+piggletfamily Posted April 2, 2007 Share Posted April 2, 2007 hi everyone, we are new to this game. we found our first cache at the weekend how cool!! we managed to find that one cos we live close to it and recognised the place from its discription. we now want to buy a gps but only have about £100 to spend what would you advise? i have found one on a popular auction website a garmin legend for £89 is that what we want??? and do we need to buy additional maps? as this seems to be really expensive. thanks for reading my wafflings and hope someone can help. chris Quote Link to comment
+steviep Posted April 2, 2007 Share Posted April 2, 2007 You can't go wrong with the basic yellow etrex, welcome to the mad world Quote Link to comment
Red Squadron Posted April 2, 2007 Share Posted April 2, 2007 Hi, and welcome to Geocaching. I have a garmin Legend and I have some spare Maps. They are on 3 Cd,s Email me if you want to chat about it. Quote Link to comment
+HazelS Posted April 2, 2007 Share Posted April 2, 2007 Legends are pretty good, but to be honest, I never use the mapping facility on the legend, and I find that under tree cover the basic yellow Etrex is better... I'd go with a Yellow E trex and then move up to a 60cs / 60csx if and when you decide you want to get more serious / hav a bit more money to play with. Quote Link to comment
+PopUpPirate Posted April 2, 2007 Share Posted April 2, 2007 GPS60 yellow is fab, better buttons and screen than the etrex http://www.cactusnav.com/product_info.php?products_id=483 The GPS60 comes with a USB lead, the Etrex doesn't, so that makes the costs very similar. Quote Link to comment
+t.a.folk Posted April 2, 2007 Share Posted April 2, 2007 Legends are pretty good, but to be honest, I never use the mapping facility on the legend, and I find that under tree cover the basic yellow Etrex is better... Agree about the legend and tree cover . Our Legend bought last year doesn't keep signal under trees or by tall buildings as often as my yellow extrex .But we've got two extrex's and it's only mine that is marginally better than the Legend. We rely on paper maps so don't use mapping facililties ,but find the Legend more convienient than Yellow Etrex for converting WGS84 to OS map reference when doing multi caches ,to plot next location on map . Quote Link to comment
Lactodorum Posted April 2, 2007 Share Posted April 2, 2007 You could also check out this thread Which Gps ? or this one New Geocacher seeks help which GPS to buy or Bluetooth GPS - which one? Quote Link to comment
+tteggod trackers Posted April 2, 2007 Share Posted April 2, 2007 I use a Legend i used to download the maps for the area i was visiting but nine times out of ten they are off road in a field or woods anyway! Nowadays i don't worry.i have been caching in areas i had no maps for and i still found the cache.Effectively you are looking for a dot on a map anyway! Other peoples remarks about bad signal in tree cover is quite right but unless you go for latest with sirf III aerial you will still find caches. I would hazard a guess that the vast majority of caches were hidden using a Legend or basic etrex. Good luck and welcome! Quote Link to comment
+Paul & Ros Posted April 2, 2007 Share Posted April 2, 2007 We've found 400+ caches using a Garmin Geko 201, no mapping but nice and cheap for a beginner. They are selling them for £80 at Aldi this Thursday I think (see previous posting on this forum a few days ago). Always been very happy with it and recommended it to friends who are happy too. Good luck. Paul Quote Link to comment
Jantaculum Posted April 3, 2007 Share Posted April 3, 2007 We're quite happy with the basic yellow etrex - you have to enter the waypoints manually, but that's not too much of a problem unless you plan to do loads of caches in one day. The only thing that I don't like about it is the colour - it's too obvious (and harder to disguise as a mobile phone) when you cache in central London!!!!!! Quote Link to comment
+piggletfamily Posted April 3, 2007 Author Share Posted April 3, 2007 thanks everyone, well i finally decided on a legend as i found one on ebay for £89 and that was cheaper than the yellow one in our local shops. i wanted to get a geko but aldi is about 50miles from us so no go. all excited now it should be with us on thursday so look out sussex we are gonna be caching!! chris Quote Link to comment
Edgemaster Posted April 3, 2007 Share Posted April 3, 2007 (edited) thanks everyone, well i finally decided on a legend as i found one on ebay for £89 and that was cheaper than the yellow one in our local shops. i wanted to get a geko but aldi is about 50miles from us so no go. all excited now it should be with us on thursday so look out sussex we are gonna be caching!! chris No need to wait until then If you really want to get started now, take a Google Earth printout with you and, in conjunction with the additional hint, try and find a (Regular size/Traditional) cache right away! It may not be as simple, but it works. Edited April 3, 2007 by Edgemaster Quote Link to comment
+GAZ Posted April 3, 2007 Share Posted April 3, 2007 I used a good 'ole yellow eTrex until it died on me, and have had the Legend for a few years now, and it's fine for 'caching....I've never had the maps on it, never really needed them. One thing I would recommend you download, which is free, is Easygps...a program that will upload the co-ords from pc to gps...and vice versa. Link You get a cable supplied with the Legend which you will need, but don't with the yellow eTrex. This is easy to use, it saves putting all the co-ords in by hand....just tick which 'caches you want to download, and they save in Easygps for uploading. Oh....and welcome to the obses......err, I mean hobby Quote Link to comment
Edgemaster Posted April 4, 2007 Share Posted April 4, 2007 I used a good 'ole yellow eTrex until it died on me, and have had the Legend for a few years now, and it's fine for 'caching....I've never had the maps on it, never really needed them. One thing I would recommend you download, which is free, is Easygps...a program that will upload the co-ords from pc to gps...and vice versa. Link You get a cable supplied with the Legend which you will need, but don't with the yellow eTrex. This is easy to use, it saves putting all the co-ords in by hand....just tick which 'caches you want to download, and they save in Easygps for uploading. Oh....and welcome to the obses......err, I mean hobby The cable can also be bought for the eTrex (or made in my case), EasyGPS is nice, there's also GPSBabel, and GSAK. GPSBabel converts between different GPS file formats and can send data to GPS units. GSAK, the Geocaching Swiss Army Knife, is an offline database of caches that supports transferring the waypoints to many other programs and devices. Quote Link to comment
+piggletfamily Posted April 5, 2007 Author Share Posted April 5, 2007 oh this new hobby is just a little obsessive, we got the legend downloaded easygps downloaded two caches and found them both this afternoon!!! great. chris Quote Link to comment
+GAZ Posted April 6, 2007 Share Posted April 6, 2007 oh this new hobby is just a little obsessive, we got the legend downloaded easygps downloaded two caches and found them both this afternoon!!! great. chris Oh dear......sleep, work,watching tv.....they're all out the window now That's it, you're hooked Have lots of fun with your new-found hobby....all the rest of us have!! Quote Link to comment
The Red Kite Posted April 6, 2007 Share Posted April 6, 2007 Welcome to the mad, mad world of caching, pigglets Next it will be memory maps, tomtom, dreaming about caching, planning which events you can fit in, sleepless nights whilst rushing for that FTF, ... you sure you want to do this? Quote Link to comment
+piggletfamily Posted April 6, 2007 Author Share Posted April 6, 2007 i think it is too late to be unsure, we are going camping to the new forest next week and piggletdad has been searching and found about a dozen for us to try while we are there. we are only there for 2 nights!!! chris Quote Link to comment
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