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New Garmin Vista Hcx Software 2.70


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@jmundiger --- are you sure you updated to 2.70/2.50???

 

Ja, wohl! :huh:

 

version.jpg

 

I have a copy chipset 2.30; 2.50 and 2.60 on my computer. I know I have the "drift" issue with 2.70/2.60 - I even experienced a mild form of it on a neighborhood walk - with little overhead obstruction and tracking about 8 satellites. I downgraded to 2.70/2.30 but shortly after the downgrade I turned the gps on and it failed to get a good lock on the satellites - I turned it off, restarted and it locked on right away. So, I decided to try 2.70/2.50. I have not yet tried that combination with a compromised view of the sky. But, my initial hikes - all with a solid lock on 8 + satellites - were more that satisfactory. The trip computer functioned during the stretches on which I was moving slowly (<1 mph) and I got nice trip logs, including return legs that retraced the out-going legs, well within standard error. Understand that this was with good satellite connections and just a few trials. But, I think I will stick with this configuration for awhile.

 

drop me an email if you want the zip file. You will have to un-package it and then drag one of the files over the other to initiate webupdater and install the chipset.

Edited by jmundinger
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yes...a belated thank you from me on this board as well.

Hopefully it will cure all our problems with the vista and we finally all can concentrate on the things we want to do WITH the device and not the device itself :huh:.

Results earliest on weekend from my side as well as a bad case of cold doesnt encourage to go caching

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As I have noted in the email that I sent to everyone to whom I sent the 2.50 chipset, I think we should share our results so that we have an idea about how the Vista HCx performs with 2.70/2.50 compared with other software configurations. I think it would also be a good idea to share our results - politely and constructively - with Garmin. If, as suggested by the discussion of a similar issue with the Colorado, Garmin is working with the chipset vendor to correct the "drift" issue, they would benefit from our results and, in turn, we would benefit from improved performance.

 

Also, I forgot to mention in my emails that, if you reverted to chipset 2.50 and don't like the way it performs, simply do the WebUpdater routine to reinstall 2.60.

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As I have noted in the email that I sent to everyone to whom I sent the 2.50 chipset, I think we should share our results so that we have an idea about how the Vista HCx performs with 2.70/2.50 compared with other software configurations. I think it would also be a good idea to share our results - politely and constructively - with Garmin. If, as suggested by the discussion of a similar issue with the Colorado, Garmin is working with the chipset vendor to correct the "drift" issue, they would benefit from our results and, in turn, we would benefit from improved performance.

 

Also, I forgot to mention in my emails that, if you reverted to chipset 2.50 and don't like the way it performs, simply do the WebUpdater routine to reinstall 2.60.

 

It's not that I don't appreciate all of the correspondence that I have received, but one of the persons to whom I sent 2.50 put it up as a link on the German equivalent to this board:

 

http://www.naviboard.de/vb/showpost.php?p=...mp;postcount=70

 

You don't need to be able to read the German in order to distinguish the hotlink for the zip file from the text. :laughing:

Edited by jmundinger
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You will have to un-package it and then drag one of the files over the other to initiate webupdater and install the chipset.

 

Could you explain that procedure a little better, please?

 

Edit: The German forum zip file did not include the "updater.exe", only the "006B073900.rgn" file.

I was able to find what I need here

Edited by cliff_hanger
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Could you explain that procedure a little better, please?

 

I'll try. The file is compressed. It has to be uncompressed ("unzipped") before you can use it - use a program like Winzip or something similar. If you don't have a program that will do that already installed, you should be able to locate a free or trial version someplace on the internet.

 

When you decompress the *.zip file, you will have get two files. Put both of them on your desktop or store them in a separate folder - which is what I did. My folder looks like this:

 

chipset.jpg

 

Open that folder and simple click on the *.rgn file and drag it onto the updater file. When you do that, it will initiate updater. If you have your gps connected to the computer and turned on, it will begin to install the chipset software, following the same prompts that you would get if you were using WebUpdater.

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Edit: The German forum zip file did not include the "updater.exe", only the "006B073900.rgn" file.

 

If you have WebUpdater installed, put a short cut to it in the same folder as the *.rgn file and follow the same procedure.

 

I see the unit software at that link. I don't see the chipset software there.

