grateful cacher

What I like about my Oregon 550 What I would change about my 550 (I just added a couple of lines today!) I'm using the Garmin car adaptor for my Oregon 550t, and when I plug mine in in the car, it turns on, just like normal. No storage mode, nothing, just turns on, ready to cache. When I remove it from the adaptor, it detects it, and asks if I want to turn off or transfer to battery power. Worked that way out of the box.

..your link wants me to download iTunes? That's because it's an app for the iPhone, and the only way you can view/purchase/download those apps is if you have iTunes installed on your computer.

Get the official Groundspeak geocaching app from iTunes. It's $9.99 and is great. I have it, and use the iPhone as a back up to my regular GPS. Easy to use, can download pocket quires on it. I know of one user in my area that that is his only GPS device.

I love it. The camera is a plus since I record all my caches. One drawback is that you can only store your GPX data on the internal memory of the unit, not on the microSD card. That hasn't been a problem yet, but with the 300 I had you could store them in both places and it worked well. I have also had this problem once, and I don't know if it is Garmin problem or what is going on. I did a pocket query for an area I was going into. Downloaded, installed everything looked fine. But when I went to select a geocache to review it, the data screen came up blank and locked the unit up. I had to hold the on/off button down for several seconds to get it to turn off. I know it was this one PQ that I did that caused it, as it had worked fine for others, and for single ones in that same area. Battery life is good, but I would carry a spare set or two since the camera does cause a little shorter life.

The hc on SD cards is referring to cards that are greater than 4gb in size. When SD cards were first released, they were no larger than 4gb. When the technology allowed a greater capacity, it also required the hardware using those cards to change as well. That is why those cards are labled hc (high capacity). You'll notice that SD, microSD, and miniSD cards that are <2gb do not have the HC label on them. Those 4gb and larger do. That is to prevent older devices that cannot support the HC standard from using them. I have an iPaq h4155 PDA that will accept a 4gb SD card (non-HC) but it will not work with a 4gb SDHC card -again, due to the hardware requirements to using SDHC cards. It was mostly a problem with cameras. But the 200 series will support microSD/microSDHC cards up to at least 16gb (heck of an overkill).

I got mine from REI. Great service, excellent warranty, and a rebate at the end of the year.

A couple of questions. When you do your pocket query, I assume that you set you limit to 500 caches? How saturated is the area where you are doing your PQ for? I live in a very urban area, and if I do a PQ for a location, it will return the number I set. But if I do just a general Seek a Cache for the same area from the Geocaching webpage, it may return over a thousand caches available. Is it possible that the cache you're hunting for is there but was not included in the PQ that you ran? That might explain why you can see it when you load just a single cache (ie, using the "send to GPS" radio button).

The 550t will only let you store your geocache information on the internal device memory, not on external data cards. Othewise, it works great for me. I had a 300 and then got the 550t the day it was released.

Are you putting your maps on the internal device memory (approx. 850mb) or are you using an external microSD card? I planned a trip in the US a few months ago, and used City Navigator North America 2009, and put most of the western US on my device using the external microSD card. Took up about 2.3gb of memory, but it ran just fine.

If you want to take pictures with your GPS, then the 550t is the one you want. Otherwise the 400t will do you just fine. One other advantage to the 400t is that you can store any or all of your geocaching data on the external microSD card. The 550t will only read geocaching data from the internal device memory. You can always look at getting a 300 and putting all of your maps on the external storage device, which would allow you to update you topo maps easier. I had a 300 with the topo and city navigator, and went to a 550t simply because of the camera.

I assume you're using Geocache Navigator by Trimble on a Blackberry? I have it installed on my Sprint BB 8330 Curve, and it seems to show all of the sites that are out there, both member and non-member. Have you contacted Trimble, it sounds like it maybe a compatability issue with the phone you have and the version of software. Were you a premium member when you first started using this, or did you become one after you started using the program?

Which app are you using? The Groundspeak one for geocaching?

The contest was over last October. But when I was doing the 2009 coin contest, I noticed that next to the box of 2009 coins was one marked 2008. I asked if they were selling those coins or what, and the lady at the desk told me that you could still turn in the form and get them, there were 20-25 coins left. The caches were not that difficult to do, the coordinates were very accurate, and parking was close to most of them. Not a lot of hiking involved at all. Note that two of the sites have been archived and are not reachable(GC1DJVD and GC1DJVB). But you only need 7 for the coin. I did them in about 4 hours. Lots nice driving on back roads, beautiful country. You kids will love two of the sites, one with alpacas and one with elk. Allow extra time for those two. If you have the time, you could do the 2009 coin hunt as well. I thought this was done and over. I may have to head out a few days early to the Geo Luau Event to get this done. I will have to make sure my kids ( 6 & 8 ) will be able to handle these caches. They did just go on a hike with me to hide two new caches and it was over 5 miles of hiking so we should be good to go i hope. Thanks for letting us know about this.

You can configure the PQ to run on a various schedule, such as weekly, or daily, or once. It will always assign a file name that is a number when you run them but the number never changes. So whenever you run it again it'll have the same number. When you copy it to your GPS, it will overwrite the older query and put in the latest with the update information.

