Dr Jeckyl and Mr Hide

Sounds like a job for an Oregon 550 with camera. If you took a picture of equipment, structures or dams, the pictures would be geotagged. You can also do the same kind of geotagging using software like RoboGeo or even Google Earth, I've been told, but there's nothing as nice as having all the work done within the gps. The image below is one example of a Oregon Geotagged photo. This is the full picture taken by the Oregon - it's not a great camera, but it's pretty good. The photo becomes a waypoint you can navigate back to, which is really handy sometimes.

Where can I get those *.gcd files I used to use for upgrading? Thx, Haferle http://garminoregon.wikispaces.com/Versions I had severe issues with my upgrade, and reverted back. The auto routing gave me a dead screen after I went past a "suggested" road, and wouldn't choose a new path, like it should. Then after attempting to cache, using the compass, all was good as I got closer, but had to go past the cache to approach properly from the opposite direction, and after the compass got down to zero, wouldn't start climbing again in numbers... had to re-set the go to a cache... So, for those that it works, wish I had your gps, LOL Oh, the dashboards were nice, but I also had a problem with one of them, the map, I had selected to have zero info, and it still showed 2 info blocks, plus the name of the cache I was heading for. To me that wasted space that the map could have been using. So will will wait for another version to come out... or not... may just keep what I have, cuz it works I specifically checked what you're describing yesterday when I was out with my freshly updated 550 and it always recalculated properly if I didn't take the suggested route, and if I walked through a cache location - it started displaying increasing numbers as I got farther away. So, not sure what's going on with yours.

This was in the original post: All the Oregon units in the picture are 550s, with brightness set to full.

For those who wanted to know the difference in screen brightness between the Nuvi and the Oregon, I took a few pictures today when we were out 'caching. Both of these Oregons have screen protectors on them, and that makes them slightly less bright, but they are still very visible. All the Oregon units in the picture are 550s, with brightness set to full. Here's one which shows the left side Oregon in Auto navigation mode, the middle Nuvi in Track Up mode and the right side Oregon also in Track Up mode: And another: this one is not so good at showing clarity or brightness - it was more to show the 3D mode on both the Oregon and the Nuvi simultaneously. So the Oregons are nowhere near as bright as a Nuvi, but they are still adequate most of the time. After the sun goes down the Oregon screens are very bright!

The Oregon Wiki is very useful but I think the answer to your problem would be to use the Web Updater. Garmin Web Updater Page

I am not sure how Garmin handles a broken GPS, but in general they only allow the maps on one GPS. True, but many of the older maps are not locked so if you're retiring or getting rid of one gps, why not put the maps on the new one if they'll work? Personally when upgrading the gps I would take the opportunity to get newer maps, but that's just me...

Of course, I believe you.

Not sure if you're speaking of a different product but Garmin Mapsource does not require usb drivers under Win 7, and in fact if you do manage to install them, they might cause problems. If you're writing about another program, it might still be the same issue... SORRY IT IS MAGELLAN MAPSEND REQUIRES THREE CDS I CANT GET PAST 8% ON THE FIRST ONE I USED IT FOR YEARS ON WINDOWS 2000 That might be the problem - there's a way of running the install in Win2K or XP mode. Right click on the Mapsend install file and either select "Troubleshoot compatibility" or go to the Properties/Compatibility tab and run the install in Win XP mode.

Not sure if you're speaking of a different product but Garmin Mapsource does not require usb drivers under Win 7, and in fact if you do manage to install them, they might cause problems. If you're writing about another program, it might still be the same issue...

You can also get a refurb Nuvi 500 for $149 here: DrivenGPS.com

That's why I have the 76CSx. It's the same as the 60CSx, just in a different case and it FLOATS !!! How do you know that dropping it into the Erie Canal wasn't part of the plan to get a new gps?

Another advantage to the Oregon: Forgot to mention the "profiles" feature - very handy in that you can create a separate car or bike profile which stores map availability settings so if you normally use City Navigator and calculate "On Road for Time" when you're in the car, you can set it to Topo maps if you have them and "Off road" in your bike profile. You can create multiple (and seemingly limitless) variations on these profiles to suit any occasion. The Oregon 550 comes with NiMh batteries and a charger, something which people tend to overlook.

I've never used it. I wish Garmin would make a wireless USB module though, so that I can connect it to the PC wirelessly instead of fiddling around with that rubber boot every time. My wife and I send files back and forth between our Oregons - it's really handy. As more people get wireless capable units, the feature will become more useful, I think.

