Averaging?

[robotneil]

Do either or both of these units use averaging?

I have been reading about this in the forums and I think I would prefer a unit not to average and give me a true reading even if it means not having lock at times.

[+GOT GPS?]

Garmin uses Waypoint averaging, and Magellan uses Position Averaging.

 

With Garmin you create a waypoint, and then average it.

 

With Magellan you stop for a bit, then while it is averaging, you Mark your waypoint.

Havent tried the eXplorist yet, so I'm not perfectly sure on it's operation.

[robotneil]

Garmin uses Waypoint averaging, and Magellan uses Position Averaging.

 

With Garmin you create a waypoint, and then average it.

 

With Magellan you stop for a bit, then while it is averaging, you Mark your waypoint.

Havent tried the eXplorist yet, so I'm not perfectly sure on it's operation.

 

Using the Garmin, how do I average the waypoint? It sounds like a manual process. And why would I want to do this when finding a cache?

[planewood]

Garmin uses Waypoint averaging, and Magellan uses Position Averaging.

 

With Garmin you create a waypoint, and then average it.

 

With Magellan you stop for a bit, then while it is averaging, you Mark your waypoint.

Havent tried the eXplorist yet, so I'm not perfectly sure on it's operation.

 

I could find nothing in the Magellan 500 manual about averaging?? Are you sure it does averaging? Is there any way to tell how many readings have been averaged before saving a point?

[+GOT GPS?]

The only purpose of Averaging is in creation of more accurate waypoints.

 

I think the eXplorist 300 is accurate enough, that you don't need averaging, for Marking waypoints, or finding caches, but any GPS does poorly when it looses a good LOCK on the satellites in heavy tree cover.

[Photobuff]

The Explorist series are capable of very high accuracy under good conditions, but I don't see any evidence of averaging with my 210. You can display the data with SA Watch and see simple real time wander, but that's all. I do think it takes some time for WAAS corrections to kick in and stabilize, so that might be what people interpret as averaging. There is also no overshoot, as there would be if averaging were taking place.

[+embra]

Robert's preliminary Garmin - Magellan showdown had some data towards the end of the page that suggested the Explorist (he used a 600, but I think all the rest of them would do the same thing) does a less-aggressive averaging than the Meridians were known for. It seems to me that the Exporist does it right: it stabilizes the position reading while still being responsive to small changes in actual position.