yooper_gps

... and of course, keeping my Garmin 60CSx, and using, say, my iPhone with something like the iGeocacher or geocaching.com apps to manage cache info, might also be an option. I guess my non-3G iPhone could fit in here, but there are lots of times where I'm out of phone and Internet range.) Or I could just keep using my Palm with CacheMate for cache info. It's just that the idea of everything in one device is appealing to me. Again...thanks.

Hi everyone - I've been out of the geocaching thing for at least a year and have started up again. When I was doing it last, my setup was a Garmin 60CSx, PQ's in daily emails from geocaching.com (500 caches max), GeoBuddy, and an old Palm that I used to keep cache descriptions, hints, etc.. Can't remember the software I used to move the cache info to the Palm. I had a good workflow worked out, but always wished I could simplify and ditch the Palm and have the cache info on the GPS. Fast forward to now. I see that there are GPS units that do hold the cache info now - Garmin Colorado and Oregon, Delorme PN-40 are the ones I've found so far. I'm planning to give my 60CSx to my father-in-law, so I'm in the market for a new GPS unit, and I'm leaning towards a Garmin unit. I've read that it might be better to go with the Oregon vs. Colorado in that Garmin may be emphasizing the Oregon more. True? I've read that some dislike the Oregon display. I'm sifting through all of the posts here trying to come up to speed with newer units. Any issues with using the Colorado or Oregon with Geobuddy? Is there now something better than Geobuddy? Is the Oregon touchscreen a good way to go, or is it problematic? Which of the Colorado or Oregon units (300, 400, etc.) should I go with? Anything else I might want to consider relative to features, limitations, etc.? This will be mostly for geocaching, and some tracking for mtn. biking routes, lots of terrain variation (some dense woods, some open areas). Thanks for your thoughts!

I know this is a bit of a hijack - but can you tell me what software one needs to install on an M500 to be able to store and browse .gpx cache info from geocaching.com? Also, is there any need for the M515 color version if this is the only use the Palm will get? I've been realizing that printing out and carrying these cache pages is getting to be a hassle. Amazon sells these via thrid-party sellers - is this the best way to go? Thanks! I use Cachemate on my Palm M500. Registering Cachemate is only $8.00, which is really cheap. I've used that software for more than two years and have never had a problem with it. I Export the .pdb files from GSAK (Geocaching Swiss Army Knife). I know someone who got a "new" Palm M500 on eBay for only $30.00 including the shipping. Investing in a hard case, for another $10.00 is a very good idea. The case I found at BigLOTs! has saved my Palm from damage. Some of the color Palms are harder to see in bright sunlight than the monochrome Palms. I haven't gone paperless yet, but very soon now. I would have thought that I could just get a big .gpx file from geocaching.com, suck it into the PDA to have the rich cache pages there, import the same .gpx file into ExpertGPS, and be done with it. Not so?

If you download the previous firmware versions to your PC, you can always go back to an earlier version in about 5 minutes if problems arise.

I'm curious - how is the GSAK method more complete and intelligent? I started using ExpertGPS, and I just take the .gpx file(s) and import them into ExpertGPS. From there, I send them to the GPS. FWIW< I chose not to use MapSource as my PC-based mapping/GPS data viewer and database manager. I like ExpertGPS much better. At some point I may end up going to GeoBuddy, but for now I think this works well. Must get a PDA so I can go paperless though - the paper cache sheets are not working well if I'm out somewhere and get the bug to nail a couple of geocaches and haven't printed anything out.

I know this is a bit of a hijack - but can you tell me what software one needs to install on an M500 to be able to store and browse .gpx cache info from geocaching.com? Also, is there any need for the M515 color version if this is the only use the Palm will get? I've been realizing that printing out and carrying these cache pages is getting to be a hassle. Amazon sells these via thrid-party sellers - is this the best way to go? Thanks!

Seems like the wrong contents in the 3.30 download file on the Garmin site. I see a readme for 3.2, and the update.exe wants to install 3.10 into my 60CSx. Idears? The filename in the downloadable file is 029201000330.rgn which is the 3.30 update even thought the readme file says its 3.20. Storm180 Yup - complete screw-up on my part. I mistook the 3.10 dialog message during updating as "I am updating you with 3.10", instead of what it was telling me, which is that it was erasing 3.10. It never says "installing 3.30 now..." or something like that, but no matter - it's all installed now and appears to be fine. Thanks!

Seems like the wrong contents in the 3.30 download file on the Garmin site. I see a readme for 3.2, and the update.exe wants to install 3.10 into my 60CSx. Idears?

MapSource also preserves the cache icons, and is generally more integrated with the 60GSx. If the maps in MapSource had more topo detail, I wouldn't even own NG TOPO. If Mapsource had topo maps with more detail that I could easily download into my 60CSx, well, that would be great, and I'd have no problem paying more for it. But that's not the case yet - maybe they'll upgrade MapSource soon. A MapSource product with obvious enhancements coupled with their Garmin hardware would be a formidable market leader I think. (The Delorme PN-20 might be that kind of integrated package, but their firmware/hardware issues apparently aren't sorted out quite yet.) Anyway, thanks again for the info.

