Olar

I would suspect that the 'x' series units have been on the drawing board for sometime at Garmin and a 64mb card was probably fairly expensive compared to a 32mb back then. Once in production they probably decided to eliminate the 32mb size and just go with 64. Olar

Yes GPS receivers work world-wide. The only drawback is finding decent maps for the countries you will be visiting. Garmin has come out with pre-programmed MicroSD cards which you can read about here. These would be used in the new Garmin 'x' series units. (note that prices shown are Cdn$$) A little pricey but would sure make a trip more enjoyable. Cheers, Olar

No, the adapter is not required for inserting in the x units but is required if you plan to remove the card occasionally and use in a reader. I believe most micros come with adapter anyway. They make a good storage holder if nothing else. Olar

When you turned your unit on at the trailhead the unit thinks it's still at the location where it was when you last turned it off until it acquires satellite lock at your new location. It probably created a trackpoint or two in the active track log at your home coordinates and then sees the next point at your trailhead thus the straight line displayed from your home to trailhead. The best thing to do for a nice clean track is to clear your active log just before heading off on the trail and then turning off the track recording once back to your car. Like Miragee says, it's easy to edit a tracklog in Mapsource. Just display track properties and delete the offending track point(s). Cheers, Olar

That would not work for me, it would take me at least 11 PQ's to map out a 75km (47 mile) Radius from my home. Best you could do is from the search listing, open each cache page and click the download GPX button, a bit more tedious but it will work. Ah, but the OP isn't talking about 16 caches from your 75 km radius. A central point of the caches he is talking about brings a list of 378. That's 1 PQ the last time I looked. No sense in downloading 16 gpx files when it can be done in a few minutes all in one. Olar

That is exactly what I had been doing (prior to the new 6.6 GSAK), and they ARE loaded with the geocache symbol, but they are loaded into the WAYPOINTS section, NOT the Geocache section of my 60CSx (and hence you cannot mark it FOUND, etc...). I did it multiple times, and they always went into the WAYPOINTS app, not the GEOCACHE app. Moot point now, since GSAK has been updated to work with the "x" series. You should be seeing all your geocaches listed in both if they have the waypoint symbol as the closed treasure chest. The only reason why they would not show up under geocaches is that your 60csx is not recoqnizing that symbol as a geocache. Go into the geocache section of the setup menu and make sure that you have the closed treasure chest as the "find" symbol and the open chest as "found". Cheers, Olar

The 16 caches all seem to be within an approximate 75 Km radius. Get a set of coordinates for roughly the centre and create a pocket query based on that. Set the query for the maximum 500 to make sure your 16 are all included. Now you have your .gpx file which you can filter down to your 16 in GSAK, EasyGPS, or Mapsource to name a few. If you are set-up for paperless caching then you can take it from there. Cheers, Olar

I have never done this with windows xp. I thought it was a windows 2000 and below thing. It's an XP thing too. Incorrect. This is NOT necessary for XP. The only caution is to not unplug the card while it's in the middle of data transfer. Any time I put a card in the reader XP will display a little green arrow icon in my activity tray and it wants me to click on it before removing the card. I figure it's there for a good reason and not just decoration so I oblige by using it. One time I forgot and yanked out a USB card reader. That act shut down my laptop faster than the hydro company can do it. I don't forget anymore. Olar

Getting a list of caches for a particular area is the easy part. You can either do a search by postal code or by geographic coordinates of the area of interest. The quickest is to do the search on the hide and seek a cache page of gc.com. The other available to you as a premium member is through the pocket query feature to get up to 500 caches in one .gpx or .loc file. Create the pocket query based on the same search parameters. The hard part is what to do with the caches so you will have the details with you. The minimum would be to download the ones of interest to your GPSr and hope that is enough info to go on. Printing out hard copies of the cache pages is one way to have all the info at hand but who wants to carry all that paper around London. Being set-up for paperless caching is the ideal by using a PDA or pocket PC and loading them up before departing. Lugging along a laptop would also be beneficial. You could refresh your GPSr and PDA on a daily basis by accessing gc.com from wherever you may be and have Internet connectivity available. Assuming you have most of the hardware mentioned above then all thats left is maps. This can be very pricey. I see City Navigator Europe is almost $400 Cdn. if you are a Garmin auto-routable unit owner. A bit much for a two week trip. Even Metroguide Europe is up there at $160. Or you can venture out without maps and just follow the pointer on your unit. A sure way of seeing more of London then you may have planned. Either way, have fun and don't get lost. Cheers, Olar

I can't speak for the other makes but the Garmin units give you the setup option of either "track up" or "north up". I prefer northup myself but everyone has different tastes so having a choice is great. When in trackup, the entire map display will rotate to accomodate your direction of travel where in northup only the little black triangle (you) will rotate and point at your direction of travel. Cheers, Olar

I've got a 1 GB Sandisk card coming in tomorrow and was wondering, if needed, how does one go about reformatting to FAT32? Using XP and with the card in the reader/writer open "My Computer" where you should see a list of "devices with removable storage". Right click on the reader drive and choose "format" from the dropdown menu. Choose "FAT32" and away you go. I also read somewhere in here that you should create a file named "Garmin" on the card so that when you download maps via the card reader, Mapsource will see the card as a "GPS unit". You probably don't have to do that if you plan to download maps directly to your handheld. Cheers, Olar

