DBleess

The time I most often see it is when I start the unit with a dead set of my rechargables in it. It may have enough juice to power up, but it then does what you describe within a few seconds. That's why I suspect a power problem. There are some minor and rare instabilities on the operating system, but as long as it isn't a common occurrence, I wouldn't worry about it.

After you've got the memory expansion, (See the Pentax Optio Water resistant cameras for a dunkable SD card door) then you're going to want to put some data that is usable and more current on it. How about user map data / overhead imagery upload support, a much faster processor to handle it all, and at least more current and higher resolution proprietary topo and map data? Contract with DeLorme for map data in trade for them to stop making their clunky GPS's. A return to a positive lock for the external antennas, the friction locking of the baby coax is awful, can they make a mini bnc connector? Even longer battery life, a means of attaching an inexpensive replacable screen protector or armor of some sort. LOWER PRICES LOWER PRICES LOWER PRICES LOWER PRICES LOWER PRICES

Bad batteries, intermittent contact of battery leads, random software crash, how many guesses do you want? Can you reproduce it at will? What firmware version are you running?

Desktop PC or Laptop? What operating system? What software do you want it to talk to once it IS hooked up to a Computer? Can I assume you are using a serial cable and interfacing to a good com port? Looks like the Legend is a pure serial unit so it will not detect like plug and play devices, it is simply there and is probably working fine. Need more information.

http://forums.Groundspeak.com/GC/index.php?showtopic=94147 New firmware v3.70 WAAS curiosities thread.

So the strange numbers I am seeing are the other augmentation birds' reserved slot numbers. As I sit and write this, I have the GPS on my desk and the remote antenna slapped in the window. It cannot see 35 and is merrily cycling through the other high numbers trying to find a WAAS satellite to chew on. From the looks of the process, the high-number series search mirrors independently the search used when the GPS goes through a cold start sky search to reinitialize its position when the almanac gets dumped. You would think WAAS position/skyview data from the almanac would be enough to know what to look for once a 3D nav solution is up and a search would be unnecessary and frivolous. Am I wrong? Shouldn't the GPS know what satellites are above it and know what it will expect to find once it knows its position? Is there is some flexibility on the location of the WAAS birds and will they be repositioned eventually? (Maybe as more are added?)

I was driving home tonight about 5:15 CST in the light drizzle we're getting around here and noticed something strange. I was picking up 10 normal birds, 1 WAAS bird - #35 is the only one we can see from here, and the slot to the RIGHT of 35 was numbered. I took a harder look and saw a satellite 50 labelled. No signal, and the grayed out satellite icon was drawn on the horizon line (I didn't think to take note what azimuth) a few minutes later, 51 was in that slot, and 5-10 minutes later it was 43. Then slot 12 emptied out, another "normal" satellite came into view and pushed the waas bird into slot 12. Does anyone know what I was seeing? Garmin GPSMAP 60C v3.70 firmware **** Hemlock merged the topics for me. I had originally posted this under a new thread and later found this topic. ****

Despite what the manual or anything else says, with a clear view of the sky and little in the way of other interference, even a non augmented GPS can at times get 9ft precision. My old Garmin 48 saw it a few times. The more often the satellites are updated also helps. The times I saw those numbers, the gulf war was in full swing and the satellites were being updated much more often than usual to enhance accuracy. Without those updates, 12-18ft is fairly normal. With WAAS, I often see 6-7ft precision in the central US. Again, I need a clean lock on well-separated satellites and also the only WAAS satellite that we can see from here. I have been using it since it released with no noted ill effects.

The energizer 2300 amp hour NiMH batteries seem to work the best for me so far. I haven't been impressed with the Lenmar 2450's, I use my GPS a LOT just playing around so rechargables are a must for me. Depends on your usages, access to cheap Alkalines, and your stance on recycling. I'll definitely be tracking my yield on the all the batteries I use on all the trips I take this year.

I've been using the marine navaid icons for my different benchmarks and statuses. http://members.cox.net/dmbleess/geocache/benchmarks.htm

Bookmark this page. http://www.garmin.com/products/gpsmap60cs/ Everything you need is here. Accessories (including replacement **paper manuals** ) Downloads like firmware upgrades and screen capture software, Specifications, FAQ's and Digital copies of the manuals are all linked from there. I use the "plain old" 60C so this is the page I use: http://www.garmin.com/products/gpsmap60c/

As long as you're getting a decent estimated precision error (EPE), you can pretty much hold the GPS any way you please. When simply navigating to a point, the priority is being able to comfortably read and interpret the display data. The quad helix antenna is fairly forgiving, and until you're at the cache and are going for pure accuracy, it won't make much difference how it is oriented. At the cache, hold the gps higher and more vertical to get the antenna up over more of the surrounding cover, look for open spots in any thick tree canopy and try to get good satellite fixes through them if possible when trying to get a high precision location fix. 6ft epe is good on high ground open field, 15-25 in light tree cover and 30-35 in more dense cover.

Same note on page 67 of the GPSMAP60C manual, I'm taking three pairs for backups on a 5-day Cloud Peak wilderness hike I have coming up this late spring in Bighorn NF. I'm going to see how well my NiMH 2450 AH's work first.

