segler999

Using Mapsource, or other programs, you can dump your tracklog to the computer and then plot onto various mapping programs. Save it off as a gpx file for best compability. Alas, however, S&T requires some computing gymnastics to make that work. Most others accept gpx tracklogs as is. This includes Google Earth.

Using Mapsource, or other programs, you can dump your tracklog to the computer and then plot onto various mapping programs. Save it off as a gpx file for best compability. Alas, however, S&T requires some computing gymnastics to make that work. Most others accept gpx tracklogs as is. This includes Google Earth.

The original poster must be kidding, as though geocaching is the only thing gps is for. Man, geocaching is the johnny-come-lately of gps applications, being around in big numbers in only the last couple years. I use my gps for off-trail and on-trail hiking, biking, and windsurfing (on my arm in a waterproof bag) for the past 7 years already.

That's right. The 60Cx (I have one, got it when they first came out, never want to use anything else) has a compass function in software, but not an actual magnetic compass. Like everybody says, you have to move a few meters in a direction for the compass function to give you a heading. For my use, this is a no-brainer, and I don't miss the mag compass. Same for the altimeter. The 60Cx has altitude display, based on 3-D triangulation from the satellites. However, it does not have an actual barometric sensor for altitude. In my experience the vertical EME is pretty darn good, and I don't miss the barometer. I use the 60Cx mainly for hiking. However, I put on my bike, too, and I use it in the car for car trips. I don't need all that turn-by-turn stuff. I just want to know where on the map I am, what my speed and altitude are, and how far I have gone. The 60Cx is perfect for all of that. Geocaching is a whole other world that I don't have the time to touch. So, the 60Cx serves my needs well enough that I don't even consider replacing it.

Of course, to each his/her own. My reasons for a 60Cx without the compass and barometer. Compass. All you have to do with a Cx is walk a few feet in one direction. Voila, compass heading. Works every time. Yes, some people don't want that. They want to stand in one place and point the gpsr and get a heading. OK. I don't happen to need that. Barometer. Guess what happens when the weather changes. Yup, the air pressure in one place shifts, so the barometer in the CXs shifts to give a false reading. Thus, the requirement for recalibration. Ask any pilot. But you never need to recalibrate the satellites. Granted, the altitude reading depends on a vertical triangulation, which is not as accurate as a horizontal triangulation. But it's plenty good enough. I don't consider an error of, say +/-30 feet vertical to be much of a problem. Just make sure you are seeing more than a minimum of about 4 or 5 satellites to get good overdetermined data for altitude. Of course, if you are permitted to use your gpsr in an airplane on a flight, you sit next to the window to see the satellites, and the Cx will give you a vertical triangulation altitude--say, 37,000'. The CSx will tell you the air-pressure altitude inside the airplane--about 8000' at cruise.

What I notice on mine is that the color changes when you rock the unit back and forth vertically. If my eyes are "below" perpendicular axis to the screen, the colors all wash out a little and look about the same. At that point I can see only a few contour lines (Topo map), but dark markings still show up fine. If, however, I rotate the screen "down" so that my eyes are "above" the perpendicular axis to the screen, I can see a lot more details and more color contrasts. I keep the screen full-bright when on the 12-v cable in the car. Is this everyone else's experience as well?

Ecologito, I don't mean to sound insulting, but did you install the driver for the USB adapters you tried? Since they are a USB device, you have to install the driver BEFORE plugging in the adapter. About adapters. If you have a choice of chipsets, the FTDI chipset seems to work a little better than the more common Prolific 2303 chipset. I use a FTDI-based USB adapter with my old blue Legend all the time. Works fine.

In word, yes. I use a Dell Axim X51v with a bluetooth Holux M-1000. I happen to use Dell gps mapping software that came with a cable gps unit. However, I just leave the cable unit at home, turn on the bluetooth, pair it to the M-1000, and everything is good. There are several other good WM softwares out there. The M-1000 battery life is supposedly about a dozen hours. The Axim battery life is lenngthened since I use an aftermarket 3600 mAH battery that gives me a couple dozen hours. All of this works fine. However, I generally prefer my 60Cx for both car navigating and backpacking.

Let me add more. Even though my M-1000 does not pair with my CDMA cell phone, it does pair very nicely with my Dell X51v PDA, running WM 6.1 and the default MS Bluetooth stack. I am running the Dell GPS Navigation System software. Instead of the hard-wired gpsr provided by Dell, I am running the M-1000 BT receiver. It works very well. Nice thing about the Dell software is that you can load the entire USA mapset into SD memory and keep it there. No need to be online to update maps on the fly. It updates once a second, and screen redraws are fast. The M-1000 uses the MTK chipset, which is fast, accurate, and low-power. This is all good, but there are features about the software that I don't like. Even with tracking turned on, it does not display the track onscreen. It does not display altitude. So, I like the M-1000 a lot, but I wish my cell phone could pair with it. I use MGMaps in the phone, and it uses the internal gps receiver. Updates are slow, and the accuracy is OK most of the time, but would be much better with the M-1000.

