freeside

This thread has a link that describes a home fix. Apparently the display connector needs cleaning after a while.

A positive report of Garmin's customer service: my Vista was out of warranty by one month but they replaced it anyway. Time had not been kind --- many hours in a hot car under full sun and two Burning Mans had taken their toll. I was seeing horizontal lines every eight pixels, and flexing made it worse. I sent it to them Priority Mail; they Airborne-Expressed back a refurbished unit that looked brand new. They even transferred all the waypoints and maps. Repair cost: $0.00. Reason given: for good customer service. That's the sort of thing that makes a difference. I've since picked up two Rinos 120s; three friends have also bought Rinos on my recommendation. Now, this doesn't mean I now expect Garmin to fix all out-of-warranty units; I was just happy they did fix mine. [This message was edited by freeside on September 29, 2003 at 10:24 AM.]

This may be a little too much solution for the problem, but one guy developed an onboard power solution using a Dynohub in parallel with a 6v nicad rechargeable. Elegant, though D cells are probably more practical.

In the year or so that I've been geocaching, about a quarter of my caches have either disappeared or been trashed (by wild animals or wild humans? who knows.) So I think I may start leaving only virtual caches even where a regular cache would fit. Also, burning gas just to maintain a cache isn't good for the environment. Comments? [This message was edited by freeside on May 08, 2003 at 12:47 PM.]

The only time I've ever seen lockups or shutdowns was with the Rino, but I was standing next to an active radar array at the time. Since upgrading to 3.10 my Vista has claimed "poor satellite coverage" intermittently, for up to 30 seconds at a time, even while the sat screen showed 6 or 7 birds in black.

Choosing the right map can be very confusing. When I first got my Vista I was high with excitement. Then I had to figure out Garmin's huge range of map products. It was like a bucket of ice water in the face. While it's nice that Garmin provides a web interface to preview the maps, that takes too long if you don't already have a rough idea of the big picture. And the big picture is really hard to get because Garmin's marketing copy is more fog than fact. First, ignore the term "MapSource". That's the name for the software application that manages all the maps. When you install any of Garmin's maps, you'll have MapSource (and should upgrade to the latest). In the US, the vast majority of people only need to decide between the Metroguide and "Roads and Recreation". You only need Topo if you go off-road. Points of Interest doesn't make sense; just buy the Metroguide. City Navigator and City Select are only for Streetpilot and GPS V users; if you have an eTrex or a Rino, cross them off the list. Metroguide has Points of Interest. This can be a lifesaver. 8pm on a cold, dark, very wet, very stormy night found us on the road to Lewes, DE to catch the ferry to Cape May. Ferry was closed due to weather, and Helen really had to pee. The coast was deserted. Rolling breakers pounded the shore, and there wasn't a lit building in sight. Then I remembered a Wawa a few miles back --- but not every Wawa has a public loo! So I clicked on Find / Nearest / Convenience Stores, and there it was: location, address, zip code, phone number. We called ahead, booked the toilet, and minutes later we were examining Wawa's wide range of delicious Frito-Lay comestibles. In late August last year, outside Sebastopol, CA, I once clicked Find / Nearest / Gas Stations so the Jeep could make it to Burning Man. Gas Stations, ATMs, and Motels: you could do an entire road trip with nothing else. MetroGuide also knows where people live: you can enter a street address, and it'll get you close enough to read numbers off mailboxes. I don't need directions anymore. I say: just give me your address and I'll do the rest. MetroGuide maps support autorouting, which means it'll autogenerate a route and download it to the Vista. But all that takes up lots of memory. The Vista has 24 megs of ram, but the Rino 120 has only 8. If your unit is RAM-limited, you'll need to forgo the MetroGuide, or only use it where you know you'll really need the features. Strip everything out from MetroGuide except roads, parks, and shorelines, and what's left is Roads & Recreation. You get more road for the RAM, so to speak. The entire US fits into a single CDROM, so you can leave it in your laptop and use that to navigate. But you don't get autorouting so you'll need to give your co-pilot an atlas. Leaving out the POIs saves lots of space. MetroGuide on the Vista covers less ground than R&R on the Rinos. My Rinos have full road detail from Philadelphia all the way to the Canadian border, with a choice of Toronto, Ottawa, or Montreal. If something happens, we can flee on a half dozen highways, or we can take local roads. We'll be the most high-tech refugees ever.

Three places to look: support geocaching.com! follow the link off the main page to offroute.com. check Jack and Joe's list ask froogle.google.com Look for package deals that include automotive mount, power cable, etc, if already know you'll be needing them.

I have observed on several occasions the Vista will lock on to six or seven satellites, with strong signal, and then say "Weak GPS signal", as though it had no sats at all. For a while I thought maybe it could be due to a pathological satellite configuration, where the birds are too close together to be really useful; but the last time this happened they were quite spread out. Each outage lasts for about fifteen seconds. The last time this happened the Rinos were able to tell location just fine. Has anybody else seen this problem? I do not recall it happening before the upgrade to 3.10.

Okay. I confess. You guys have uncovered a giant conspiracy. There is no war in Iraq. It's all being staged by the same folks who faked the moon landings. Gotta go --- "Wag the Dog" is on!

The M1s and Bradleys may have onboard military-grade GPS, but the guys on the ground seem to have brought their own handheld units. Marine using Garmin GPS12 (image by James Hill for the New York Times) [This message was edited by freeside on April 06, 2003 at 10:37 PM.]

I got back brand new units with the foam strips. While no freebies were included they did go the extra mile --- my maps and waypoints were copied to the new units. Go Garmin! Great tech support. They sent the units back two-day air so end-to-end total downtime was 1 week. I wonder if the Rinos will transmit at 1 watt on channels 1-7 when you turn on GMRS.

I hope the civilian GPS units don't let down the troops if they turn Selective Availability back on --- or if the opposition turns on their GPS jammers! A lot of technology starts out under military development, then trickles down to the civilian market; now it seems GPS has come full circle. I wonder who makes the DoD's military-grade receivers. A battle-ready version of the Rino 120 would make a fantastic tool. My vote is for the Etrex Vista; it supports Military Grids, it has a compass and altimeter, it's small and light, and it has been desert-tested by yours truly. The IPX7 waterproofing works just as well against fine sand. The 24 megs of ram aren't quite as relevant, since (I'm guessing) the military doesn't have maps of Iraq in a format downloadable to Garmins. But he can always use them for geocaching when he gets home. Remember to throw in the see-through protective case accessory. And batteries. Lots of batteries. Garmin units with Military Grid support

I wrote to Garmin about this last year. On Dec 31 2002 they said: quote:When you save the tracklogs the unit must remove some of the data toconserve memory. If you need the time stamp you will need to download the active tracklog. Sorry, we had to do it that way. seems sloppy, since to save memory you could in theory save only start time, point-to-point intervals, and segment restart times. depends on the data structure design, i guess. but why save bearing and distance when you can regenerate that later?

after entering my zip code there was no "submit" link. same with state code. i'm using a nokia 6310i on t-mobile's network.

Yes to all questions. Please, give me some credit. The units were as identical as possible.

I recently bought a second Garmin Etrex Vista to give to a friend. Being a big GPS dork, I just had to go take them both out for a walk, and guess what I noticed? The new Vista has significantly poorer signal reception than my old one. My old one would see six satellites, the new one four. Signal strength would be lower too. Has anyone out there had the chance to compare signal quality on two ostensibly identical Vistas?