When I try to reformat the card from what the PDA did, I get a different error message. "failure to complete format" At that point the only way to get information back on it at all is to stick it back into the PDA and let it format the card back to FAT and put the /PALM directory on it. When I do that I can use it in my sd based camera and in the PDA but still not able to access it in the card reader. I'm baffled. The 1 gig card works fine in the card reader. By any chance have you tried it in another card reader? Could be a very slight mis-alignment of contacts that only your reader has a problem with. Ya never know! Olar

Sorry BQ. Got a family thingy going on Saturday so I have to miss the loop hike. I am giving serious thought however to attending your CITO event on the 22nd though. You know my heart belongs to the Niagara Penninsula area. Hey BQ, how are your 2 wheeler skills? Stay tuned as there could be something up and coming. Later, Olar

Just another example of a GPS V feature not being utilized in the newer generation units. Olar

This is from way out in left field but you never know. Try re-formatting the card in another device that uses SD cards like a camera or PDA. I don't think you can hurt anything by trying. If you can get it formatted then you should be able to get your card reader to access it. You may have to create a folder or two in order for Mapsource to see it but you can do that through the card reader. Good luck, Olar

Hey, we could always do it on the 22nd and make a CITO event out of it. With the 15th being a long weekend then maybe the 29th is next best. Darned weather. I had my GPSr and PDA all loaded up and ready to go. Guess I gotta stay home now and watch golf, curling and baseball on TV. Better check my stock of popcorn. Later, Olar

My guess is that you will never see that day. I'm willing to bet that Garmin is saving those features that are exclusive to the V for the possible release of a Vcx model. That way they can justify the price. On the other hand if the whole V concept is dead then yes, please consider incorporating at least some of the features in the current popular units. Cheers, Olar

A search by coordinates show about 30 caches within a 2 mile radius of the hotel. The best way to see Old Quebec City is by walking and you will be smack-dab in the centre of it all. You are in for a real treat even if you were not planning to cache. Have a great time and don't worry if some of them are in French. There will be lots of people around to help you translate. Cheers, Olar

Could you split your spreadsheet up and create one for each group? Then you could import each one into S&T and assign a different pushpin to each one during import. Here's a quicky example of area caches broken down into not found, found, and my own. Cheers, Olar

Just in the past two weeks or so, someone posted a note in a discussion thread that their particular problem was not solved by downloading a new driver from Garmin's website but went on to say that as a result of phoning and talking to a Garmin rep they ended up emailing him a new driver that solved his problem. I'm sorry I cannot remember or find that thread but I would recommend giving Garmin a call and see if they can't help you out. Good luck, Olar

I heard a rumor that TomTec was going to pack a stove and cooler on his back so that we can have a hot lunch with beverages. Actually if some of us are going to park our vehicles at a half-way point then we could have a tailgate party for lunch. This is sounding better and better all the time. Cheers, Olar

Ah.... right! I was going backwards (as usual?) We cross 6th Line, Nassagaweya-Esquesing Townline (near Prickles Pond parking) and get near Hwy 25 then back and cross Dublin townline (maybe?) (and Tremaine from above? <shudder>). So I'm guessing one by Greystone Easy (St. Helena off Hwy 25) is a better spot. Who knows with Nozzletime - whatever route he picks won't be an easy one and that's why we're doing this ... right? Hey Annie. I just sent you an email with a Mapsource file showing some tracks and waypoints. Hopefully we can make an educated guess as to where Nozzletime will be taking us. Cheers, Olar

I've thought about this sort of thing many times. I even touched upon it four years ago here in the forums. My idea is for the major GPSr manufacturers to allow their bonafide dealers to supply tourists/travellers with a map download service covering areas to be visited. Of course we would have to pay a fee like a basic charge plus so much per map based on size, etc., etc. but that would be a lot cheaper than putting out for the whole package. Now with the new Garmin "X" series units a traveller could buy the temporary maps over the internet and download them directly to the micro SD card. All kinds of possibilities. Cheers, Olar

I have subjected my 76C (same ports & caps) a few times to very wet conditions with no ill effects. Yes some water did get in under the caps but if you dry them out as soon as possible there should be no problems. My big concern though is what would have happened if my unit was one of the new "X" series with the micro chip fully exposed under the batteries. One of my incidents was a capsized canoe in fast running water with my 76C in my backpack and fully submerged for about 5 minutes. It just kept on ticking so I left it alone and tried to salvage my camera and FRS radio. Two days later the 76 would not fire up so I opened the battery compartment and to my amazement it was about 1/4 full of water and the batteries starting to corrode and leak. Fortunately there was no damage as a result other than some rust forming on a couple of the battery contacts. Obviously the compartment itself is sealed otherwise I would have had water inside the unit and probably kiss the unit goodbye. I hate to think what would have happened to the micro SD chip and all the contacts if it was an "X" type. Since then I make sure it's in a waterproof bag while canoeing just in case. No problem with similar leakage when in a rainy condition though. Olar

I have approximately 100 tracks saved in Mapsource and I would like to change them all to the same color so they will show-up better on my Garmin 76C. Does anyone have a suggestion how to make the change in bulk? I really don't want to do them one by one unless absolutely necessary. Thanks, Olar