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The updater.exe is easy to get (either from garmin or from perrys site, also everyone that already updated should already have it, therefore I didn't upload it - there's not that much place in the profile to upload things (300kb limit for .zip files) and I didn't want to cause too much traffic.

 

I'm wondering anyhow that it's possible for people not inscribed to the naviboard.de to download it, but hey that's even for the better.

 

BTW: I don't see it as anything questionable to offer software that garmin once had up for download without the user being asked any liscense question unchanged. Just in case anyone might find offering this software would not be fair - everything else would be unfair to our consumer right of being able to use the best chipset software available for our hardware.

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Edit: The German forum zip file did not include the "updater.exe", only the "006B073900.rgn" file.

 

If you have WebUpdater installed, put a short cut to it in the same folder as the *.rgn file and follow the same procedure.

 

I see the unit software at that link. I don't see the chipset software there.

 

Got it. Thanks. I meant I was able to get updater.exe there. Didn't realize that webupdater would do the same thing.

Edited by cliff_hanger
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Today did quite a number of caches...at the first two caches somehow seemed that gps didnt have a good accuracy. But at the rest (12 of them) afterwards Vista worked perfect and flawlessly and showed more or less the same spots then one 60Csx and a PDA -GPS. So for me seems I have found a perfect combination as this 2.70/2.50 combi didnt have the drift of the 2.70/2.60 combi and also didnt have a certain sluggishness with slow speeds the 2.70/2.30 did show.

RaF

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Hello this is my report after using the 2.70/2.50 combination after Hard Reset.

 

1. Accuracy - The unit accuracy ranged from 2m in the open sky (2000m Height) to 7m under very heavy tree coverage.

 

2. Drift issue - I didn't experienced any drift at all (may be it was my lucky day).The recorded tracks uphill and downhill were identical and very accurate as compared with the map and an old 60csx log of the same route.

 

3. Trip odometer - The odometer showed a total of 19.41 km while the recorded tracks showed a total of 21.7 km

 

So it seems that this combo is the best regarding accuracy and the lack of the drift issue but let's not jump into fast conclusions the unit needs to be tested more days.

When i 'll have news i 'll post again.

Edited by EFIALTIS
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I've done 2 outings in the past week with 2.70 / 2.60 after hard reset. and didn't get the drift. So I'm going to play with mine some more before going down to 2.5. I want to see drift with the current setup. I defenatly saw it before the reset. I think I had 2.6 / 2.6 then.

Edited by Smac999
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Hi!

 

I came to this topic following a link in the "German forum".

 

My HCx had 2.60/2.60 when I bought it about 6 months ago. Since then I've twice been hiking in a canyon and I've twice had the offset-problem: drifting away from the path in the topo map up to 50 meters constant offset until re-powering the unit. In addition the unit froze three times logging a track in the map view. I had to press and hold the power button, the display faded and then the unit worked again. So I was happy to read the changes made in SW 2.70.

 

Now as I decided to update from 2.60 to 2.70 Garmin released SW 2.80 yesterday. So I downloaded eTrexVistaHCx_280.exe from perry and also downloaded the zip-file with the 2.50 GPS SW from the German forum. First I updated to SW 2.80 (GPS SW still was 2.60 after that), then I copied the 2.50 rgn-file in the folder where the updater.exe was located an dragged&dropped the rgn on the updater.exe.

 

I'm looking forward to making experiences with 2.80/2.50!

 

By the way: do I have to make a hard reset?

 

Greetings

Manfred

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Quote from Garmin homepage

 

Change History

 

Changes made from version 2.70 to 2.80:

 

* Fix 'Highway Page' shutdown issue with menu key operation.

* Correct power-on failure issue.

 

So the 2.80 doesn't fix the drift issue but maybe the GPS sw 2.80 does...

I am going to download and then test the 2.80/2.80 combo and let's keep our fingers crossed...

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Re Vista HCx.

 

I was previously running GPS chipset s/w 2.60 and had good results and would like to try returning to that rev if possible. I'm noticing that rev 2.80 produces very noisy satellite signal strength. (signal strength bars are all over the place) I didn’t see this at all with rev 2.60. Also 2.80 drops satellites much easier. I don’t know why but its noisier and less sensitive then with the previous rev under the same conditions.

 

Does anyone have GPS chipset (region file) firmware rev 2.60 that I can download (or could be sent to me).

