storm180

If you have any left I will take two. Storm180

Yeh they are back up but no sign of the compass coin yet. Probably revamping their order system again. Hopefully they got their inventory straight.

Same here I got my order in around 11:17 MST after some trying for quite awhile. My credit card has been pre authed and got a confirmation email. The system was still slow and I was waiting 5 minutes between screens but finally got eveything entered so I hope my order did get through. I ordered other coins besides the compass coin. Storm180

Looks like they are all sold out. The coin is listed on the bottom of the page as sold out with the rest of the sold out coins.

I had in my cart with 4 coins added and tried to go to checkout and thats where it left me. Now there is no access at all. Really bummed out. Storm180

I would like 2 also the copper and the black nickel Storm180

I will have to check into the gsak macro library and try it out. That is a real bummer that there is that limitation in the firmware since all the information is actually stored on the SD card. I will give a try to that macro later today and see how it works out. Just have to figure out where to set the center points so I can section off my geocache locations by side of town or something like that. Storm180

I did a few searches on here and came up empty on why it is doing this and I really do not want to call India and not understand what tech support is telling me. The problem is that I downloaded my waypoint files using pocket queries with 500 items in there. Imported them into gsak. Then created the file for all those waypoints in gsak to import them into my magellan. Everything went smooth then I went to load the file and it comes up with " Some Geocache data can't be read due to size limitation " So I go through my listing on my 600 and notice it has dropped quite a few geocaches. I read on here it had to due with the size of the SD card in which I have a 1 gig card with plenty of space on it. It is no where close to maximum. I also did another test with a differnt group of 419 waypoint and gave me the same message. Is there a workaround to fix this? Storm180

Those ammo cans in the final leg where really cool with the electronic combo locks. Wouldn't mind having those for a few hides it would make it interesting. I am thinking those might be custom jobs made by hollywood prop people. Since I have never seen them online before. Storm180

Yeh I sent them off an email this morning but I can see from the list of other things other users want fixed on the explorist this is just something to add. I own the Roadmate 700 which I upgraded just recently to the 760 through thier V5 firmware which was pushed back almost 11 months when they first announced it. So yes I agree the firmware upgrades for the explorist are probably off in the distance.

Thanks for the reply. They need to fix that thing to make it easier to see. I like the thick orange line thing which I thought was the one I should have been using and not the dotted line. Well I guess I will just have to get used to it. Thanks so much. Storm180

Well today was my first real day of geocaching with the advice you guys gave and all went well. Except for one thing. The distance line that shows the triangle icon to the cache location. I have them both turned on. So I go and set the goto to a cache. As I am driving there it appears to be working. So I get out and put some gas in the car and I look at the unit and the line is gone. I zoom out and find the line and its not even near the triangle icon or connected to it. I start out driving and again to see if it fixes it self and it did not seem too. Not sure if I am doing something wrong or the gps is not working right. I my garmin forerunner the line is always connected to the icon and the cache. The exlplorist seems to get disconnected at time. It was the Pos-dest line & Depart-Dest line one was a large orange line it showed. That was the one giving me screwy readings. I had both turned on and when I shut off depart I got a dotted line. Which was is for what and what do I follow. Storm180

I will give that a try and see how it goes. It was rainy today so it was not a good day for caching. Thanks for the suggestion. I appreciate everyones help. Storm180

I did calibrate the compass a few times to make sure I had the exact procedure down and getting it perfect. I did it last night before I went caching also. I guess the only thing that stumps me right now is the map orientation on whether I should have it on North Up, Coarse Up, Track up, or CompassHDGup. The thing about the compass I was just wondering what is the difference when you have electronic compass set to on or off. I do not see a difference when I go to the screens its still working. Unless it means that the compass won't spin like on other gps unit that don't have an electronic compass. One other thing does any of the map orientations mode give me a arrow that shows which way to go. I know some of the modes gave me a small arrow in the top corner that was sometimes pointing to the way I needed to go. I think it was in track up map mode. Just not understand the actual meaning of all these terms even though I have reread the reference manual a few times on the map orientations. I will try my unit later today with it set to magnetic north and see what happens. Any comments on the above issues would be helpful. Storm180

I know there are differnt map orientation modes and none seem to produce the results I want. I read the manual for the descriptions and I tried each one to see which one I like or which one works the best for me and it seems none of them were acting right. Maybe its just me. Can anyone clarify them for all for me. One that I am not sure of is the CompassHDGUP. Also the compass on / off option. Am I to understand that when its off the compass screen is only using the gps to find my location and when its on its just acting like a regualr compass? Anyone out there who has a 600 can let me know how you have it configured like magetic north or true north and what oreintation you have it set to along with any other added configurations. Seems like my garmin forerunner 201 is alot easier in leading me to my location than the magellan at least for the test last night unless I had something messed up. I understand you need to put the GPS away when you get 20-30 ft away and start looking. Its just getting to my destination using the 600 seems alot harder yesterday. My better half was using the forerunner 201 and got closer to the cache than I did. Actually at some points she was going the right way and I was going the wrong way. Maybe I just need to get used to the new GPS. Storm180

