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Got my Colorado 400t today!


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I'm one of the 60CSx to Colorado crossover people, and so far me likey!

 

No real world experience yet as all I've been able to do is load City Navigator and play around in my office. Also loaded up the beta release of the firmware which installed without a hitch.

 

I love how changing profiles can completely change most of the options, even the shortcuts. The display is just... WOW and it seems very well made (has some heft to it).

 

It will take some getting used to moving around the menus and figuring out where everything is/what it does but for me that's the fun part of a new device.

 

Loaded it up with almost 300 geocaches from a pocket query and holy smokes... I'm in LOVE, having the description, logs and hint right along with the cache as well as 'go to full screen map' option... definitely confirmed my purchase was the right one, I love this thing so far and can't wait for my next caching expedition.

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I just got mine last night...found one cache today on my lunch break! :anitongue:

 

I was crusing around downtown seattle with buildings everywhere. I found the device to be somewhat inaccurate.

 

The satelite is set to normal. Isn't WAAS more accurate? Should I switch it?

Edited by maynerd_mjk
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Battery drains faster?

It does, but only slightly. WAAS really doesn't help all that much when searching for a cache, but may be useful when placing a cache. But it may not even be worthwhile then -- at least not until the Colorado supports waypoint averaging.

 

See item H10 here for information on power drain on the Colorado.

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Battery drains faster?

It does, but only slightly. WAAS really doesn't help all that much when searching for a cache, but may be useful when placing a cache. But it may not even be worthwhile then -- at least not until the Colorado supports waypoint averaging.

 

See item H10 here for information on power drain on the Colorado.

 

What is waypoint averaging? What am I missing out on?

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Not missing out on much really... it was more useful with the GPS's that didn't have high sensitivity receivers.

 

Basically it averages your location automatically (if you watch your coordinates you'll see it change) what it does is take the average of 'X' many polls.

 

I've used it on the 60CSx and rarely (if ever) did the actually mark change much if at all after 50+ polls.

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One of the local cachers got to talk to the Garmin engineers the other day and it was his impression that the Colorado and future high sensitivity receivers do not benefit from averaging and there for will not have it.

 

But this is second hand information and may or may not be true.

 

There has been lots of debate...

 

However, I've tested it a lot, and averaging does help WHEN the estimated EPE on the averaging page drops. The big gain is in areas with marginal reception. You'll see a fairly random bounce in position. This is easy to see when you zoom in on the tracklog. The averaging kills the bounce and get a better actual position in the end. Anyone that disagrees has not really put the effort into testing it.

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One of the local cachers got to talk to the Garmin engineers the other day and it was his impression that the Colorado and future high sensitivity receivers do not benefit from averaging and there for will not have it.

 

But this is second hand information and may or may not be true.

 

Show this statement to any surveyor that is familiar with GPS and see what he/she says.

 

I will not even consider buying a GPSr that doesn't have position averaging.

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One of the local cachers got to talk to the Garmin engineers the other day and it was his impression that the Colorado and future high sensitivity receivers do not benefit from averaging and there for will not have it.

 

But this is second hand information and may or may not be true.

 

Show this statement to any surveyor that is familiar with GPS and see what he/she says.

 

I will not even consider buying a GPSr that doesn't have position averaging.

 

Not even a fair comparison. A surveyor needs an instrument that is accurate to millimeters.

 

At some point the percent increase becomes a virtual non issue. I don't know what that point is but on a unit with with a stated accuracy of about 9 feet and a resolution of 6 feet, a receiver that is more sensitive than the previous generation receivers shouldn't have a hard time reaching that point.

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One of the local cachers got to talk to the Garmin engineers the other day and it was his impression that the Colorado and future high sensitivity receivers do not benefit from averaging and there for will not have it.

 

But this is second hand information and may or may not be true.

 

Show this statement to any surveyor that is familiar with GPS and see what he/she says.

 

I will not even consider buying a GPSr that doesn't have position averaging.

 

Not even a fair comparison. A surveyor needs an instrument that is accurate to millimeters.

 

At some point the percent increase becomes a virtual non issue. I don't know what that point is but on a unit with with a stated accuracy of about 9 feet and a resolution of 6 feet, a receiver that is more sensitive than the previous generation receivers shouldn't have a hard time reaching that point.

 

It isn't about accuracy its about precision. Its about using proper methods so you have confidence in the position your GPSr gives you. You don't get that with just one reading, especially in the woods where GPS is at its greatest disadvantage and the majority of geocaches are placed. The stated accuracy of a unit is worthless if all your getting is noisy signal and multi-path that the "sensitive" receiver is using to calculate position.

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