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Garmin eTrex


Tydoc

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Posted (edited)

I just purchased a Garmin etrex to use for geocacheing... I know am beg, to find out that it won't work??? Can anyone please confirm??

 

It is the small "Adventure Pack"

 

Thanks

Ty

Edited by Tydoc
Posted

The Yellow eTrex will work for geocaching in that you can load cache locations in either by cable or manually, and it will then take you to the cache, but it does not do any advanced managment of the caches.

 

I would never recommend the Yellow (or camo or summit) because...well I explain it here in post #6

Posted

I just got a eTrex. It is pretty good. Of course that is all depending on where I am and how many "ft of accuracy" I can get.

 

It has been 10 ft in one spot and 45 in another. That is the usual range for me. Work well enough for caching as far as I have seen....which isn't much.

Posted (edited)

I figured out how to do it. But i got a good deal for it and being a beg. i didnt want to drop a bunch of money in case it didnt work out in the end. My son is still young so when he grows up and if we get into it i can pass it down to him and buy the good stuff....

 

** how do you upload via cable?? I did not see any place to plug in a cable...

Edited by Tydoc
Posted

I figured out how to do it. But i got a good deal for it and being a beg. i didnt want to drop a bunch of money in case it didnt work out in the end. My son is still young so when he grows up and if we get into it i can pass it down to him and buy the good stuff....

 

** how do you upload via cable?? I did not see any place to plug in a cable...

 

There is a rubber flap on the back of the unit near the top. you lift that up and the cable you may have to buy seperately. My buddy has the yellow model and his did not come with the cable but he got it like 5 years ago.

Posted

i have the etrex yellow and have found an after market cable that i ordered for 10.00$ it works great and also if you are up to the challenge you can make your own by again doing a search and finding the web page.

Posted

The yellow Etrex will work just fine for geocaching, maybe not as easy as a more expensive model. You can get a cable on ebay to upload with, also you will need a program such as EastGPS.

 

You don't need a cadilac to learn how to drive, you can learn with a geo metro .

Posted

You can geocache just fine with a yellow etrex, although anyone considering buying one should make sure they get the new "high sensitivity" model. I have a yellow and have found plenty of caches with it and models from the geko line which are similar. The GPS is actually just one small part of the experience of caching. Don't get hung up on it.

Posted (edited)

I bought a blue eTrex Legend to start out with to see if my wife and I would enjoy GeoCaching, and for about $100, it works great. We love the hobby and plan on doing it for a while. This winter, we'll upgrade to a newer whizzy model and pass this one onto another beginner.

 

The eTrex works in about 95% of the places you will be going, but sometimes gets a little spastic in heavily covered trees or by large metal objects.

 

We're aproaching our 20th find this weekend, and the eTrex has gotten us to within 10 feet of ground zero every time.

 

 

One thing to pay attention to, is the cable plugs. A lot of computers do not have serial ports (Macs, laptops, etc) and the cable that is included with the eTrex is a Garmin plug to serial, which doesn't work at all if you are using a laptop. I had to drop another $25 on a cable adapter to convert serial to USB, so at that point, I could have spent the money initially and bought a nicer model with USB connectivity.

 

Also, make sure to have the eTrex set to WGS84 coordinates. You'll hate the game if you have it set incorrectly.

Edited by upon3
Posted

I recommend the etrex. Twice now I have geocached side by side with friends using 2 different GPS60s. The etrex was consistently more accurate, particularly under tree cover where it invariable had less than half the error allowance of the more expensive units. I've heard all the arguments why this shouldn't be true, but you can't argue with the evidence.

Posted

Now if they had a 60 C(S)x, or a "H" eTrex, a regular eTrex wouldn't compete.

 

Yes, maybe, with the same receiver, the eTrex gets better signal. But if you put a regular eTrex and a eTrex H side-by-side, the H would clearly win. (And this is the same with the "X" 60 series, and the other "H" eTrex models)

Posted

I've been using my friends yellow etrex since I started 6-7 weeks ago. It has been fairly accurate, although under heavy tree cover or by tall buildings often starts sulking. I haven't though been able to use the DMS (have been using British Grid)- I have tried on a number of times, but it always seems to be at least 80 meters out, whereas with British Grid it is often 10-20 meters out. Wondering what I was doing wrong (I know there are 2-3 different DMS options- have tried them all-I think the middle one is the best of a bad bunch). It is very annoying as it rules me out from doing multis or puzzles. Why haven't I bought my own GPS??? Well I am trying to, but decided on a Triton and that seems to be forever being delayed ;)

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