I have both an iPhone 3Gs and Blackberry 8330 Curve. I've put geocaching apps on both of them. I really like them as a back-up to my GPS when I'm out geocaching. I use the Trimble program on the Blackberry with works very well, very configurable and fairly accurate. In some terrain, like woods, it works better than my Oregon 550t. It runs $40/year subscription but it is a nice back up. The iPhone uses a Groundspeak app that works well, very configurable (lets you download pocket queries you have set up directly to the phone), but the GPS accuraccy isn't all that great. I know of one cacher in my area that is all he uses for his searches. This app cost $9.95. The nice thing about having geocaching phones is that you always have a way look for caches when you're bored. As for having two phones, one is for business, one is for home.

There are still about 20-25 2008 Mt. Hood Territory geocoins up for grabs even though the contest ended in October 2008. For details (including the waypoints) you can download the entry form here: http://www.mthoodterritory.com/vfr/geolog.pdf There are 10 sites in Clackamas County Oregon that you need to visit (actaully 8, since two of them have been archived). Visit each site, get the magic word, and after you get 7, you can claim you coin at the End of the Oregon Trail Interpretive Center in Oregon City, Oregon. All the rules, contact informatin, etc. are on the form.

The unlock code is what Garmin sends you so you can read your maps on the GPS. You have connect your GPS to your computer, go to their website, enter the serial number of your unit, enter the product code of the map program you have, and they will unlock the maps for your device. If you don't do this, you will be able to load maps onto your GPS, but when you try to use them you will get a message saying your maps are not unlocked. One thing I found out the hard way was is that when you unlock a map for your GPS, you can never, ever use it on another GPS. I purchased an Oregon 300 and City Navigator NT about three months ago, then just upgraded to a 550t. I could not transfer my license for the City Navigator NT to that unit, I had to buy another full copy. I guess that is how Garmin does business, they just don't make it very clear. What dose that mean unlock code for your gps? Sorry I not that savvy like i said before. How do you unlock them.

Sorry to be OT again but I have never seen this letter so that means that I never used/had/received WAAS? And I don't know if WAAS is available in Europe (we have EGNOS) so I'm not sure if it's the same thing and if I get any D's with it or if my Oregon can even receive it. Go into your Oregon's setup screen, under System > GPS. The selections on the US model are Normal/WAAS/Demo. You get WAAS by selecting it, I don't know what is used for Normal. I'm not sure if models in Europe are the same or not, but that is what is here.

I calibrated my altimeter and barometer at the same time on my 550t. I did it a couple of times at two differnet locations where I was pretty sure of the altitude. I am under the impression that baromtetric pressure can affect the altimeter if it isn't correct. Am I wrong on that assumption? Have you done the altimeter and barometer calibrations? Hi. yes i did calibrate the altimeter, but did not know my correct height at the time so used the hight given by the gps. i then set auto calibration to off but its still different so i was wondering if it means something else

MapSource on the PC is able to do that. I created a map for my City Navigator NT (states west of the Mississippi River, and the deep south to Alabama), then opened the Topo 2008 and repeated the same area from it. I was then able to save it, and then transfer it to my GPS. It was about 2.3gb in size and took a couple of hours to transfer, but after loading it, everything was great. You are correct about the layering, you can control that amount of detail from the GPS. Too bad it won't work that way with preloaded maps. I currently have a 16gb SDHC card in my 550t, works like a charm.

I took that to mean GPS accuracy, not altimeter. Alsh he says his trip computer gives a different altitude reading of 150 ft. That's why I question the altimeter and barometer calibration.

The 550 would be a good buy over the 550t, if you can get the lifetime updates. I went with the 550t because I really don't need the topo as much as I thought, but since I found out that I can't load geocache data on the external SD, I would like to put all my maps on that card. Both units have the same amount of internal user memory available (approx. 850mb) so being able to put all the map data on the external card would be nice. I looked at the Best Buy sites, and I saw that they have nuMaps lifetime available for $119. I had to go to the Garmin site to find the compatible devices: https://buy.garmin.com/shop/shop.do?cID=256...3379#productTab

I would go with the DVD maps. If you get the SD card version, you won't be able to add anything else to the card. If you go via download, it must be downloaded to an SD card, and it will only be able to be used on that card. With the DVD, you can load it onto an SD card, then reload it again if your card fails, or if you get a bigger one. You can also add different maps to the SD card from DVDs, like the tides and intercoastal waterways maps. With the 550/550t, you won't be able to put any geocaching data on the external SD, it has to all go on the device. I have a 16gb card on mine, mostly to hold pictures. It's an overkill, I've been told, but I subscribe to the theory that it is better to have too much storage area than not enough. On my Oregon 300, I put a City Navigator NT 2009 and Topo 2008 onto an SD card, and loaded every state from Ohio west, and it took about 2.3gb. Also took about 6 hours to load, but it was worth it.

Have you done the altimeter and barometer calibrations?

You'll enjoy it. I went out this past Saturday and did a personal record of 17 caches, with pictures to match.