e trex venture HC

[carolmil]

Hi there

 

Not sure if anyone would be able to help me at all?

 

I got a lovely shiny e trex venture today for christmas.

 

Problem is - i haven't really got a clue how to start.

 

I downloaded one of my local caches as a bit of a starter but it all went horribly wrong! mainly because we havent got a clue what we're doing!

 

Is there anywhere that explains how to correct read the information on the screen? and what screens we need to be in.

 

We thought it was a case of following the red arrow but embarrasingly enough, we ended up back where we started!

 

Many thanks for your help x

[+briansnat]

All you need to do is follow the arrow. Tell us what you are doing and we'll tell you what you are doing wrong.

 

Your quick start guide should give you the basics. If your unit didn't come with one, you can dowload one from the Garmin website.

 

The key skills you need to start off with are marking, editing and navigating to waypoints.

[+lkrus]

i just got the same one on saturday!! so i am also new to this...we(2 daughters and myself) have went out 3 times and found 2 of the 3,.. assuming you are on the goto screen you also need to watch the distance to the cache but tis will only be so reliable someone also told me to switch over to the satellite screen and try to match up my numbers to that of the cache owner hope this helps

[carolmil]

thanks for your help everyone.

 

Went out again last night for another try.

 

It would appear that my compass doesn't seem to want to work very well so the red arrow isn't going to work so well for us.

 

We did get on the right track though - until the batteries ran out! (big learning curve for us!)

 

Luckily we bumped into another group of geocachers looking for the same thing so we joined them for a little while and found the cache.

 

Will try again this morning

[Cunner]

I, too, got this nice GPS for christmas.

 

Does anyone know how to use the accompagnying MapSource? I kind of don't have any maps preinstalled on the venture HC and I have no clue how to get maps from the program to my device. It seems as if there are no maps at all because the map selection function doesn't work as in the manual. Moreover if I click on "unlock maps" I get the friendly notice that "unlock wizard cannot be started. Reinstall the program and try again" (translation from German). Since I already reinstalled the prog and can't see what I should do differently I wonder how it is supposed to work.

 

One more thing: how do I copy Geocaches to my GPS device?

 

Thanks in advance.

[+briansnat]

It would appear that my compass doesn't seem to want to work very well so the red arrow isn't going to work so well for us.

 

Your unit does not have a magnetic compass. It gets it's directional information from the sats, so you have to be moving for it to work. If you are moving at a fairly brisk pace the compass will work just fine. If you are standing still or walking slowly it will give strange readings.

 

The navigation (compass) screen is the one used by most geocachers and as long as you realized its limitations in your unit it works great.

 

 

Does anyone know how to use the accompagnying MapSource? I kind of don't have any maps preinstalled on the venture HC and I have no clue how to get maps from the program to my device. It seems as if there are no maps at all because the map selection function doesn't work as in the manual. Moreover if I click on "unlock maps" I get the friendly notice that "unlock wizard cannot be started. Reinstall the program and try again" (translation from German). Since I already reinstalled the prog and can't see what I should do differently I wonder how it is supposed to work.

 

You may have to go to Garmin with this one. The unlock wizard should be working.

[+briansnat]

Moving this to the GPS Unit and Software forum where the experts lurk and might be able to helo

[+Miragee]

I, too, got this nice GPS for christmas.

 

Does anyone know how to use the accompagnying MapSource? I kind of don't have any maps preinstalled on the venture HC and I have no clue how to get maps from the program to my device. It seems as if there are no maps at all because the map selection function doesn't work as in the manual. Moreover if I click on "unlock maps" I get the friendly notice that "unlock wizard cannot be started. Reinstall the program and try again" (translation from German). Since I already reinstalled the prog and can't see what I should do differently I wonder how it is supposed to work.

 

One more thing: how do I copy Geocaches to my GPS device?

 

Thanks in advance.

Welcome to the Forums!

 

Did you purchase additional maps? If you just have the Mapsource disk that came with the GPSr, it doesn't have any maps. That is only the "shell" program you can use to manage waypoints.

 

There is a variety of software available for sending the waypoints to your GPS unit. Many people start with EasyGPS and then use GSAK (Geocaching Swiss Army Knife) to handle all the data they get from Pocket Queries after they become Premium Members.