Actually this is no longer the case - not sure which upgrade changed things but you can now tell the Oregon, and likely the Dakota and Colorados as well which method you prefer in Setup/Routing/Guidance Method which now allows you to set the following three options: Off Road On Road for Time On Road for Distance You can still change your selection to one of the other alternatives, while navigating by going back to "Where To". Yippee!

One thing nobody's mentioned yet is the Oregon's ability to wirelessly send waypoints and tracks (and pictures, if the unit has a camera) between compatible units. As it says on the Garmin Oregon page: "Share Wirelessly With Oregon 450 you can share your waypoints, tracks, routes and geocaches wirelessly (with) other compatible Oregon, Colorado and Dakota users. Now you can send your favorite hike to your friend to enjoy or the location of a cache to find. Sharing data is easy. Just touch “send” to transfer your information to similar units."

It's just your basic plastic container with flip-down locking tabs on all sides of the lid.

I switched to getting the camera at the last minute and am really glad I did. It's fun to be able to navigate directly back to a picture location. I know I could leave a waypoint, but the picture is very useful as a reminder.

You can never have too many gps units - and fortunately my wife understands that. In fact she shares the enthusiasm! Here's our current collection: Nuvi 850, 780, 670 2 Oregon 550s Forerunner 201 ( I put this on the dog's collar when out walking it to see how much farther he goes than we do) Microsoft laptop gps It's an addiction, obviously. But it won't kill me.

I went from the 60CSx to a 550, and love the new unit. The 60 has been sold because I never used it again once I had the 550. I wouldn't get the T model, though. Buying the Topos separately cost about the same in my case, and having them on dvd meant I could install them on the computer and do route planning there, which you can't do with a T model.

I also agree - the Oregon and Colorado, and perhaps the Dakotas as well, do very nicely in 3D or "Navigate on road" mode - it's just too bad you can't tell the unit to do so without having to close the map view and go back to "Where to" to tell the unit to recalculate on road. I bet that's why it's not obvious to many owners that the units will do "on road navigation".

As others have said, you can have many different map sets but I wrote the following last weekend, after I figured out how best to load maps on the Oregon/Dakota/Colorado series: How To Load Maps on an Oregon/Dakota/Colorado: .... When I loaded all those maps to my unit, I did it the "traditional" way, combining them all using MapSource (or did I use BaseCamp? ), then transferring the result to the unit as one ginormous file named gmapsupp.img. I like the idea of loading each set of maps separately and renaming each file to reflect the map set. I'll try that next time I do an update. Thanks for the tip! --Larry That's why I thought of this new procedure - coming from a 60CSx in my case, that was the only way to change the maps you had - one huge upload anytime you made a tiny change. And if you think that was bad, the Garmin V I had before that with its 24 megs of memory took forever to upload via serial, so this is a quantum leap, this new method/capability.

As others have said, you can have many different map sets but I wrote the following last weekend, after I figured out how best to load maps on the Oregon/Dakota/Colorado series: How To Load Maps on an Oregon/Dakota/Colorado: After what people have been saying about maps on the new Garmins I thought I'd go back and revisit the map loading on my Oregon 550. I had lots of different maps including Topo Canada V4, Metroguide, Enhanced Basemaps, Ibycus Topo and some others which a local group created, but I didn't think they were loaded in the best way. So I connected the Oregon to my computer in Mass Storage Mode and backed them up to the computer, then deleted them all off the Oregon, and went back to Mapsource, and using one map at a time, loaded each to the Oregon, then went to the Oregon and renamed each file which had just been uploaded. They are always called gmapsupp.img initially but I gave the file a more descriptive name like TopoV4.img, then did the same with each of the other mapsets through Mapsource, renaming appropriately after I downloaded each set. Because I renamed gmapsupp.img each time, the file was not being overwritten as would normally happen when you download or change maps on the gps. When I restarted the Oregon after going through all this it took a couple of minutes to process each img file, and now I have a clean set of files which should be easier to update if/when the time comes to add or remove components of a particular mapset. I know, it's confusing and sounds complicated but it's not, really, and it sure is nice that the Oregon allows this kind of customization.

Sorry, duplicate post...

Get the Oregon/Dakota that suits your budget, and a micro sd card to hold all the maps. No reason to stay in the past with an eTrex - they were good at the time, but time marches on! And paperless caching is now the way to go.

Go to My Garmin - create an account if you don't already have one, or log on if you do, and check to see if map updates are available for it. You can also use the Web Updater, a file you run on your computer. Garmin Web Updater page I find it's helpful to do both because sometimes you'll find something through one but not the other source. Re: connecting through Mapsource - the only problem you might have is if you have maps which are locked to only 1 gps - you can't load them to another.