A.T.Hiker

I have the S4 but haven't yet tried geocaching with it. I've noticed some issues related to the way it records speed. Sometimes, it's always registering a speed of between 1-2 mph, sometimes higher, even when standing perfectly still in a clear view for several minutes. Only way to get the speed to return to zero is to reboot the phone. I've also noticed that the speed resolution seems to be limited to somewhere around 0.5 mph on the apps that register speed in tenths. All of the GPS apps I've used on the S4 exhibit the same behavior leading me to wonder about an underlying hardware/software problem. I wonder if this could be factoring in to your reported accuracy issues. Try rebooting your phone when you have the accuracy issue.

I prefer them to be separate but I'm not sure the Oregon 600 can record on the trip odometer when the track logging is off. No big deal as I can simply clear the track log when I'm done if I don't need it. Besides I think the ability to pause everything is also nice (say when you are having lunch and don't want all the bogus trackpoints recorded as a result of GPS wander) Overall I think the Oregon does a good job of recording tracks and odometer readings -- better than Montana which still has unresolved odometer/track problems -- but I'm not going there again -- both units have their advantages and disadvantages. As far as Monterra goes -- I'm not going anywhere near it. High price point and countless reported problems. My S4 is much better and does quite nicely in a life proof case. I just have to be careful with battery life and not leaving the screen on too long.

I made the original post. Honestly, I have given up on this issue, since many don't even view it as an issue. I still disagree with that position, as this seems to me to be very odd behavior, especially since it also screws up all of your odometers. The "solution" is, as you point out to continually save, clear, and reset. That doesn't really work for me as I like the ability to track monthly mileages for multiple hiking trips (like the older Garmin units were capable of). Oh well, I don't even use the thing that much anymore, and it really isn't worth what I originally paid, with this, and all of the other glitches we've encountered over the years. Mostly using the android phone now, it gets me 6-8 hours on a single full charge running GPS in the wilderness. I just make sure I keep it watertight at all times.

Hello folks. I was curious if anyone with police, fire, EMS, or any kind of rescue operations experience knows if there is a universal position format. Yesterday, I came upon a serious back country injury while hiking a pretty remote park in New York State, and rescue was needed. Fortunately, 911 was available via cellular network, but describing the location in situations like this can be challenging and they initially weren't even sure which county we were in. I provided the GPS coordinates and that seemed to be helpful for them to forward the call on to local personnel, who arrived surprisingly quick given our remote location, thankfully. But I know there are several position formats available, and it got me to thinking how it could lead to unneeded confusion and delay during a crisis. For example, you can do: DD MM.MMM DD.MMMMM DD MM SS.S There is also UTM and many others available to select on Garmin units. I provided DD MM.MMM for dispactch because that's what the Oregon defaults to. Here's an example: The north coordinate N41 07.250 is vastly different from N 41.07250 which is also different from N41 07' 25.0" yet I've seen them all used and they contain the same string of seven numeric characters. If I give dispatch N 41 07.250, and it gets entered as N 41.07250, that could be a big problem as one is base 60 and the other base 10. Any one of those could be mis-interpreted or mis-entered by rescue personnel leading to potentially serious location errors. I'm really curious based on my experience yesterday and would love to have this information handy for any future outdoor adventures. Hope I'm not drumming up redundant discussion points, but feedback is much appreciated on this issue. Thanks.

I have been using this unit now for a month. I've noticed two things that are not exactly performing in the best manner as expected: 1) Compass behaves erratically at walking speeds. This seems to be related to speed problems. The speed jumps erratically from 0.0 to any number up to around 3.0 and back again, often showing such readings as 0.0, 1.8, 1.9, 2.4, 2.5, 1.2, 0.0, all while walking at a steady pace. It seems to screw up the compass. 2) Tracking auto start/pause feature will not function properly for this same reason. It can't seem to decide whether or not it has actually begun moving or has stopped moving. Even while standing still, erratic speed readings are still an issue. After being stopped for about 10 minutes, the unit finally auto-paused. Then I had to walk a full quarter of a mile before it auto-started again. In both instances I noticed it could not settle on a speed, bouncing wildly between 0.0 mph and 1-3 mph and back to 0.0. Now granted the worst of this problem seems to occur under heavier cover, which, unfortnatley for me, hiking in the Appalachians, is most of the time. Enabling GPS + GLONASS did seem to calm the speed readings a bit, but not enough to correct the above two issues. And the speed is still noisy even in wide open spaces. Is this normal expected behavior or something bigger that Garmin hasn't perfected yet?

