B.Nasty

Thanks for taking time to look into this. I'm glad that Garmin is admitting there is a problem, at least to someone. Unfortunately, even skipping the "save as gdb" step doesn't help me. It still crashes. I would be happy to share a a gdb that causes a problem on my system, but I have nowhere to upload it to. My ISP recently changed their personal web page policies and they no longer provide ftp access. Web pages must be created/modified online using their tools. I can upload videos and music but nothing else. I found version 6.15.4 of MapSource on CNet. If that doesn't help me, where I can find a different version?

I recently upgraded my copy of Garmin MapSource to 6.15.6. Since then, I can almost never save data that I download from my GPSr as a GPX. MapSource crashes when I try. My GPSr is an etrex Venture HC. I have contacted Garmin. They had me send them a GDB that I couldn't convert and save. They don't have any trouble with it. At their request, I upgraded my other PC - no good - now I don't have any "working" copy of MapSource at all. I can download and save as GDBs all day long. These downloaded and saved GDBs fail to save as GPX. If I open a GPX, I have no trouble re-saving it. Has anyone else seen this problem?

Doh! Sorry for the second post, but I left out part of my answer: the street mapping software You should look into that one. I don't have any of the extra Garmin mapping software, just what came with my eTrex Venture HC, but I believe I've seen on some other Groundspeak forums that Garmin ties each copy to a specific GPS unit. If you want to load maps onto 11 or 12 different receivers with a single copy, you should make sure the software allows it.

If by "cheap yellow models" you mean the new Venture HC, go for it! My brother and I both just upgraded to the Venture HC. I upgraded my eTrex Legend (blue case, black & white screen), and he upgraded from a Cobra. We got them from Tiger GPS. That seems to be the cheapest place. The Venture HC is great! It is amazingly fast from boot up, and I get good solid locks on multiple satellites sitting in my living room. With my Legend, I had to set it on the bay window seat to get any satellites at all, sometimes that was iffy, with the accuracy being 150ft or more. Right now, my Venture HC has a solid 8 satellites and my Legend has a tenuous 3. My Legend always had trouble in trees. It would jump around, and sometimes simply refuse to update position until I got to lighter leaf cover. Yesterday we were out in some horrendously dense trees and brush, and never had any trouble with the GPSs. The screen is very good; high resolution, clear, sharp, easy to read. Although it is physically smaller than my Legend screen, the increased resolution more than makes up for it. The Venture HC is also extremely configurable, to the point of confusion at times. I assume you're handing these out to novices, so I would suggest that you limit the screens that are available via the "next page" button and reconfigure the data fields that show up on them. If you (or anyone else) have any questions, please don't hesitate to send me a message.

Not exactly a drunken surveyor story, but I laughed when I realized how he made the H. At first glance, I thought I had the wrong disk. This marker could qualify for a "lazy landscaper" thread though. The witness post has been pulled up and leaned against a nearby tree, I guess so they didn't have to mow around it.

I think I'm really going to like this new hobby. Knowing I can come to this forum for help, and hopefully offer my own advice at times, is a big plus. Thank you everyone for taking the time to reply with such good advice (and for being polite about it). Special thanks to monkeykat for the compliment.

For geocaches the idea of a log is to report a find without spoiling the fun of the next hunter. Should I treat benchmark logs the same way? In my mind benchmark hunting seems more "serious" than caching, so I want to put every detail in the log including accurate coordinates and multiple pictures. I have read the benchmark hunting page, and I will improve my image captions in the future, but the amount of detail to log isn't discussed. I have found OF2378 and OF2380 (and failed to find OF2385 and OF2417), and hope to find many more. What do other benchmark hunters like to see in found logs?