!

I suppose I may have to buy a cable, then. I guess I'll revise my original question - does anybody know a good place to pick up a Magellan 315 cable in Edmonton? I don't mind ordering online, but I'd like to attempt to get a good deal on the (kind of overpriced) data cable. I'm using NiMH batteries, and I've got lots of them, so I'm not too worried about having the car adapter - only the data cable. Any help anybody can provide would be appreciated! quote:Originally posted by mrcpu: What are you sadistic or something?!?! I could not imagine NOT having a cable. I've got 400 waypoints in my GPS, most of which are downloaded from here. Do you know how long it would have taken me to enter them by hand!!!

quote:Originally posted by JDMC: I have a Magellan 315 and Windows 2000, and have no problem with the combination. I also have to recommend USAPhotoMaps, since I wrote it... Thanks for the reply. I take it you've done firmware upgrade(s) from Windows 2000, and it's worked without problem? Thanks for the software recommendation, but I don't think it'd work well for me (I'm in Canada, and the arial photos aren't available where I'm at).

Hello all, I've purchased a Magellan 315, and it came with the 3.14 firmware; I'd like to upgrade to 3.15, but I don't really want to spend $40CDN to buy a data cable, just to upgrade the firmware. Are there any Geocachers in Edmonton who have a Mag315 and the data cable, and would be willing to loan me the cable (or upgrade the software for me)? Thanks a lot!

Hello all, I've recently purchased a Magellan 315. It came with the 3.14 firmware, and I'm considering upgrading to 3.15 (mainly to fix the auto-averaging issue). Thing is, I have Windows 2000. I do have a free serial port (I have a USB mouse, so the mouse port is free), but I wanted to make sure that I would be able to do the firmware update from Windows 2000 before I spend the money on a cable. Does anybody have experience with the above combination? I searched the forums, but couldn't find anything specific. Also, if I do purchase the cable, does anybody have suggestions of software to use with the Magellan? I mainly just want to keep track of waypoints, so I may just use something like EasyGPS, but if there are other recommendations (preferably free/shareware), I'd love to hear them. Thanks a lot!

FYI, I bought a Mag315 from Canadian Tire, and got the same deal as GeoBee. $200, with $20 in Canadian Tire Money (would have been $22, but I paid with Visa). It took some arm-twisting to get the CT money, though - the clerk didn't think I should get _any_ CT money if paying through Visa. Normally, you only get CT money if you pay cash, debit, or with a CT mastercard. With the price-match, I got the 10% CT money, but not the other CT money you'd normally get with a purchase. Either way, a great deal. I'll be mailing for my rebate shortly. I've found my first cache (Tuppertub) with the Mag315; seems to work well so far. It came with the 3.14 firmware; I'm wondering if anybody else bought one recently in Canada and whether it had the newest (3.15) firmware? If so, I might bring mine back and swap it for one with the newer firmware. quote:Originally posted by GeoBee: Nope, didn't need one, just got CT to call the Wal-Mart and get their price, they always do, I've done that a few times and they never have a problem with it at the customer service desk. I'm in Calgary. I used the Garmin 12 about a week or so ago and found the two similar in use, except the 315 seems to lock and hold better in my opinion anyway, I think that's because of the quadrifler antenna and it being exposed. I also like the fact that the buttons on the 315 are at the bottom of the unit, easier to use. This stuff is great, my son and I found our first cache this weekend and I think we're officially hooked...