Usa Photomaps And Etrex

[+50Cal]

I am holding a brand new Etrex, and I am debating on whether it is a good purchase. I have a Garmin that I use with my laptop and USA Photomaps by www.jdmcox.com

 

With this new Etrex, I am wondering if anyone has used this model with USAPhotomaps, and what kind of experience you have had with it.

 

Thanks,

$

[+Pasha]

Own an Etrex and have used USAPM pretty extensively, but have never connected them together if that's what you're asking about. I loved the Etrex itself - small, light, mapping, reasonably good reception.

[+50Cal]

You are happy with the Etrex? What about reception in the woods? Good for geocaching?

Easy to put coordinates in?

 

Sorry for the numerous questions, but I'm just debating on whether to keep it or not.

 

$

[+Airmapper]

Which E-trex? Yellow, Legend, Vista???? They are all pretty good from what I hear, which one do you have.

[+50Cal]

Sorry for lack of info. Definately a Yellow. Basic.

[peter]

It'll work fine with USA Photomaps but you'll need to add a PC interface cable. The eBay store of GPSGeek is a good source for one

http://stores.ebay.com/GPSgeek

Note that the interface is RS-232 compatible so you may need an adapter cable if your laptop only supports USB. Reception on most of the ones I've seen has been good, but there has been significant sample-sample variation especially regarding performance under extensive tree cover.

[+Pasha]

You are happy with the Etrex? What about reception in the woods? Good for geocaching?

Easy to put coordinates in?

 

Sorry for the numerous questions, but I'm just debating on whether to keep it or not.

 

$

Yeah, definitely happy with my Etrex Legend. I found about 300 caches with it over about 6 months. Reception in the woods is a dicey proposition regardless of which GPSr you're using - again, I had no problem finding lots and lots of caches in the woods with the Etrex and its patch (flat) antenna. I have a GPSMap 60C as well, and I find reception to be a bit better in bad conditions than with the Etrex, but we're talking about a difference in positional error of perhaps 5 feet. Not much when the average error is 20' or 30' anyway.

 

Putting coordinates in one-by-one is the same as with any other; you mark your current location and then edit the coords to what you want. You can also use GSAK or EasyGPS (sorry, dunno the URL offhand) or any of several others to dump larger numbers of cache/coordinate records into it en masse.

 

There's a reason I keep my Etrex in the car all the time; even though I have something I like a little better now (which also cost nearly three times as much). The Etrex has been a great unit and I see no reason to get rid of it.