 

Thanks

Dan

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I lost my confidence in this model from Garmin and since a month ago I installed 2.70 + 2.30, without any problems about drifts or similar.

 

But as I heard good comments about 2.70 + 2.50, I decided to try it. It managed to happen an unexpected problem: I don't know if someone of you have suffered it. When driving, the triangle on the map screen must be in the same direction you're driving. Well, I noticed that sometimes I was driving to the North, for instance, the track was as well to the North, but the triangle pointed, let's say, to the Northeast, and this is really annoying, because you lost the sense of the direction you're following.

 

So, I decided go back to 2.70 + 2.30 with one hard reset previous to this change and another hard reset after installing again 2.30.

 

Of course, I won't try 2.80 + 2.80 unless the comments that people who have installed it, make me think about it.

 

Best regards from Spain.

 

Raúl

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Does eTrex Legend HCx suffer from the same drift issues as Vista? To my understanding they are pretty much the same thing except for compass. I'm not 100% satisfied how my Legend performs in the city. Usually after being deviated from the accurate position and coming back to good conditions, the position is not totally corrected unless I restart the unit. It's a PITA when trying to get accurate traces for openstreetmap.

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Hi,

 

first of all: thank you for your work on making this device working. Here is my experience from last weekend in quite challenging conditions (a rather closed valley in Dolomites). I used firmware 2.7/2.5 (downgraded GPS firmware using the link posted in this thread)

 

If you look at the image you can see that on the going trip the result is quite well (perhaps since we moved slowly). Don't consider the first data point since I just turned the device on before starting the hike. On the return path I had 2 problems with losing position: at the first one the device recovered. On the second one *no*: If you see the track is moved north right before coming back on the starting point. Even if the reception was good there (many tracked satellites and a good 3D fix from the unit). The offset is big: 100m north. So I dare to say that with this combination of fw the drift problem is *not* fixed.

 

hcxiw3.jpg

 

Another thing that I noticed is that when I have enabled the automatic calibration of altimeter and I experience a drift the things then start going really bad with absurd reading on the height chart too with not much chance of recover. If I keep the 2 thing separate (barometer and GPS) it's quite a bit better. Do you see the same thing? Have any idea why?

 

Bye,

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Another thing that I noticed is that when I have enabled the automatic calibration of altimeter and I experience a drift the things then start going really bad with absurd reading on the height chart too with not much chance of recover. If I keep the 2 thing separate (barometer and GPS) it's quite a bit better. Do you see the same thing? Have any idea why?

Yes, I have already reported here that when a "horizontal" drift happens, a vertical one (altitude) is there also. Edited by TransFXB
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Hi Everyone

 

I recently bought a Garmin Vista Hcx a couple of weeks ago and after connecting to my PC I ran the updater and updated all the software. My unit is now showing as having Software Version 3.20 and GPS SW Version 2.90.

 

Since doing the update I have noticed strange things like the compass seems to indicate the wrong direction and when moving the triangle marker on the map seems to be travelling sideways in the right direction but pointing the wrong way.

 

I think I'd like to try some earlier software if someone would be kind enough to point me in the right direction.

 

Regards

John

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Hi Everyone

 

I recently bought a Garmin Vista Hcx a couple of weeks ago and after connecting to my PC I ran the updater and updated all the software. My unit is now showing as having Software Version 3.20 and GPS SW Version 2.90.

 

Since doing the update I have noticed strange things like the compass seems to indicate the wrong direction and when moving the triangle marker on the map seems to be travelling sideways in the right direction but pointing the wrong way.

 

I think I'd like to try some earlier software if someone would be kind enough to point me in the right direction.

 

Regards

John

Likely a simple matter of calibration of the compass (see the Setup menu).

 

All of the eTrex units with a mag compass require calibration when the battery voltage changes much. Install a really fresh set of batteries and perform the calibration. Once you get down past the first battery "gas gauge" bar, you may find that the compass starts to point inaccurately. You can either recalibrate again at that point or install another fresh set of batteries.

 

I have found that by using the Powergenix NiZn rechargeable cells, I can avoid this entirely. Their discharge curve (voltage change over time with use) is very flat, and doesn't cause the compass to wander. They work a lot better on both my eTrex and my Dakota in this regard than any of my NiMH cells.

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