+Team Stick Posted July 21, 2006 Share Posted July 21, 2006 So, I plumped for an Etrex CX and It's blummin' marvellous. However I've got an issue with the maps. It's a little bit out of whack West to East (sorry if there's a technical term, I've only been into this Geo stuff for a week!) Put simply, it's as accurate as heck when heading towards a Geocache, took us right to one last night, no problems, but it said I was crossing a canal when I was a good hundred feet away and it said the cache was to the right of a major road when it was quite clearly to the left. North/South seems spot on. Is there some sort of calibration or something I need to be doing? Quote Link to comment
+JanniCash Posted July 21, 2006 Share Posted July 21, 2006 So, I plumped for an Etrex CX and It's blummin' marvellous. However I've got an issue with the maps. It's a little bit out of whack West to East (sorry if there's a technical term, I've only been into this Geo stuff for a week!) Put simply, it's as accurate as heck when heading towards a Geocache, took us right to one last night, no problems, but it said I was crossing a canal when I was a good hundred feet away and it said the cache was to the right of a major road when it was quite clearly to the left. North/South seems spot on. Is there some sort of calibration or something I need to be doing? Sounds as if you're talking about the preloaded basemap. That basemap is a very coarse representation of major highways only. Usually only the coordinates of intersections and maybe one or two points in between are known to the GPS, and then it simply assumes a straight line between those points. Loading detailed street maps will fix that. Jan Quote Link to comment
+Team Stick Posted July 22, 2006 Author Share Posted July 22, 2006 I wondered that and after playing with the unit last night I came to the conclusion that it was probably down to the basemap being a bit 'rough'. I'm only just starting to get to grips with it and I notice there are a bunch of links somewhere to Topo maps, so I'm off to experiment... Thanks for the headsup. Quote Link to comment
+JFDavis (Orion 6) Posted July 22, 2006 Share Posted July 22, 2006 I wondered that and after playing with the unit last night I came to the conclusion that it was probably down to the basemap being a bit 'rough'. I'm only just starting to get to grips with it and I notice there are a bunch of links somewhere to Topo maps, so I'm off to experiment... Thanks for the headsup. AHH, no easy way to break this to you, so... Even the more expensive maps-Metroguide, City Navigator, Topo, have errors. Sometimes the cause is obvious-a new road or feature has just been built and therefore isn't included on a map written/drawn prior to the construction. Other times it's not so obvious why: the location for the University of NM Arena for instance. The Pit has been in the same location for about 30 years. Metro guide has it about 2 miles away in a heavily residential area. City Navigator shows it on a major intersection where a convienence store stands and has been for nearly 35 years-but it has the lot where the Pit stands correctly labeled as university property. My favorite barbershop is transposed with a popular restaurant and both are on the wrong side of the street. Oddly the older Mapsource product shows a particular highway interchange correctly, but the newer Navigator product has the same intersection drawn before the latest renovation. But don't blame this on Garmin, it's common to all map making. Simply, maps are out-of-date before their ink dries. Sometimes it frustrating, but with a GPSr you can zoom-out and look around; what you want is probably there somewhere. Just make finding it another ground search-it can be quite entertaining! Quote Link to comment
+Night Stalker Posted July 22, 2006 Share Posted July 22, 2006 I have City Select for use with my Garmin 60Cs. According to these maps I am driving through the living rooms of the houses across the stree when I drive down my street. I found that the maps for my Magellan SporTrak Pro were off by about the same distance so I assume that the map makers got their information from the same source. Some of my maps are spot on, but some are just bad. The only way to make corrections is to send in the information, but it will be a couple of years before you see the results on new maps... No matter how much we complain you have to admit that it sure beats not having any maps at all. Quote Link to comment
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