Are you absolutely certain that your HTC Touch is using the BT receiver and not its own internal receiver? The reason I ask is that all BT receivers run the SPP profile. The HTC Touch is not listed as having the SPP profile, so I don't know how the Touch can pair with the G66. I know that my Samsung CDMA cell phone cannot pair with my Holux M-1000. It does recognize it, but not pair with it. Comments?

The Legend C manual shows a standard USB port on the back of the unit. So, PRIOR TO PLUGGING IN THE CABLE TO THE PC (same for all USB devices), first install the USB driver. You can download this from garmin.com. The current version is 2.2.1. Then, and only then, can you plug in the cable. The PC will recognize the gpsr, which you can verify in the Device Manager to make sure. Now you can run whatever software for communicating between PC and Legend C. Mapsource, for example. If, after doing all this, it still does not work, you can suspect the cable or port or other hardware.

If I understand the original question correctly, my answer is that most, if not all, mapping gpsrs can do this. In map display the default is that the cursor shows your current position as sensed from the satellites. If you simply press your click-stick or panning button it immediately goes into panning mode. You can then pan your cursor anywhere on the map. The way to return to satellite cursor is to press the end or quit button. I do this all the time with both my 60Cx and old blue Legend.

This is a simple issue. It's up the airline. Period. So, between their inflight magazine and their website you will get the answer. Even then, the crew and captain trump everything else. Sometimes, those two sources give conflicting information. A year ago, Delta's inflight magazine said no, but their website said yes. I printed the information from their website and had it in my shirtpocket for the flight. I asked. They hemmed. I showed them the printout. They said yes. Pretty simple. With the FAA approval, more and more airlines will come around. But remember, the crew and captain trump everything else for their flight. Like mentioned above, smile and comply.

Yes, the Etrex Legend (ole Blue) uses a conventional -pin RS-232 serial cable. On the back of your older computer or laptop you might find a serial port with either 9 pins or 25 pins, both male gender in the backplane. This is not the same as the 25-pin printer port or the 15-pin VGA port, both female gender in the backplane. If your desktop computer does not have this, you can add a very inexpensive ($8 typical) PCI add-in card that provides a male RS-232 serial port. Some have multiple serial ports as well as a female printer port. If your laptop does not have this, the only solution is a usb-to-serial adapter. These are also inexpensive. Pretty much all of the them are based on either the PL-2303 chipset or the FTDI chipset. They require the installation of a driver before you plug them in the first time. No biggie. People seem to have better luck with the FTDI chipset version. Regardless, when you install the driver, you have to note the assigned COM port (check it in the control panel device manager) so that you can select the correct COM port in your various softwares.

Has anybody compared the prices of 60CSx versus 60Cx ? In the old days, the 60Cx was cheaper. However, I now wonder whether the larger supply of 60CSx makes it cheaper nowadays. But then, the higher demand for the S model might keep it more expensive. By the way, in my opinion you don't really need the barometer or mag compass of the S model. Just more mechanical complexity to go wrong, although most people have had no trouble. With a decent satellite fix provided by the sensitive receiver, you get perfectly fine altitude readings with a 60Cx. Also, all you have to do to get a compass reading is walk 20 feet in one direction.

Good point about the low angle multipath. Thanks. What I didn't check during the wow in my return path along the shoreline was whether the EPE "blue circle" was really big at the time. I'll tell you one thing, tho. This gps technology has completely revolutionized outdoorsmanship (to include, of course, outdoorswomanship). Given the fabulous usefulness of my 60Cx with 24k maps, even under dense tree cover, I'll live happily with the occasional wow in the track.

Let's say you're standing next to the ocean on a flat beach. In all directions around you there is nothing sticking up higher than 3 degrees above the horizon. How can there be any multipath in this instance? I can understand multipath from mountain cliffs, and maybe trees.

