How accurate is an 10 yo GPS?

[+Nurse 1]

We have a 10 year old Magellan GPS. How much have they improved over the years? Is it worth buying a new unit? We had a great deal of difficulty finding the caches, and not sure if it is because our GPS is inaccurate or what? When we did find a cache, our GPS was off by about .02, is that standard or is it due to the outdated unit?

[+rlridgeway]

GPS receivers have improved greatly over the years and if you can afford it at all, get a new GPS unit.

I am not sure what .02 means and a unit that old could be accurate if the conditions were right.

The problem with older units is not that they are inaccurate but poor satellite reception. They need a wide open view of the sky to operate. Weather conditions and physical barriers such as buildings, mountains and tree cover will interfere with satellite reception much more often than in a newer device.

Today's receivers are able to receive satellite information inside a building. That was unheard of ten years ago.

In addition to this, today's GPS can integrate with a PC. I doubt very seriously your Magellan can do this.

Edited June 30, 2007 by rlridgeway

[+imajeep]

Much improved! High-sensitivity receivers vastly improve reception under challenging conditions (tree cover, canyons, and so on).

[+lacazg]

So would a 5 year old GPSr vot work well also? Please say yes I really want another GSPr but I have to convice my self that theres a need.

[+Night Stalker]

I guess that depends on what 5 year old GPS you are using. Renegade Knight uses a Garmin GPS V and he swears buy it. I think that is about 5 years old. Of course he looks longingly at my new 60CX whenever we are under heavy tree cover, but he can't bring himself to spend the money. He keeps saying that one day Garmin will come out with a GPS VI.

 

[+lacazg]

I have a Garmin Rino 110, I think I want a eTrex Vista HCx now but I don't know.

[+StarBrand]

I have a 7 year old Garmin that I still use regularly - still finds caches. Still finds them as well as my newer nicer units. I have more features and bells and whistles but the same sats and the same signal is still in play.

[+lacazg]

I guess your right, mine still finds caches so theres not a real problem.

[+Friendly Goat]

I guess your right, mine still finds caches so theres not a real problem.

 

I've just gotten started with a Garmin GPS 12, which is (I think) about 10

years old also. It does sputter when there's a lot of tree cover, rocks, etc.

but I am generally pleased with its performance. I'll admit though it would

be nice to have a steady unit that doesn't send me into thorns when it's

not necessary to do so (and poisonous plants... this happened in a ravine

once for me... wait, twice!). But, I paid $80 for it so I have nothing to

complain about.

[Cape Cod Cacher]

I have a GPS 48 I got 10 years ago, works great... Can up/download info, plug into a boat's antenna and never lost a lobster pot and can find my way back to port in the fog (MUCH more important than a box in the woods to me!) using it. Works fine in the woods too. GPS V was the newest thing back then, but I went for the marine database (quite limited, but thats what a chart plotter is for). I'll get a new one when and if it goes "bloop" in deep water.

[+Prime Suspect]

We have a 10 year old Magellan GPS. How much have they improved over the years? Is it worth buying a new unit? We had a great deal of difficulty finding the caches, and not sure if it is because our GPS is inaccurate or what? When we did find a cache, our GPS was off by about .02, is that standard or is it due to the outdated unit?

Difficult to answer your last question, because we don't know what .02 is. Miles, degrees, kilometers, furlongs?

 

GPSs built before SA was turned off may not be able to show distances in feet or meters, and may only show down to the hundredths of a mile or km. That can be a bit of a pain, but you can still find Ground Zero by looking at the coordinate read-out. A hand-held compass will be handy, as you'll need to be oriented in order to know which direction to move. However, some older GPSs will only display coordinates to 2 decimal points. You may be able to get around that by switching to UTM, but that will prevent you from doing a lot of multi-caches (at least, without a trip back home to look up the conversion for each stage).