+Marcus Vitruvius Posted July 13, 2007 Share Posted July 13, 2007 Hi. I recently purchased a Garmin 60CSx and find that most caches are always on average 200m away from where my GPS says GZ is. I usually find them through persistence and luck. Is the problem in my settings? I live in Victoria, Australia. Any and all help is great. Quote Link to comment
BilgeRat Posted July 13, 2007 Share Posted July 13, 2007 Marcus, Try this. On the page for the cache, click on the line next to the position marked "other conversions". This will pull up a page that lists the cache coords in other map datums. Now, go into the "setup" page on your GPSr, and find out what map datum the unit is set up to use. WGS 84 is normal for geocaching; you can either set your unit to WGS 84 or use the listed coords on the settings page for whatever datum is set on your unit. Hope this helps you out! Tom P.S. I was in Victoria last October, do you mind if I ask where you are located? Quote Link to comment
+fratermus Posted July 13, 2007 Share Posted July 13, 2007 Hi. I recently purchased a Garmin 60CSx and find that most caches are always on average 200m away from where my GPS says GZ is. BilgeRat has provided the likeliest answer, the datum setting. I suspect you may have to upload the waypoints again after changing the datum, but I haven't tested this. If this is so, this would imply the GPSr is holding teh coords in some other format internally, and converts them in/out according to the selected datum. Anybody tested this or have insight into how the coords are stored under the hood? Quote Link to comment
+Sputnik 57 Posted July 13, 2007 Share Posted July 13, 2007 If our Roman Engineer from Down Under is using a datum other than WGS84, the waypoints got "shifted" to his datum when they were loaded into the GPSr. If he changes the datum to WGS84, they'll get "shifted back" to where they belong. He won't need to reload them. The GPSr stores the coordinates. Where they get displayed are dependent upon the datum the user selects. Quote Link to comment
+klossner Posted July 13, 2007 Share Posted July 13, 2007 It's probably the datum, but also: make sure you turn off "lock to road," otherwise the GPSr will pretend that you're on the nearest road, not where you actually are. Quote Link to comment
+Marcus Vitruvius Posted July 13, 2007 Author Share Posted July 13, 2007 Thanks for your comments BilgeRat. I live on the border of VIC and NSW in Wodonga/Albury. My GPS is set to WGS84, but I have changed it to other settings (NAD27 etc) to see if it made a difference when I knew a was a bit off, which I don't think it did. Also, do I enable/disable WAAS in Australia and/or do I update the firmware. The GPS says "Software Version" 3.30 and "GPS SW Version" 2.90...Thanks for the link Sputnik, and I've just turned off "Lock On Road" Klossner, which I will try today. Cheers. M.V. Quote Link to comment
+Marcus Vitruvius Posted July 14, 2007 Author Share Posted July 14, 2007 (edited) Thanks to those who contributed their information. I went out this morning and found three known cache locations with the GPS getting me within 2 metres of them all. Steps taken to rectify problem were: 1. Turn 'Lock On Road' off. and 2. Disabled WAAS. Whether it was one or both of these actions that corrected the problem I'm not sure, but it worked great. Thanks. M.V. Edited July 14, 2007 by Marcus Vitruvius Quote Link to comment
+Marcus Vitruvius Posted July 14, 2007 Author Share Posted July 14, 2007 To try and answer your question fratermus....I do remember changing the map datum setting to see if it made a difference to accuracy, and then changing it back to WGS84, and the coords for waypoints were not the same as I had previously entered in. Once set to WGS84, I had to over them again and reenter them and it worked, no problems. Quote Link to comment
+Fan4 Posted July 15, 2007 Share Posted July 15, 2007 (edited) Hi. I recently purchased a Garmin 60CSx and find that most caches are always on average 200m away from where my GPS says GZ is. I usually find them through persistence and luck. Is the problem in my settings? I live in Victoria, Australia. Any and all help is great. Not directly related to this question, but here's another possibility if you're having problems with single coords. I discovered this the other day..... On the map page, I moved the pointer over a cache to select it and find out its name. I must've double-clicked it or something and inadvertantly moved the icon a bit (didn't know this could be done). When I went to go search, couldn't find it. Called my wife at home and had her check the coords and sure enough, the coords in the GPS were different by about 50'. This happened to me once before but I had no idea why at the time. Edited July 15, 2007 by Fan4 Quote Link to comment
BoostJunkie Posted July 15, 2007 Share Posted July 15, 2007 I discovered this the other day..... On the map page, I moved the pointer over a cache to select it and find out its name. I must've double-clicked it or something and inadvertantly moved the icon a bit (didn't know this could be done). When I went to go search, couldn't find it. Called my wife at home and had her check the coords and sure enough, the coords in the GPS were different by about 50'. This happened to me once before but I had no idea why at the time. I've done this same thing a couple of times. It makes finding caches a bit more of a challenge. Quote Link to comment
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.