No. I sometimes get the same weird points with my "Ole-Blue" Legend, that has a low-sensitive receiver. I think it is an artifact of some numerical error that occurs just at the instant that the fix is taken by the receiver. You know, an interruption in a register read or write. The error gets propagated through the position calculation. This can occur with any kind of receiver. It is a function of the software and/or electronics design. Just a theory. Good software can be designed to detect these things and stop the calculation until these things are completed. One hopes that Garmin has programmed such safeguards into their software. There is one pattern I notice, however. The weird points always occur near land but never occur out on open water (I use Ole-Blue for windsurfing). So, they could really be the result of reflections, which can occur with any receiver, sensitive or otherwise. Also, the points always occur only at the beginning of a session, never later. Well, the beginning of my sessions are always on land, doh! You can mitigate this by turning on your gpsr and letting it fix and stabilize under a clear sky for many minutes before embarking on your trip/hike/geocache/voyage. I always look for mine to show at least 6 good solid satellites before I reset the trip computer and start off.

However, I would not expect this to occur with a clear view of the sky and no trees or mountains any higher than 20 degrees from the horizon.

People have talked in these forums about drift. Firmware, tree cover, reflections, etc., all get discussed. Sometimes I wonder whether the sat constellation itself is the cause. For example, can there be a time period of a few seconds to few minutes when the triangulation gets goofed up until a new constellation fix gets calculated? Yesterday I was hiking along the shoreline of a mountain lake in the Cascades. I had a clear view of the sky down to about 20 degrees above horizon in all directions. I went some 400 yards along the shoreline to take some pictures, then double-back. For about 2 minutes my track showed me hiking about 300' out in the water (to the east of my actual location). My actual was out and back over the same track within a few feet. The track, however, showed this big wow of 300' to the east. My gpsr is a 60Cx with the latest firmware and software versions. By the way, this 60Cx is most excellent under the dense tree cover that you encounter pretty much everywhere on the west side of the Pacific Northwest. Comments?

I had to re-read the sentence. Are you saying that your 520 is loading Delorme Topo Maps?

I still have, and use a lot, an "Old Blue" Legend. I also have a 60Cx. The Legend uses an original receiver that is not particularly sensitive, so it is not too good under dense tree cover. The 60Cx works fine under dense tree cover. The Legend does, however, work just fine sitting on the car dash during road trips. Also, the Legend is as good as anything newer when out boating or canoeing or kayaking on the water, since on-water gets clear views of the sky with nothing but air between the receiver and the satellites. Yes, the Legend has only 8 mb internal memory, so you can't load too much in the way of mapping to it. However, its basemap is not bad, and its mapping display works fine. No, it's not color, but the zoom levels are good, and the redraw speeds are good. The Legend does a fine job of keeping an active tracklog. I once tracklogged a driving trip from Seattle all the way to Florida with the Legend. The trip page showed 56 hours in motion, 3700 miles, max speed 78, etc. Everything worked just fine. Nowadays I use the Legend routinely as a race training tool for windsurfing. I put it into an Aquapac bag on my upper arm and reset the trip page for each day's session. I then download the active tracklog to a gpx file for archiving my sessions. Works fine. It is usually important to have the serial cable for Legend so that you can update firmware and download tracklogs. Yes, the cable is old serial, but the usb-to-serial adapters out there, when set up with their drivers, work fine. Long live Old Blue !!

Search and rescue units in the Pacific Northwest use the 60CSx. For paper topo maps they use NG.

Yes, the CSx units have the 2,025 map segment limit. For the pre-2008 version 3.02 of Topo, if you are loading western states, you hit this count limit at about the 450 mb memory point. This is because the western states are divided into very small, and very many, segments. This is why, if you are using Topo maps for the CSx units, any card bigger than a 512 mb is a waste. To my knowledge, these count limits are either much higher, or unlimited, for the Colorado and Oregon. We have been bugging Garmin for 3 years about upping these limits for the "older" models, but they want to sell more of the newer units. So, what I do is keep a small library of 512mb and 1gig cards with topo maps of the western states where I travel and hike and bike the most. Other mapping products (like the street maps) have much larger, and fewer, segments. So, it is less of an issue hitting the count limit. Also, some non-Garmin-produced topo products, like the 24k topo products produced by Above The Timber, have larger and fewer segments. They are worth the price. I purchased the Washington state product and will never go back.

All these Garmin gpsrs that have memory cards have the option to save tracks to the card in gpx format. The gpx files so stored contained all the detailed data with no truncation and no limits. Yup, if you want to display those gpx tracklogs on the 60CSx, you have to do it via Mapsource. Supposedly the Colorado and Oregon can display directly. So, turn this capability on. Even if you forget to turn it back off sometime, no biggie. The gpx files are simple xml text files and take up very little space. Compared to map files, the gpx files are a drop in the bucket in your memory card. DO NOT "SAVE" TRACKLOGS !!! OK, let me say that again. DO NOT "SAVE" TRACKLOGS. "Saved" tracklogs truncate records and strip data from the records. So, if you want detailed tracklog data, get it from your gpx files since these gpsrs have mass storage mode to manage the files.