Explorist 210 Help For Garmin User...

[+jeffk42]

I was hoping to get some help from the Magellan gurus out there.

 

I've always used Garmin units. I got a friend of mine started on Geocaching by allowing her to use my eTrex Legend after I got my 60CS. When she decided to get her own unit, she chose the Explorist 210 based on its size, feature set, and price. So we're trying to figure out how to do certain things on it.

 

Recently we headed out to Tampa to pick up a few caches there. Before leaving, I created a PQ with about 475 caches in the area. After sending the file to my 60CS, we deleted all of the waypoints already present in the Explorist, and loaded the same GPX file into it using Magellan's Geocache software. Once in Tampa we started looking for caches, and found that even though we used the exact same file, the Magellan was missing approximately half of the caches that were on my 60CS. I didn't count them, but whenever we found a cache and checked for the next nearest one, my 60CS always had at least two nearby caches that were nowhere to be found in her Explorist. So my closest three might be 0.5, 0.7, and 0.9 miles away, but she would only have the 0.9 one listed. This happened no matter where we were, but it happened (seemingly) randomly. Sometimes we'd have the same 10 caches in an area, and sometimes I'd show 10 and she'd show 3. Weird.

 

The other two issues she's having are probably just because she's used to the Garmin setup.

 

She can't figure out how to delete single caches from her list. She wants to be able to do the equivalent of Delete --> Caches (Found) on a Garmin, or at the very least be able to delete caches one at a time without having to remove the entire gpx or loc file like she's doing now.

 

Finally, she wants to know how to mark a cache as Found so it stops showing up in her list when she's browsing for the closest caches. Oh, and she says that the Geocache icon isn't showing up in her icon list, so she can't create a Geocache waypoint manually.

 

Can someone help me with these problems so I can walk her through them? Thanks!!

[+embra]

The first problem you ran into is the 200 POI limit for geocache POIs. I think the 210 will allow for more than one file to be retained in internal memory, but only one file can be active at a time, and it can hold no more than 200 POIs.

 

Other limitations with the Geocache POIs: you cannot create one on the GPS, and you cannot delete them within a file on the GPS. The newest firmware releases for the 4/5/600 allows you to mark a cache as found so you can remove it from the display, but I don't think this feature is yet available for the 210.

 

Regular POIs lack some of the data contained in Geocache POIs, but regular POIs can be created, edited, and deleted on the GPS. The limit on regular POIs is 500 per file, but only 200 of these can hold data in the comment fields. The geocache icon is specific to Geocache POIs.

 

This and other helpful information can be found in the FAQs in my sig line.

[+jeffk42]

Interesting. Thanks for the reply. Now, if she wants 500 Geocache POI's, say they're split into 3 files, you're saying that the comments will be removed on 300 of them? Or will the unit just ignore the remaining 300?

[+embra]

If you send them over as a Geocache POI file, 300 of them go into the ethers. If you split them up into three equally-sized geocache POI files, all is ok.

 

If you send them as regular POIs in a single file, then you have all 500 of them but only 200 will be able to have comments. If you split them up into three equally-sized regular POI files, there should be enough comments available to cover them all.