flfirefighter

PerhapsI will stop off at local store and compare mine to one in the store, thanks. For me it looks like the battery compartment isn't as durable on the 78 as the 76.......

Display is pixeled, not nearly as clear as my four year old gpsmap 76csx. Display isn't half as bright as my 76. When battery level is at half strength, unit will turn off back light and other features which makes unit even more difficult to read. Battery campartment is a pain in the a** to get into and now you must change batteries twice as often as with the 76 because of the low battery feature. Oh, if you use city navigator the unit displays the streets and land in a very non contrasting color, very hard to read. Garmin dropped the ball on this unit

Display is pixeled, not nearly as clear as my four year old gpsmap 76csx. Display isn't half as bright as my 76. When battery level is at half strength, unit will turn off back light and other features which makes unit even more difficult to read. Battery campartment is a pain in the a** to get into and now you must change batteries twice as often as with the 76 because of the low battery feature. Oh, if you use city navigator the unit displays the streets and land in a very non contrasting color, very hard to read. Garmin dropped the ball on this unit

A GPS with an electroniccompass will point to the correct NSEW direction even when standing still. When you have a GPS without an electronic compass just take a couple of steps and it should get it's act together and point the way. Thanks to all for response. Helpeed a bunch.

I will give that a try, I would have to say when we were kayaking when trying to determine the right way to go,we were sitting still. So with the compass off, is the only way to know which way you are headed by the North arrow on the map page? If not, how do you knowN,S,E,W? Thanks By the way.......I meant by poing the unit East etc, it would be off by several marks

What good is it if the dadgum thing doesn't ALWAYS show your correct heading. I can be pointed dead East and it will show me NE or SE, maybe a tad closer to East but still if it can't show you at all times the direction you are heading how would one find their way out of the jungle........A few degrees off can certainly matter. 76csx

send the unit back..............get a new one..............

But why would the direction arrow on map not show my direction. Also If the compass is not correct, does that affect the rest of the unit? Like when I am on the map page, will the map page be wrong on showing my heading or when pointing to North. P.S. That sucks you have to wait for spring........pretty much all year long here, actually late summer it's too hot.

But why would the direction arrow on map not show my direction. Also If the compass is not correct, does that affect the rest of the unit? Like when I am on the map page, will the map page be wrong on showing my heading or when pointing to North.

I did put in fresh batteries right before, but should the compass affect the accuracy of the unit?

Recently kayaking here in florida in small winding canals gps failed me. Heading/compass reading was not correct or close to an old fashioned compass. The curser on screen would not point to the direction I was headed, it would move sidways, backwards, etc. Next day I calibrated compass which seemed to correct the problem. Still, the cursor does not point in the direction I am going completely. My problem is how the hell can you depend on a GPS and find your way if it doesn't show the way you are headed. Also, why would calibration of compass affect the curser and the rest of the unit showing the correct direction of your heaading? How do others correct this problem if they have no compass on their gps? Note, never had a problem with curser while driving. Slow speeds bring on the problems. Perhaps I will make a $417.00 door stop.

BogartXL50 w/3 zeon processors and 18 ch capability

Agree mapsource does pretty much the same. Where dot he geocaches come from in GSAK? From what I understand you can get cords of caches from GSAK, am I correct?

Just to be sure... Even with the news above, I still don't have to reset my GPSMAP 60Cx which came with chipset software 2.80? Is that correct? Why worry about it if your gps is working properly?

But the above statements says you only recieve D's on WASS sats? Also, why one would reseive D's across the board and not on 51?

In my experience, 11 feet has no meaning in the physical world. It is only an indication of relative accuracy for your unit. In other words, if your EPE was 27' yesterday, and 7' the day before, 11' means that you are getting a pretty good signal. I don't think I've ever seen and EPE on my unit below 7' (I have a 60C), and it has sometimes been as high as 190' (on an airplane). So in my mind, it is sort of like saying, "how is my unit doing today on a scale of 1 to 100?" For my unit, 11' is pretty good. Also based upon my experience, if my 60C says 11' and my partner's says 19', I can't necessarily say that my unit is more accurate than theirs. I use it only to compare the current reading to the reading at other times on my unit. If you only get D's on WASS sats and WASS sats are #33 and above, why do we get D's on all sats below 33 also? Just curious here.......

1) One way is to first mark your current location as a waypoint and then put the GPS into demo/simulation mode with the radio receiver circuits off. Now choose a "New Location" and set it to be at point B. Finally ask the GPS to route you to the waypoint you set before. 2) One-way streets, length of exit ramps, turn restrictions, etc. can all influence exactly how long a given trip will be expected to take and may well make a sligthtly different route look better for the return trip. Ill try that but I thought it only routes when the gps is on...............

Instead of mapping/routing from the point where you are currently located to point B. Is there a way to map/route from point B to where you are? Using just the GPS only, no pc. Also why would your GPS take you on a different route coming back from a location then it did going to?

