Anyone use Aviation Units to Geocach? (196,296,396,496)

[+jdoe01]

Hey all,

 

I'm a long time geocacher that has been out of the sport for some time now. For the last few years I have used a 60CSx and loved it for geocaching. I'm also a pilot, however, and in the process of acquiring a 496. Unfortunately, because of the price I'm also selling my 60CSx to help offset the cost. I'm wondering if I will be able to pick up right where I left off with the 496? Are there any other GCers out there that use the aviation models, and are there any serious disadvantages to using these models for geocaching? In general I always used the compass page to geocache with the 60CSx, and from the manual it appears as though this is still available on the aviation units. I've also read that it can support all the same custom waypoints, so I'm hoping it will still work well...

 

Thanks for any input you can provide.

 

All the best,

 

James

[+Airmapper]

No experience with Garmin models, but I used my Lowrance AirMap 500 to Geocache for years.

 

The advantage to my unit was it was a small handheld, and in land mode operated as any other i-Finder land based unit. From what I've seen of the Garmin models you mention they are big and designed to be portable, but that is more or less portable between fixed mounts in various vehicles (Plane, car, boat......)

 

The way I'd use it is mount it in the car for driving me from cache to cache, and use a handheld to find the cache. I wouldn't want to lug a $1,000 (at the low end) unit into the woods, not to mention it's going to have low battery life and it's very bulky. Since your going to have a pretty advanced unit, you might be happy with a very simple handheld to get you to ground zero, that would only cost around $100 or less.

[Roadtorque]

I'm looking into this GPS as well. I dont see how it would not work for geocaching, the only problem I would have taking it out is if you drop it or scratch the screen that would be really sad. If you end up getting it Please post a good review of it. I'm a pilot and would be interested in what you thought of it both in the air and on the ground before buying it myself

[KD6QZX]

I have the Garmin 478 (the marine/land version of the pilots 476) Yes it will work for hunting caches. I find that is is very bulky to carry on anything but a short walk to a cache. I have not found the abilty to track the caches as I can do on my 60Cs. All in all it will work but you will like (miss) the 60cs for hunting.