My Magellan Gold doesn't agree with my Garmin GPS2

[CoomaClan]

We placed our first cache the other week and locked it in using both a Garmin GPS2 and a Magellan Meridian Gold. We have been using both units sise by side for a couple of weeks now and they have been close. Often with 10 metres of each other depending on tree cover etc

We had concern raised by another cacher that our co-ords for our proudly placed first cache might be wrong as they were a couple of hundred metres off it. We checked the location today by reloading the co-ords from the geocache site as a single waypoint in the two units, checked datums were the same, checked the co-ords as saved in each unit (the same) and off we went. Arrived at GZ with Garmin GPS2 spot on Magellan Meridian Gold telling me it was 210 metres away! Eastings and Northings were the same on both screens for real time location (at least within 0.001 minutes). Plenty of sky was available at our cache, waited a number of minutes for units to really lock onto satellites and so on but still 200 metres or so discrepancy.

Did a GOTO check to go home by and when we got home the two units were within 5 metres of GZ!!! can't work this one out. HELP.

[+embra]

A couple of thoughts:

1. Are you letting the Meridian settle down for a while when you arrive at the cache site? It's more aggressive averaging can take a while for it to match up with GZ. You can also turn it off to dump the averaging data and turn it back on to get the location coords faster. (I doubt this is the problem because you're probably aware of this behavior already having used the two units side-by-side)
    
   
2. Is there anything unusual at the cache site that might impair the functioning of the Meridian's quad helix antenna (I'm not sure but I'm presuming your Garmin has a patch antenna)
    
   
3. The discrepancy made me wonder if you had a different datum setting on the Meridian...though that premise seems discounted by their matching up well enough at your home coords.
   

This does seem odd.

[jmundinger]

 

[*]The discrepancy made me wonder if you had a different datum setting on the Meridian...though that premise seems discounted by their matching up well enough at your home coords.

This does seem odd.

 

That was my first thought. D M.m look similar to D.d when displayed on the screen but look a lot different on the ground. I wish that I could say I had made that mistake only once.

[+embra]

That was my first thought. D M.m look similar to D.d when displayed on the screen but look a lot different on the ground. I wish that I could say I had made that mistake only once.

That's certainly true, but that's the Coord System setting...I was thinking more about the setting directly underneath that field (I think you'd want them both to be WGS84). They're probably ok, but it's cheap to double-check.

[CoomaClan]

Thanks for the replies - I went the whole hog and did a reinitialisation of both units back to defaults na dnow evertything is OK. Don't know what happened. Thanks Again. Cooma Clan

 

[*]The discrepancy made me wonder if you had a different datum setting on the Meridian...though that premise seems discounted by their matching up well enough at your home coords.

This does seem odd.

 

That was my first thought. D M.m look similar to D.d when displayed on the screen but look a lot different on the ground. I wish that I could say I had made that mistake only once.

[CoomaClan]

Thanks for the replies - I went the whole hog and did a reinitialisation of both units back to defaults na dnow evertything is OK. Don't know what happened. Thanks Again. Cooma Clan

A couple of thoughts:

1. Are you letting the Meridian settle down for a while when you arrive at the cache site? It's more aggressive averaging can take a while for it to match up with GZ. You can also turn it off to dump the averaging data and turn it back on to get the location coords faster. (I doubt this is the problem because you're probably aware of this behavior already having used the two units side-by-side)
    
   
2. Is there anything unusual at the cache site that might impair the functioning of the Meridian's quad helix antenna (I'm not sure but I'm presuming your Garmin has a patch antenna)
    
   
3. The discrepancy made me wonder if you had a different datum setting on the Meridian...though that premise seems discounted by their matching up well enough at your home coords.
   

This does seem odd.