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making a etrex legend useful


johncm

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I just picked up an etrex legend from a friend for a song and while I know it isn't a top of the line gps these days I figured it would be worth playing with to get a feeling for geocaching and just gps use in general.

 

What do I need to do for this thing other than update the firmware? Something like easy GPS will let me manage a set of POI's I select. How about map updates or loading in local maps or something like that?

 

Any quick primers or advice you have would be appreciated :laughing:

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you can update the firmware if you like, If you plan on taking geocaching seriously and upgrading to a newer gps, I wouldn't invest too much $$ in it as far as maps etc, Just put some coordinates in it and go hunting. I am not sure what kind of a receiver it has in it, so you might want to stray away from caches that are deep in the woods that has alot of tree cover.

 

You have a dang good starter unit there. Have fun and hope the "bug" bites!

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I still have, and use a lot, an "Old Blue" Legend. I also have a 60Cx.

 

The Legend uses an original receiver that is not particularly sensitive, so it is not too good under dense tree cover. The 60Cx works fine under dense tree cover. The Legend does, however, work just fine sitting on the car dash during road trips. Also, the Legend is as good as anything newer when out boating or canoeing or kayaking on the water, since on-water gets clear views of the sky with nothing but air between the receiver and the satellites.

 

Yes, the Legend has only 8 mb internal memory, so you can't load too much in the way of mapping to it. However, its basemap is not bad, and its mapping display works fine. No, it's not color, but the zoom levels are good, and the redraw speeds are good.

 

The Legend does a fine job of keeping an active tracklog. I once tracklogged a driving trip from Seattle all the way to Florida with the Legend. The trip page showed 56 hours in motion, 3700 miles, max speed 78, etc. Everything worked just fine.

 

Nowadays I use the Legend routinely as a race training tool for windsurfing. I put it into an Aquapac bag on my upper arm and reset the trip page for each day's session. I then download the active tracklog to a gpx file for archiving my sessions. Works fine.

 

It is usually important to have the serial cable for Legend so that you can update firmware and download tracklogs. Yes, the cable is old serial, but the usb-to-serial adapters out there, when set up with their drivers, work fine.

 

Long live Old Blue !!

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