Sure, I do this all the time. When you have track data saved on the microSD you can choose Setup/Interface/USB Mass Storage and copy any tracklog data off the card to your PC. Then in NG Topo go to Handhelds/Import (from GPS or .txt) Wizard. Choose: "In a .GPS file which has waypoints, routes, and/or tracks"/Next. Then you can choose "Tracks as waypoints" or "Freehand tracks" since this is what you want to work with. Once imported you can edit track width, color, add notes and name things. It works quite nicely once you figure it all out. (I'm using NG Topo v4.2.7 having the 3-D upgrade). Thanks! I just figured this out myself - in fact, I found a slightly simpler way by just pointing NG to the .gpx file right on the microSD card via the drive mapping that Windows sets up. That lets you skip the file copy to the PC disk step. (I didn't do it with a track yet but I did with with a waypoint.) See....I generally think I'd like to use NG TOPO over MapSource, and as long as I can find ways to get things done like this, it will make things simpler for me Thanks!

Great info - thanks everyone! Kinda makes me wonder why they had to make tracks so complex, but there must be a reason. Does anyone know how I would import the track info saved to my microSD card to TOPO? As an aside, the more I play with MapSource and TOPO!, the more I wonder why there isn't a better alternative. I thought that maybe Delorme's topo software might be the ticket, but I read a lot of negative reviews on it. I better not think about it all too much. Thanks again...

ADDENDUM: I wa looking around on the 60CSx itself on the MAP page, and apparently 22-MAR-07 shows the outbound track (which seems normal), but 22-MAR-07 02 shows BOTH the outbound and inbound tracks all collected together. So, the 60CSx has two tracks saved - one that had the outbound track only, and one that has both outbound and inbound. I'm pretty sure I turned off tracking at the halfway point, saved the 22-MAR-07 track, and then turned tracking back on for the return leg. Was I supposed to clear something out to make it more obvious that these are TWO, separate tracks with no association? I apologize if this is a dumb question - I haven't seen anything in the manual about it, but I'll go back and reread. Thanks!

Hi all - I've been playing with tracks from my 60CSx - importing them from the GPS into both MapSource and NG TOPO. I see odd behaviors that I thought I'd ask the experienced folks here about. I went out yesterday and created two tracks. First, an outbound track from my house out into the woods, and when I reached the turn-around point, I turned off tracking, saved it (accepting the name of 22-MAR-07 as the name), and then turned tracking back on for the return leg. WHen I got back, I saved that track, and accepted the name 22-MAR-07 02. All seemed fine. MapSource download: when I download the new tracks into MapSource, I find 4 tracks: 22-MAR-07 22-MAR_07 02 ACTIVE LOG ACTIVE LOG 001 ... and the 22-MAR-07 02 apparently is a route containing the TOTAL number of track points for the outbound and inbound legs. Also, the 22-MAR tracks have NO other data associated with them - no times, lengths, areas, or avg. speeds. What's going on here? TOPO! download: I get two tracks showing up on the map, but they are not quite right. First, they are unnamed. When I click on these tracks on the TOPO! map, they don't show the correct distances - the outbound leg was much longer, and yet, TOPO! shows me that its distance is shorter than the inbound leg. It's as though it's confused about which track contains which track points. I also get some waypoints showing up, like 001, 002, 003 - where did these come from? So, I'm wondering if anyone can help me make sense out of this. I would have expected that for MapSource, I would just have seen two simple tracks show up after the import, and for TOPO!, well, pretty much the same thing. Thanks for any help you can offer! Doug

Kinda sounds like your 60CSx was in night mode, where the background is dark and the lines are lighter. You can configure this: menu/menu/setup/display. (assuming it is the same as my 76CS) No - it's in Daytime mode always. It's like this: when you're in MapSource, you select the various rectangular maps from the (in my case) Eastern U.S. region to identify them as the ones you want to download to the device. When you select them, those map sections backgrounds turn in color from something like a light yellow to a light salmon color, and when downloaded, it looks like that's the color that it sends to the device. I can live with it, but I wish I could modify it so that there was more contrast on the map with regards to contour lines and the background. Thanks for the replies!

Apparently those settings have no effect on the colors used in the downloaded MapSource topo map once it is in the GPS. I tried several variations. I did not download 3.2 because I saw several posts which clearly discouraged that version, and suggested that folks wait until the 3.3 is released. 3.10 seemed like the safer choice. Let me know if I got it wrong on either of these - thanks.