Well where do I begin. I wrote in a while ago I was wondering if I should buy the Explorist XL or the Explorist 600. I decided to go with the 600. So I get it in the mail yesterday and began to program it. I also bought Mapsend Topo 3D Usa. Configured it to the best of my knowledge. Uploaded my detailed map to the unit. Everything was going good until I loaded up a cache to go look for it. This had to be one of the most painful experience in my life. First off the triangle which is you on the map screen moves but does not move in the direction I was moving. I also noticed I can only zoom down to 100ft in detail. When I go to the compass screen to try to zero in on the cache and follow it, I get close and then it spins the opposite way of where the cache was. Also from the map screen there is no way of telling which way to walk. Now I could have this thing configured wrong but I have checked everything even recalibrated the compass and such. I have been using the Garmin Forerunner 201 and I guess I expected it to be similiar. Nice big directional arrow telling me which way to go on the map screen. This was not the case. Now I have my forerunner set up to do Orient map north and it works the way I want where the map is stationary and the little icon moves towards the cache. I set my explorist up to similiar settings and it just doesn't seem to track my movement properly. On the Explorist 600 I tried all the oreientation setting and none of them delivered what I wanted. I have the North set to true. So I guess I am really confused and not sure if there is some setting I am missing or what. Any help would be appreciated. Storm180

Thanks for the opinions. I am not looking for a heavy item to lug around while caching but I only need the unit for geocaching. The people who have the 600 is the screen big enough to be able to read. I mean I don't want to have to squint to read my maps or waypoints. In the opinion of the owners of the 600 is the screen big enough? Storm180

Well thanks for all the quick replies on this, I really appreciate it. Just for a side note on use wise. I will be only using this for geocaching and hiking. I have a magellan 760 in the car for around town vehicle navigation. I guess the big question would be if I already have a vehicle navigation system do I really need the bigger screen for geocaching? You people who bought the XL do you use it for vehicle navigation and geocaching?

So I went to the store yesterday to pick up my magellan 600 and I saw the XL with the larger screen and both were the same price (REI local store). I was going to get a 600 because of the 3 point electronic compass for geocaching. However I like the XL large screen, is it possible in the future for magellan to put out a firmware upgrade to give it an electronic compass. Talked to the sales rep there and didn't get any brilliant information I did not already know. So I left the store empty handed. So my question is to all that own the 600 and XL please weigh in on which way I should go. I pulled between the larger screen on the XL but also the nice features on the 600 like the electronic compass and geocache manager (not sure if the XL has that magellan site doesn't list this unit for geocaching (XL)) One other thing I already order my Mapsend TOPO 3D US. I have heard people say that you need to update the basemap to use this but you will lose the contour lines in all your maps is this true? Or is there a workaround to maintain the contour lines. I already know about the 2 step procedure to upload maps(hopefully they will update the topo to work in one step in the future) Thanks in advance, Storm180

Well thank you for all the replies I really appreciate it. One thing I saw in here mentioned was when you were a full stop my arrow starts going round and round. Now someone mentioned that the magellan had the feature where it stabilized everything when standing still am I to assume thats what you were talking about? Storm

I am new to the sport of geocaching and just started last weekend using a Forerunner 201. I found 4 caches and had a blast. I have decided to look into a slightly higher end unit and I have came up with two that I like. Right now the big differnce that I see is the rechargable LION battery in the Magellan as compared to the AA batteries in the Garmin. I like the LION battery feature. Both will let me load top maps and I like the color. Those are my basics that I am looking for. Both have geocaching modes according to the websites. Any other opinions would be helpful. Sean

I just picked up the forerunner 201 at target to see if I would enjoy geocaching. Turns out I do. Hehehe. Well my first observations was this is mainly measure lap times and speed and incline and such. Basically for joggers, bikers, etc. However for simple navigation to get to a geocache it does work well. I have done 4 caches over the weekend and hit all four with very good accuracy from the unit. The unit can be programmed with icons and waypoints. It does leave a bread trail that you can follow back, it has a auto go back to where it will send you back to your start point. It does show the map in on screen where it shows a little person walking and the waypoint icons show on the screen. When you get close it says on the screen arriving at destination. One drawback I have noticed is if you need to know what your coordinates are on the fly it will show it and automatically add it as a waypoint. Also to enter in a new waypoint is not that easy unless you are inputing with your pc with gps easy. You basically enter in your current location automatically then you go and edit the location and resave. I use a high end navigation system in the car and I like the color screen and the maps. Since I like the sport I will probably look into getting a portable high end one with color that I can load topo maps into. Sean