New To Geocaching And I Need A Little Help.

[Bama Cache]

I just recently discovered geocaching and am looking into buying a GPS. I have been looking at Garmin Etrex Yellows. Would that be a good enough starter unit for someone just starting out?

 

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

[+Poidawg]

The Garmin etrex series are great. They are affordable, not too hard to use and are rugged. I have two and a friend has one. Some people are into downloading more information and like the color displays, with the more expensive models - but to me the etrex is just fine.

I found mine on line (here, craigslist, ebay, amazon.com) for about $100- used, including all the extras. I might suggest you use rechargeable batteries (get a super fast charger) that way you can recharge your unit in the car or at your home,motel, friends house etc. REI carries lots of accessories like leather cases etc

By the way - Welcome to caching.

Edited April 11, 2006 by Poidawg

[Bama Cache]

Thanks. Thats a lot of help. I'm currently looking at two on ebay. I found a few in my hometown without a gps by using google maps and my knowledge of the area, but that was getting a little too hard. I should be up and caching in a week.

[+timk54]

Do you have a price range? There are so many units with features that are nice to have. If you can spend a little more.

[Bama Cache]

Anywhere between 50 and 100. I'm looking for a used etrex on ebay right now. I'm sort of low on the cash flow.

[hitmeupz]

I purchased a Brand New etrex legend on ebay for a buyitnow price of $110 with free shipping. Look around , there's tons of great deals for new items, don't settle for used.

[+timk54]

The new etrex yellows are about $100.00 They do have WAAS enabled on the new ETREX yellow. That makes it a good for a new purchase over a used one that may not have WAAS. Accuracy is much better with WAAS.

[+Poidawg]

timk54 is 100% right, make certain the unit you get has WAAS!!

[Bama Cache]

The new etrex yellows are about $100.00 They do have WAAS enabled on the new ETREX yellow. That makes it a good for a new purchase over a used one that may not have WAAS. Accuracy is much better with WAAS.

 

How new does it have to be to have WAAS enabled?

[+Maingray]

I just recently discovered geocaching and am looking into buying a GPS. I have been looking at Garmin Etrex Yellows. Would that be a good enough starter unit for someone just starting out?

 

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

 

Consider something with PC connectivity. If you ever plan to geocache more than, say a very small handful of caches a weekend, you'll get sick of how many errors you'll make typing them in by hand

[Bama Cache]

I think I'm gonna score me a brand new Etrex Legend for under $100 on ebay.

[+HaLiJuSaPa]

Consider something with PC connectivity. If you ever plan to geocache more than, say a very small handful of caches a weekend, you'll get sick of how many errors you'll make typing them in by hand

 

If you're NOT going to do more than a few caches a week and can thus live with manually entering waypoints, you may want to consider the Lowrance IFinder GO. It goes for about $75-80 new in stores and about $65-70 on eBay/online vendors. This is for a NEW unit with a 1-year warranty (another advantage of getting new over used, though some eBay sellers offer 2 year warranties on used GPSr's for a small fee via Square Trade).

 

It has incredible satellite reception (rumor is it's one of the older SiRF chips), WAAS capability, and a decent though simple basemap (the Etrex Yellow has no map at all, but otherwise I agree it's a great unit, legend has it that more caches have been found with it than any other). Technically it does have computer connectivity, but it is really to connect to an NMEA device so you have to know how to use NMEA commands to download waypoints, it's not very straightforward.

 

But otherwise a real bargain! Good luck.....

[Bama Cache]

I'm looking at a Garmin etrex legend right now on ebay. Is that a good unit? I'm getting it for about $80.

[+HaLiJuSaPa]

I'm looking at a Garmin etrex legend right now on ebay. Is that a good unit? I'm getting it for about $80.

 

That's a very good price for it, most stores have it in the $125-175 range. Other than a few isolated reports on these forums about losing lock in heavy tree cover more than some other (usually more expensive though) units, it gets great reviews on these forums and is a very popular GPS.

 

Good luck!

[Bama Cache]

Didn't have to buy one after all. I got a Magellan Explorist 100 as a gift today. The only downside is no pc connectivity... oh well. I won't be doing any major caching for a couple of months. Only a few here and there... too much schoolwork.

[+HaLiJuSaPa]

Didn't have to buy one after all. I got a Magellan Explorist 100 as a gift today. The only downside is no pc connectivity... oh well. I won't be doing any major caching for a couple of months. Only a few here and there... too much schoolwork.

 

If you get to the point where you want PC connectivity you can easily get enough money on eBay for it to help pay for a unit that will give you that (or you can even try to sell it here in the forum, look at this post for example http://forums.Groundspeak.com/GC/index.php?showtopic=129499). Good luck and enjoy!

Edited April 16, 2006 by hairymon

[Bama Cache]

Thanks. Ya'll have been a ton of help. I can't wait to start.