Paperless and Garmin 76CSx

[+ibri]

Hi there. I looked in many searches and came up empty.

 

Can the Garmin 76CSx do paperless caching? Or is the Colorado 300 the only one.

I do not have nor want to by a PDA.

 

Also please let me know if you like your 76CSx. I have a magellen explorist 500 and want to upgrade.

[+Crid]

No, the 76CSx cannot do paperless on its own. With GSAK, a custom macro and some custom icons you can get some of the cache information into the 76CSx. Personally I used my iPod and a custom GSAK macro to do paperless before getting a Colorado. The only problem I had was a limitation on the amount of text per cache (4Kb I think). Occasionally the cache description would be longer than that and then I couldn't see the hint.

 

I love the 76CSx and still do. It doesn't suffer from big accuracy problems in woodland like the Colorado does. That's not to say the Colorado is useless (it's been fine in the car, and the paperless aspects are very nice). But right now I'd probably recommend a 76CSx or 60CSx for geocaching at the moment. If Garmin ever sort out the accuracy issues on the Colorado I may reconsider my recommendation.

[+Thrak]

Just get a cheap palm from eBay. It's sooooooo easy and cheap.

[+Westacular]

Personally I used my iPod and a custom GSAK macro to do paperless before getting a Colorado. The only problem I had was a limitation on the amount of text per cache (4Kb I think). Occasionally the cache description would be longer than that and then I couldn't see the hint.

 

There's another iPod macro for GSAK that does a pretty slick job of splitting a single description across multiple "notes", to avoid the 4kB limit. However, iPods also have a 1000-note maximum, so that means the full descriptions come at the expense of listing other caches. Usually I'm able to fit roughly 900 descriptions, give or take.

 

I was paperless caching quite effectively using an iPod (via notes) + 60CSx (via POI) through GSAK macros until I tragically lost my 60CSx a couple weeks ago; it's not the most convenient but it does work -- as long as you trust yourself to remember what to log when you get home.

 

I'm now stuck trying to figure out what to get to replace my 60CSx. The CO and OR are tempting but have their drawbacks, and I'm also likely to get a nice smartphone soon, which could make some of their paperless features redundant. (This isn't a call for help, BTW; just me commiserating.)