The maps I have show that if you take Woodlawn as far east as possible it becomes River View Ave. running northeast. Continuing on that street after crossing MLK Blvd. it becomes Rome Ave. running north and that then takes you to River Shore. If that's correct, then it seems to me that the CN-NA directions would lead you to the right place although as printed directions it would be nice to include the street name changes. But when viewed on the GPS it shouldn't be a problem since that'll show you the intended route and where you are at all times. But I'm no where near Tampa, so let us know if the actual streets on the ground don't correspond to the maps. If that's the case then putting in a correction at the NavTeq website has been shown to be effective at making sure the problem is fixed in the next release. BTW, I tried it using both CitySelect-NA, v6 and MetroGuide-USA, v4.01 maps and got very similar routing to that posted by NeoGeo. Adding a viapoint to get it to use the Hillsborough exit instead keeps you on the freeway longer but according to the MetroGuide maps it adds almost 4 miles of distance and a little under a minute of travel time. Of course the travel time depends greatly on local traffic conditions and the time of day for a particular trip. Thanks man, my nexttrip over I will take my GPS directions and see what happenes. Hate to be one of these guys here that split hairs you know, perhaps being too paticular.

Have to ask, why on earth drop so much cash on three units? Why not just buy the csx off the bat and be done with it?

No I haven't tried it on map source I will try that next time I am on. See you are coming up with the same errors. 1.Woodlawn runs East West, so does River Shore Way. Its also a half mile or so south of River Shore so you can't possibly turn right onto River Shore Way from Woodview. Only road onto RS is from Rome Ave and it has nothing of Rome which runs North South. Guess i will keep my paper map in the glove compartment. I have found four caches though within 5 miles of my house with no problem except once it took me behind the paramiters of the park where there was no road leading into the park. Had to recalculate once I was in park.

I live in SoCal. I have a Garmin GPSMap 60CSx. I talked to Garmin before buying software. http://dealnews.com/memory/prices/mini-SD/56/2GB.html Garmin guy said don't buy Metro, buy City Navigator. Call them up, they are very nice and helpful. This unit has a Micro SD. (64 Meg, whoppee) I had topo. I bought City Navigator on fleabay $105 + $10 ship. (Sept 14,2006) I bought 2GB MicroSD card. $90 + $15 ship. All US $ I load the whole West US on city and Topo (over to Colo) and it is about 700mb. The unit works great. I geocache and download onto it. I download waypoints from Trails.com. I drive with it. Well, no voice or touchscreen but I don't need that hiking. In the car it beeps right before turn and shows arrows with distance and time before turn. With WAAS on it is dead nuts on. Beautiful 90 bucks for 2gig card? I am seeing One gig for $25, several different brands brands http://dealnews.com/memory/prices/mini-SD/56/2GB.html

Its because GPS's are toys and unreliable I am finding out. If I go to unknown area I will have a paper map in my back pocket.

That's a good idea. Let's see if others can reproduce the problem on their units... Also, check your routing preferences and post them as well... Menu > Menu > Setup> Routing Is the Follow Road Method set for Faster Time or Shorter Distance? Under the "Follow Road Options": Is it set for Quickest Calculation, Quick Calculation, Better Route or Best Route? Calculate Routes For Car/Motorcycle? Truck? Bus? Emergency? Taxi? Delivery? Pedestrian? Bicycle? Avoid Highways? Avoid U-Turns? Avoid Toll Roads? Avoid Unpaved Roads? Avoid Carpool Lanes? Of course the adresses here are a few houses off but on the same block for obvious reasons. 5424 70 way no. saint pete, fl 33709. to........1501 river shore way, tampa fl. 33603 car/ motorcycle, avoid u turns and unpaved roads. As far as quickest and quick and best and better, I have tried them all. Some combinations get me there but never the way I would go which is ok, it gets me there. But other combinations has me turn off of on a road to another, entirly skipping a road in between. Which would be impossible to do. Also, when leaving the address in tampa, it has me take a route to 275 where there is no exit. At best, it should reverse the way it brought me to the destination. It should take me north on 275 to the west hillsborough ave exit, south on rome ave, east on river shore way. That by far is the simplest route.

The 60Cx can do auto-routing with turn-by-turn directions just using the basemap. But since the basemap is so sparse, the directions won't be very good. Whether that's the cause of your routing problem is hard to say without more information. It would help everyone's understanding if you'd give more specific details about your complaints regarding the routing of CN-NA, v8. Just saying it led you astray at some unspecified underpass doesn't let anyone determine if there's really a map data error at that location, a routing algorithm problem, or some user error (such as NeoGeo's suggestion that the routing data wasn't loaded). Tell us the starting point and destination of the route and exactly where it incorrectly told you to turn and we could probably determine the nature of the problem. Routing data was downloaded and I am running CN8. The dadgum thing gives me routes where roads don't go through or it takes me routes one would never use. The worse though is it gives me directions that would not get me there. Note this is only one route I drive often, roughly 20 miles. 0 out of one is not good odds here. I don't mind getting lost finding a local cache, but I will not trust this thing to take me on trips that I am unfamilar with.That is unacceptable. $417 for the unit and another $108 for CN8 makes an expensive toy for finding caches. If you want, I can give you the adresses I am driving to and from and you can tell me what you come up with.