Does anyone know yet if it's safe to use other rechargeable batteries as an alternative to Garmin's overpriced taped together double AA's? In other words would it be safe to run down to Radio Shack and try to snag a pair for 10 bucks and tape them together myself with electrical tape if I have to, in order to trip the internal charging contact in the Oregon 600?

As far as I'm aware, the power input is the same whether it comes from a USB cable, an AC adapter, or a car adapter. I'm counting on that, actually; I'm looking forward to recharging the batteries in the car as I drive between cache sites. --Larry Yep, it charges it in the car between caches. That is a nice bonus too. Great.

Can a Garmin genuine pair of rechargeable batteries be charged through the USB cable connected to a PC, or must one also purchase an AC adapter for charging to occur on the Oregon 600?

Looking to sell an Oregon 450, in great used condition. I will also include your choice of maps loaded onto the units internal memory: Genuine Garmin 24K Topo Northeast and/or 100K US TOPO. You decide. All accessories included (USB cable, carabiner clip, manuals) as well as the original box. Cost $210. Shipping is on me. Pay via PayPal. Interested? More information? gpsnavigator@optonline.net

Question to the electronics gurus out there and I apologize if it's already been asked. Would I be able to charge any two NIMH batteries inside the Oregon 600, instead of purchasing a separate battery pack? I have eight rechargeable batteries here that are NIMH type AAs that I use for other purposes, and wonder if I can insert a pair into the Oregon permanently and plug the unit in as necessary.

Does this new unit still erroneously record the extra mileage and track between power cycles / location changes like all of the earlier generations do?

Not really, no. Under $400 might start getting into good deal territory on this two-year old unit, that at last check, is still pretty glitchy at times.

Despite its quirks, I believe the Montana is very accurate. In good conditions, I typically get down to 5-20 feet when navigating to a cache, and it usually picks one spot for ground zero and sticks with it, doesn't float too much unless the conditions are tough. On the occasion I happen upon a cache with a difference of over 35-40 feet, when not attributable to conditions, I would tend to believe it was not placed accurately, or placed with a much older unit (such as nuvi 500 or pre-high sensitivity/WAAS receivers)

Here's hoping they don't cancel on you. They cancelled mine. I had saved 15% for opening a Visa. I could call to fight it but I decided not to. It's probably not much of a stretch to say that Garmin promised a March date and then couldn't deliver, and Garmin probably wasn't very responsive in providing Bean with specific information. Bean is a pretty reputable company, and probably didn't want its customers feeling jerked around because Garmin is dropping the ball on delivery dates. So the best thing to do as a reputable retailer is cancel the orders. I've decided best to wait anyhow for the new-releases prices to come back to earth, and the Beta testing phase to work out the bugs. Hopefully they'll have fixed most crashes, track glitches, compass hiccups, indexing issues, wireless issues, battery issues, etc, by then. If not, well, there are still other options out there, including older Garmin units.

Garmin pricing is decent 2 years after an initial release, as they clear out inventory to get ready for new. For new releases, it's pretty outrageous, especially when you begin to add in the cost of maps, mounts, chargers, cases, etc, you could be looking at 700-800 bucks after all is said and done.

Interesting letter from LL Bean, dated March 7, regarding my Pre-Order of this unit: "we regret to inform you the item you requested, listed above, will not be available for shipment. We apologize for the unforeseen circumstances that resulted in our need to cancel your backorder" Looks like LL bean was reading my mind! Oh well. Don't really want it that much anymore anyway. It should be noted that the Oregon 650T is still listed on Bean's website with an availability date of March 31st. Perhaps it is their policy to cancel backorders lasting longer than one month, since it was about one month ago that I submitted the pre-order.

That's not a good sign. Yikes! that's not piddling little stuff that's failing either, according to those wiki posts. I've been thinking of cancelling my pre-order of this device for a couple of weeks now due to cost, Montana glitches that still aren't fixed 16 months later, and well, just simple lack of need at the moment. I think my decision has just been made.

You guys really think they are having issues with the FCC? Or has Garmin just not updated their website? Also, why would the FCC give them so much difficulty on this particular unit? Garmin has released dozens of similar ones in the past, and even already has one functioning GLONASS unit (the eTrex 30).