OK - did all this. Updated the 60CSx to 3.10 (from 3.0) but not 3.20. All fine. Installed 2GB card - fine. Downloaded a bunch of maps from MapSource, downloaded lots of geocache waypoints into MapSource, then over to GPS, no problem. Done a number of other things too - no problems. It all seems to work fine. Great GPS reception. I wish the MapSource maps on the PC and on the GPS were more detailed, but I think I can live with it for now. Does anyone know if there is a way to change the colors of the topo maps that are downloaded into the 60CSx? They have this pinkish background (which happened when I selected them from the larger map set) and the topo lines use a light color, and I wish I could see things a bit better on the GPS screen (more contrast). I would love to be able to change the colors in the map. A minor nit. I love the integration between geocaching.com and MapSource, and the ease of downloading geocaches and then going back and forth. Played some with NG TOPO. Nicer PC maps. Apparently NG TOPO isn't geocaching-enabled? The nice "chest" icons for geocaches get replaced by the generic waypoint icon. Wish I could get these on the GPS, but it's not critical. Not sure if I'll use NG TOPO or MapSource. Not too interested in the multi-step tech project outlined in one of the other posts for importing custom maps into the GPS, but who knows. Thanks!

Thanks everyone! Hopefully I'll learn all about this stuff and be able to offer info to others down the road. Doug

OK - thanks - I'll go and read up. For getting started, I assume I can just use the MapSource Topo software for now, deal with any lack of detail/accuracy that I encounter, and once I get things figured out I can start dlwnloading my own maps into the GPS and get somethinglike Nat'l Geo TOPO for my PC? Or is that just dumb?

Thank you! Can you tell me what the name of the software is that allows you to do this?

Hi all - I'm getting back into this after being out for a few years. I'm planning to grab either a Garmin 60Cx or 60CSx and want to do some geocaching and general orienteering/bushwacking out in the zillions of square miles of forest in this part of the country. But, I have some questions on topo map software. (BTW, I'm in the U.P. of Michigan, in case that's relevant for the questions below.) First, I can get topo software from Garmin (MapSource?) that I can put in my GPS, via either a pre-packaged memory card (where the softwere is already installed), or by getting the CD, a 1GB or 2GB card, downloading the topo maps to the card on my PC, and then putting the card in the GPS. Then I'll have topo maps right there in the GPS for the field. Is this correct? Is there something better than MapSource for GPS-based topos? Then, I'd also want some software on my PC that lets me move POIs, routes, etc., back and forth between the GPS and the PC, so I can come up with routes and POIs on the PC, print the maps if I want, download the routes/POIs to the GPS, upload routes and POIs back from the GPS to the PC, view them on my PC in the topo software, get elevation/distance profiles, etc. Did I get that right? If so, what software is the best for this? Is there a single topo software product that will do all of the above for me, or do I need one for the topo basemaps in the GPS, and a better one for topo mapping stuff on the PC? I may have read that people think MapSource sorta sucks, and that there are better alternatives, but I didn't see any mention of other topo software that can be used right on the GPS as well as the PC. Should I get both MapSource and, say, Nat'l Geo's TOPO? Lower detail for MapSource (since it's on the GPS), and higher for NG TOPO? This is where I'm little confused. I won't be using my GPS much to navigate streets, to get address directions, or any of that. It will be nearly all for backwoods navigation either on foot or on mountain bike: topo contours, streams, trails, dirt roads, lakes, Lake SUperior shoreline, that sort of thing. OK - that's it! Please give me some direction and your recommendations on what I should do - I'm OK with spending some money on this. Thanks! Doug

I wasn't trolling. Here's how a lot of people define trolling: http://www.straightdope.com/mailbag/mtroll.html I wasn't trolling because I have an honest interest in the answer to my question, and it isn't my intent to start an emotional stir for the sake of seeing everyone get riled up. I figure that I should be able to ask a question that I want an answer to, and trust that people won't go all wonky. I also figure that there may be some factual info out there about the question. Granted, I should have posted my question outside of this thread. Sorry for that. But clearly, I wasn't not trolling.

I ask this in the most respectful way possible. I'm not trying to start a G vs. M war or anything. I just keep reading posts where there are complaints about how the Magellans report that they have a solid fix on a number of sats, but in fact, they've actually lost them, and the accuracy goes off into the weeds until it reaquires. These posts also often say that the Garmin 76S, for example, may report that it has lost its fix, but at least it isn't misleading you into thinking that it has a fix when it really doesn't. If this is a bunch of garbage, then so be it. If it's true, why would someone want this kind of "feature" in their GPS? I'm not trying to troll here or start a controversy - just trying to fill in a gap in my understanding of things. I often go back and forth between my 76S and a MeriPlat, and wonder if I shoulda bought the MeriPlat instead. But then, this questions always pops up in my head. Thanks, Doug

I nearly put up a post with very question today. Now that I have a Garmin 76S I'm wondering if I should have checked out the Plat. There are some threads that discussed this - do a search with plat AND 76S and they'll turn up. Doug

The word "***" gets deleted. Jeez.