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Another Confused Vista C


Mr.&Mrs.GoTo

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I need help...bad. I am trying to learn all this new hi tech stuff and I'm afraid I might have done something wrong. The thing is I recently purchased a new vista C and its not behaving like my previous "venture". I have read all the info that came with unit and when I first turned it on I went outside and locked in my home, everythings good so far. I punched in coords for a new local cache and went hunting, I never could find it. I come home and purchase the premium membership so I can download cache points. I downloaded all local points that we havent found and successfully got them onto the vista C. I also put in a couple of favorites by hand. The first thing I noticed when we went out was that the cache I put in by hand was way off from where it should be, about 15 miles off. So we tried the cache that I downloaded and it took us there fine. The first multi-cache we hit was a downloaded point, when we manually put in second set of coords on sight it put us another 20 miles away. We went home empty handed and now I'm afraid to commit to anymore hunts because I don't care for wild goose.

What have I done wrong? Also I noticed with the base map that come with unit the map is off. The house I was building on the lake was aparently out in the lake. Also when I try to use the feature that tells you what road and when to turn, it doesn't use any secondary roads, just major hiways that take me way out of the way. Im wanting to purchase the software that has all the US roads but if this thing stays like it is I'll be waisting @$100.

Can anyone help me? :blink:

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The first thing to check (and you probably already have) is to make sure you are in WGS 85 for your datum and it's set for DD MM.MMM

 

The maps are off. There are a few reasons but the bottom line is that when you compress maps to where large areas fit in a GPS and combine that with the original error they have you are seldome shown on the map where you are on the ground.

 

GPSs can have goofy issues.

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As Got GPS stated, the problems you had with manually entered cache locations were because the unit wasn't set to enter coordinates as degrees and minutes (HDD° MM.mmm') but rather as degrees/decimal degrees (HDD.ddddd°). So changing the location format to HDD° MM.mmm' should fix that issue.

 

The other things you mention would be fixed by using the far more accurate and complete CitySelect maps rather than the very coarse built-in basemap. When you squeeze all the data from North and South American maps into an 8 MB database it can't be either complete or accurate so that's why your house shows up in the lake and why it tries to route you on major highways - those are the only roads it knows about.

 

City Select maps will include the minor roads and residential streets, etc. and are generally quite accurate although you'll still find some places where they're a little off.

Edited by peter
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Okay here is the way the Geocaching waypoints need to be handled:

 

ProperDatumandPositionFormat.jpg

 

Edited in:

When Geocaching with a GPS, that has maps loaded in it, leave the GPS on it's Defaults, in the UNITS SETUP page, but if your working with PAPER maps, you then need to match the Datum and position format, to match the PAPER map.

Mapping GPS units, have really made it easy for us, since working with paper maps can be a challenge to the unexperienced person.

Edited by GOT GPS?
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I need help...bad. I am trying to learn all this new hi tech stuff and I'm afraid I might have done something wrong. The thing is I recently purchased a new vista C and its not behaving like my previous "venture". I have read all the info that came with unit and when I first turned it on I went outside and locked in my home, everythings good so far. I punched in coords for a new local cache and went hunting, I never could find it. I come home and purchase the premium membership so I can download cache points. I downloaded all local points that we havent found and successfully got them onto the vista C. I also put in a couple of favorites by hand. The first thing I noticed when we went out was that the cache I put in by hand was way off from where it should be, about 15 miles off. So we tried the cache that I downloaded and it took us there fine. The first multi-cache we hit was a downloaded point, when we manually put in second set of coords on sight it put us another 20 miles away. We went home empty handed and now I'm afraid to commit to anymore hunts because I don't care for wild goose.

What have I done wrong? Also I noticed with the base map that come with unit the map is off. The house I was building on the lake was aparently out in the lake. Also when I try to use the feature that tells you what road and when to turn, it doesn't use any secondary roads, just major hiways that take me way out of the way. Im wanting to purchase the software that has all the US roads but if this thing stays like it is I'll be waisting @$100.

Can anyone help me? :blink:

You really can't autoroute with just the basemap....Garmin would probably be better off not letting you auto route at all if you just have the base map...the good news is that city select is dramatically better for autorouting and general detail than the basemap...and the maps are detailed enough that your GPS won't show you in the lake when your on your driveway....providing of course your house is not within 30 or so feet of the lake.

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Actually, autorouting on the basemap can be helpful, but only when you are traveling on major roads. If you get City Select and plan a long trip, you only need to load maps for your local city and the city of your destination. You can then autoroute from door to door, with the unit switching to the basemap for travel in between.

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Actually, autorouting on the basemap can be helpful, but only when you are traveling on major roads. If you get City Select and plan a long trip, you only need to load maps for your local city and the city of your destination. You can then autoroute from door to door, with the unit switching to the basemap for travel in between.

Logically one might think that would work, but on the east coast, even a major road like I 87, new york state thruway, they only show one line, not North and south lanes like city select, and no ramps. The intersection of I-287 and I- 87 just doesn't show a connection in the basemap autorouting, and for much of this area, the basemap just plain doesn't work, even when using it in "limited" form on "major" hwys.

 

That being said, I was worried City Select might have some of the same problems...but not so...it has exceeded my expectations.

 

I was counting on the basemap to fill in on trips where I might not be able to load all the areas in the 60CS 54 megs......I'd think twice about doing that now. The basemap will show you what road your on, if it's a "major" one, but I wouldn't count on it to "hand you off" from one major road to another.

 

On a recent trip to PA out rt 80, the basemap had all the exit numbers wrong...so basically it's worse than nothing because it gives you "bad" or wrong information.

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ok im confused. you say.. to use hddd° mm.mmm', but the caches are set up as hddd.ddddd so what gives? and is there a way to convert without putting in a GPS and changing settings?

 

 

ok scratch that.. sorry.. my gps program uses hddd.ddddd. gpsdrive. how do i set my waypoints so that it knows without converting them?

and anyone else use gpsdrive in linux? do you have the waypoint manager?

Edited by slackwaresupport
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