In Need

[Wildie]

We are looking for a hand held unit, narrowed it down too the garmin gps 60 or gpsmap 60 with base map.

now do we need a unit with base map to locate caches? as using our car one is just that for roads and noway of inputting waypoints no way of putting in goto coords either, what we need is somat like them with a geocaching mode made simple for our son.

 

so please advised us.

 

thank you

 

The Wild Bunch

Edited March 18, 2006 by Wildie

[+Simply Paul]

Many GPS handsets don't have maps - the 'classic' etrex yellow is a fine example of this. You programme the co-ords you want into it, it works out where you are and gives you an arrow and a distance to get you from A to B.

 

Better (and more expencive) handsets have maps, but not always very good ones. Which is why more people add a PDA with mapping software to guide them.

 

Tomtom or other car GPS units aren't ideal, but some portable ones can, and have, been used for caching.

 

Have a look at the pinned threads at the top of this forum for more info on GPS receivers and what you might be looking for them to do.

[Red Squadron]

Hi, Just to let you know that I am a newbie at Geocaching and i too looked at a few GPS units before spending my hard earned cash. What I wanted was the same as you and I found that Garmin did what I wanted, including maps. The one I got was the Garmin Etrex Legend. I bought it new from eBay and it came from the States with 3 CD,s that had the MapSource on them. It also included the data cable to hook up to my laptop. I bought this for 89.99 the postage was 8.00 extra. It holds up to 1000 waypoints and up to 8mb of maps, which is quite sufficient for my needs. You can also hook it up to Autoroute on the laptop and configure it to be used as a Sat/Nav system. Although not as brilliant as a dedicated Sat/Nav system it is quite good.

Hope that helps.

Red Squadron

[+Cave Troll and Eeyore]

Hiya wildie and welcome to the Uk forum

I use a Garmin 60CS. The 60C would be a good unit as it has a special geocaching mode and is easy to programme in the co-ords.

[+Geo-Kate]

Hiya wildie and welcome to the Uk forum

I use a Garmin 60CS. The 60C would be a good unit as it has a special geocaching mode and is easy to programme in the co-ords.

 

All the mentioned above are very good units!

 

The base maps are very limited so won't really be any use for caching, except possibly giving you a very rough idea where a cache is relative to a major road or town. An old fashioned map will do this better!

 

To avoid frustration in the future, I would go for the map60, or map60c as this will let you install detailed maps at a later date should you wish to. The C or CS have colour screens and more memory if you wanted that route. The other advantage would be that they can double up as a sat-nav system for the car as they have autorouting cababilities(with the correct mapping, of course).

 

that said though, the basic gps60, or even the etrex are fabulous units and perfectly adequate for caching!

 

Good luck with you purchase and future caching

[Wildie]

we allready have a in car satnav its the garmin sp i3 with nt+ v8 map, we using that for caching at mo, so we need a simple one which allows manual and pc input of poi`s, so what you saying it it dont need a map base, as we allready got a satnav with it so the garmin gps60 is very suitable but the gpsmap60 and 60c is better has more bells but over kill for the game yes! so we go withthe garmin gps 60 in yellow.

thanks..

[+Geo-Kate]

we allready have a in car satnav its the garmin sp i3 with nt+ v8 map, we using that for caching at mo, so we need a simple one which allows manual and pc input of poi`s, so what you saying it it dont need a map base, as we allready got a satnav with it so the garmin gps60 is very suitable but the gpsmap60 and 60c is better has more bells but over kill for the game yes! so we go withthe garmin gps 60 in yellow.

thanks..

 

The gps60 is very good. the built in quad-helix antenna helps with poor signals in woods or cities, compared the e-trex range. USB is helpfull for uploading of waypoints or tracks should you wish to save some for walking...

 

Enjoy