I've been mulling over the purchase of the new Oregon 650, but am struck with the question: why? It certainly looks neat, but with the very high price point, and Garmin's less than stellar willingness to fix / enhance it's already existing line with software updates, I'm backing away quickly. Besides, I've come to realize in the past few weeks I can do just about everything on my droid phone. We now have Geocaching apps, hiking apps, satellight maps, topo maps, trip logging/tracking apps, many of which are ".gpx" compatable, all for a relatively minor expense, or even free, through the app store. Even road navigation seems to work well. I used Google navigator on the phone yesterday, instead of the nuvi. Searches seemed MUCH quicker and responsive, and Android currently offers it as a free app, already installed on the phone. The advantages to stand alone seem to be dwindling quick. I realize phones still can't do elevation profiling that well, not to mention they are probably not quite as durable. Oh, and battery life too. But that's a relatively short, dwindling list, and if I'm a day hiker, casual geocacher, not spending weeks in the outback away from civilization, is Garmin's $500 + price tag really worth it on these new units. I was curious what everyone's thoughts were.

Setting both of those back to zero at start, will fix the added mileage and the wonky speed data. Agreed. Unfortunately though it is only possible to accurately log mileage for one trip at a time. If you wanted to accurately log mileage / averages for a few days, or even a week, you would have to keep a hand-written log of it each day, as after the first trip, your essentially screwed without resetting. Call me spoiled. I just think it should behave differently. What can I say?

No problem. I understand where you are coming from. Your method DOES solve the track problem, and I totally get that and have figured out how to avoid it. However, for the life of me, I cannot yet solve the odometer issue. Even with all tracking completely disabled, cleared, and turned off, the excess mileage still accumulates to account for distances traveled between power cycles. I'll keep playing around with this archiving feature and if I find it's a workable solution for the odometer too, I'll tip my cap, but as of right now, no luck, and no feedback yet from Garmin.

Grass, your like the obnoxious cable news analyst of the ground speak forums. You vehemently deny this is an issue, and then personally attack me, but still don't seem to fully comprehend what the issue is that I, and others, have tried to explain. Simply put, there is no logical reason for logging tracks and mileage in this fashion, other than shotty programming on Garmin's part. I am fully aware of archiving, clearing, resetting and the meaning of each function. I do it all the time. Mileage and tracks should not be added and connected between power cycles. Period. It's stupid. Garmin units never did that before, and the Oregon unit never did it before version 5.50. I personally don't think for the $500 price tag that I should have to perform all of the meddling around with it that you detail. Besides all of your meddling around still does not solve the odometer issue. Track issue yes. Odometer issue no.

This is the issue: Notice the straight lines connecting waypoints 1,2, and 3. I power cycled at each location and moved for a few seconds. In both instances, straight track lines were drawn connecting to the previous location. This is what happens to trip data as a result of this logging method: Notice a track distance of 3.08 miles was recorded in 22 seconds, resulting in an unrealistic moving average speed of 504 mph. The same distance is added to the trip odometer and total odometer. Turning off and clearing the track log before powering down and leaving waypoint 3 eliminates the straight line track, resets track distance to "0" but still does not solve the odometer issue. When I arrive at another destination some time later, no straight line exists this time, but another 22 miles has been instantaneously added to all odometers, now resulting in an average speed of over 1800 mph. I'm sending these screen captures to Garmin and copying upper management on the e-mail. It's unrealistic to think that this is functioning correctly. I use these things for mapping and also for keeping track of my fitness goals, but it is nearly useless to me in this form.

NOT FIXED. I was hiking today and still getting the excess mileage on my trip odometer. It's the same incorrect functionality it's been doing since inception. I know not all agree, but I just don't get the logical sense for the units to log mileage and tracks in this fashion. Contacting Garmin, for what good it will do.

It should work, but you need to keep your GPS in the same spot for hours or even days, as a trend is more accurate than a spot reading as the above poster mentioned. It's easiest to use ambient pressure to trend. No calibration or changing settings is necessary. Using the barometric pressure requires altimeter calibration and setting the unit to "Fixed Elevation", as well as making sure the unit is always powered on in "Demo Mode" so it doesn't acquire a fix and change the altimeter calibration you started with.