Too late then, oh well, here's the Garmin 60 series process for anyone else that comes looking: FIND - (WAYPOINT or RECENT FIND) to select the reference / starting point - MENU - PROJECT WAYPOINT - then use the arrow keys and ENTER to select each data field (including units mi,ft,yd,km,m,nm) to enter your offset information of distance and bearing. Keep in mind that there is a setting in setup for magnetic variation and that can throw off your results if it is on or off and that setting is different from the cache placer's GPS. MENU - MENU - SETUP - HEADING north reference and variation are displayed here

DeLorme isn't looking for any other brand of GPS other than their own proprietary in USB mode, write them nastygrams so the next generation software will incoporate the USB data transfer for the Garmins. It will work with the serial data cables, but data rate is much slower than it would be with USB if it worked instead.

To help illustrate capacity, below is a screen capture of the Mapsource loader showing my current selected TOPO US data loadout. Everything shaded pink is loaded into my GPSMAP 60C's memory (56mb) There is still some roads data outside of the pink but it is much less detailed and there is no topo data.

"Mapsource" is a generic term for all of the loadable add-on products. Knowing which one you are working with might help us help you. I'm not sure what "nroute" is or refers to. I currently have 52meg of data from the TOPO US cd of the mapsource product line loaded in my 60C. It is routable. To access the routing preferences, try the following steps: MENU - MENU - SETUP - ROUTING - GUIDANCE METHOD and set that option to your preference. "Prompted" will ask you which of the two other options (Off Road [direct] or Follow Road) that you want to use each time that you tell the GPS to navigate to a new destination. The biggest problem for me is the road data in TOPO USA is about 20 years old and there have been a lot of new urban roads built in those 20 years. Let me know if you have any further questions.

1. Yes, it is normal. You are seeing the search start up. Once the list begins to populate, the message is overwritten. 2. <MENU> <MENU> SETUP - TONES - MESSAGE BEEP - You are hearing the tone set here which is triggered with the "Arriving at (waypoint)" message.

bump

You can see the gps installed and uninstalled on this mount in my post above in this thread. A cell bracket takes the place of a handlebar on my dash. http://forums.Groundspeak.com/GC/index.php...dpost&p=1279526 The main support comes off the handlebar bracket with a one-hand quick release.

I bought one and do not use it. The first time I put my 60CS in the hole, I saw it was broken ! Just one use ! I did not push it to strong but my confiance is gone: it is not reliable I think. I now use an other system: I secure my GPS on the front bag of my bike. For my truck, I use velcro pad. When riding in trails, I put my unit in my shirt pocket with the antenna under my hat. Jacques www.velocarte.com Tell Garmin. If there are no signs of abuse, odds are very good they will warranty it. I use the same mount on my mountain bike and my truck (see post above for photos) http://forums.Groundspeak.com/GC/index.php...dpost&p=1279526 No problems at all.

Bracketron makes a cell phone dash mount for my truck: http://www.bracketron.com/ http://www.bracketron.com/xmain/manuals/CHE-201-99.pdf Onto that I screwed on the Garmin bicycle handlebar mount bracket, and the tension screw lined up perfectly with a hole already on the bracketron bracket. http://shop.garmin.com/accessory.jsp?sku=010%2D10454%2D00 This is the end result: Out of the way but still in reach, takes some practice to operate while driving, and I wouldn't mess with it in heavy / fast traffic. I also use the GA27C magnetic roof-mount external antenna and the cig lighter power/pc data serial cable. http://shop.garmin.com/accessory.jsp?sku=010%2D10052%2D05 http://shop.garmin.com/accessory.jsp?sku=010%2D10165%2D00 Those two parts let me get better reception in hilly/forested areas, and interface to a pc while saving my batteries.

I was already doing that and using ExpertGPS too. The reason I wanted the GC equivalent was so I could see the ones that had been logged by the GC users. NGS NOAA doesn't track that...YET *evil grin* Thanks Jeremy

I went back through and looked for a bunch of old questions on this thread I didn't think got enough attention and that I thought I might be able to add something to now (or at least bring back to the forefront of the thread for a while) A) I've got both. The Garmin TOPO Mapsource USA data appears to be 10-15 year old USGS 100k map data. There are complete freeways missing. It is not even close to being as current as the DeLorme Topo 5. For backcountry hiking, the topo data should be good, but for city travel it is lacking a lot of current data. It is really a shame there is no way to import the DeLorme data in to the Garmins. B ) This one actually led me to discover a minor flaw I had never noticed or heard about before. I use the USA topo map database so the address function doesn't (isn't supposed to) work for me, but I had seen that address icon in the list before (even recently after the last bios update). When I went looking tonight, it wasn't there. I messed around and picked different icons and went in and out of subscreens and it stayed hidden. I'll try to get a screen capture the next time I see it. C) ExpertGPS for sure can do it, but it is a tedious process. Keep in mind also that while the main GPS60 track memory is up to 10,000 points, each "saved" GPS60 track maxes out at 500 waypoints each. If you want to send data back into the GPS as a track, you need to limit your work to 500 points. Routes are limited to 250 waypoints. Using different "map tools" on the ExpertGPS map windows you can draw, drag around, add, and remove waypoints in a track. If you need more details, email me. D) http://members.cox.net/dmbleess/geocache/benchmarks.htm E) Apparently the LCD is one of the minimum draw items. The backlight is a bigger power drain. Antenna amplification is probably the next biggest draw but that's tech stuff I don't know enough about.

http://members.cox.net/dmbleess/geocache/benchmarks.htm