Delorme PN-40

[+Team CowboyPapa]

Uhm.. I was actually hoping the attempts at playful banter in the last few posts might finally lay this thread to rest. I blame it on the dead parrot.

Roger that! I'm over this one, too.

 

Maybe we can tag on that new one where Jason gives a YouTube how-to with his PN-40?

[+Team DeLorme]

Wow... six pages of posts has to be a record for us on the Groundspeak forums. We were at DeLorme until 10 tonight working on the gold candidate for Topo USA 8.0. You can imagine that we've been paying close attention to these forums and are working hard to turn around some opinions on the ease of use of our Serious Tool software! We'll be releasing our gold candidate for the PN-20 and PN-40 firmware with the Topo USA 8.0 package. Cache Register is being beta tested as we speak and will be available as soon as Groundspeak completes their update and we incorporate that functionality.

 

Here's my short list from tonight's testing...

-PN firmware will add Difficulty/Terrain and Size to Geocache Details page before viewing comments. A PN View Hint... menu option will also make it easier to pull up that specific information.

-Topo USA 8.0 will have an option to "Include PN maps" when downloading imagery and will prepare the maps to send to the GPS. Only use the Handheld Export tab if you want to make a custom map with your own trails, roads, or points of interest.

-Topo USA 8.0 also has much improved waypoint and track management. We heard from lots of you that wanted to select groups of waypoints... not just one and not every single one... and send them to the GPS.

-Topo USA 8.0 now has support for all the Geocaching.com cache symbols as well as the 15,000 character limit that our Send to GPS plug-in and Cache Register widget have.

-For the serious tools out there you can bring Topo USA with you on your netbook or laptop and get a heads-up, 3D display powered by your PN device.

-The Cache Register is working for both Mac and PC, sending imported pocket queries to the device. One of our hardcore geocaching beta testers posted how he is using GSAK to manage his pocket queries and output a special set of caches which he sends to the PN through Cache Register. We're implementing the latest from Groundspeak to let users sync their pocket queries directly from GC.com.

 

I'll put together a blog post with screenshots to help people see that we're working hard to address the concerns about the usability of our Topo USA program. It's a very powerful program but we want to make sure the GPS features and MapLibrary options are easier to work with in this new version.

 

I think all of the people that have already contributed to this thread have spoken to the PN-40 questions quite nicely. We did address a low power issue with the 2.5 firmware that was causing the device to lock if batteries were drawn too low. We've worked hard to help with any other issues related to power or WAAS or transfer rates and believe the 2.5 firmware update will go a long way toward resolving many of the heated topics that appeared in this thread.

 

I know I referenced GSAK above... Rockin Roddy was right; we are planning to help 3rd party apps with communication to and from the device. I've learned my lesson about timelines but it is definitely something we know people are after. We appreciate all the patience people are showing as we work to roll out new geocaching features.

 

I'm very glad to see that everyone acknowledged the points being made on both sides of this thread. Here at DeLorme we know what we have done well and we know what we still need to work on. I've been following this thread and sharing it with others at the office for a while now and am glad that it has reached a level where I'm more comfortable contributing. So long as everyone is treating each other with respect I'll pitch in where I can...

 

If anyone is looking to talk in more detail they are welcome to e-mail or even better pay Team DeLorme a visit at our CITO event here at DeLorme headquarters on May 2nd or stop by our booth at GeoWoodstock. I'll give you a personal tour of the PN-40 geocaching firmware and the Cache Register widget. There are rumors of a new geocoin as well...

 

Take care,

Chip Noble

Team DeLorme

www.delorme.com\geocaching

[+Rockin Roddy]

Wow... six pages of posts has to be a record for us on the Groundspeak forums. We were at DeLorme until 10 tonight working on the gold candidate for Topo USA 8.0. You can imagine that we've been paying close attention to these forums and are working hard to turn around some opinions on the ease of use of our Serious Tool software! We'll be releasing our gold candidate for the PN-20 and PN-40 firmware with the Topo USA 8.0 package. Cache Register is being beta tested as we speak and will be available as soon as Groundspeak completes their update and we incorporate that functionality.

 

Here's my short list from tonight's testing...

-PN firmware will add Difficulty/Terrain and Size to Geocache Details page before viewing comments. A PN View Hint... menu option will also make it easier to pull up that specific information.

-Topo USA 8.0 will have an option to "Include PN maps" when downloading imagery and will prepare the maps to send to the GPS. Only use the Handheld Export tab if you want to make a custom map with your own trails, roads, or points of interest.

-Topo USA 8.0 also has much improved waypoint and track management. We heard from lots of you that wanted to select groups of waypoints... not just one and not every single one... and send them to the GPS.

-Topo USA 8.0 now has support for all the Geocaching.com cache symbols as well as the 15,000 character limit that our Send to GPS plug-in and Cache Register widget have.

-For the serious tools out there you can bring Topo USA with you on your netbook or laptop and get a heads-up, 3D display powered by your PN device.

-The Cache Register is working for both Mac and PC, sending imported pocket queries to the device. One of our hardcore geocaching beta testers posted how he is using GSAK to manage his pocket queries and output a special set of caches which he sends to the PN through Cache Register. We're implementing the latest from Groundspeak to let users sync their pocket queries directly from GC.com.

 

I'll put together a blog post with screenshots to help people see that we're working hard to address the concerns about the usability of our Topo USA program. It's a very powerful program but we want to make sure the GPS features and MapLibrary options are easier to work with in this new version.

 

I think all of the people that have already contributed to this thread have spoken to the PN-40 questions quite nicely. We did address a low power issue with the 2.5 firmware that was causing the device to lock if batteries were drawn too low. We've worked hard to help with any other issues related to power or WAAS or transfer rates and believe the 2.5 firmware update will go a long way toward resolving many of the heated topics that appeared in this thread.

 

I know I referenced GSAK above... Rockin Roddy was right; we are planning to help 3rd party apps with communication to and from the device. I've learned my lesson about timelines but it is definitely something we know people are after. We appreciate all the patience people are showing as we work to roll out new geocaching features.

 

I'm very glad to see that everyone acknowledged the points being made on both sides of this thread. Here at DeLorme we know what we have done well and we know what we still need to work on. I've been following this thread and sharing it with others at the office for a while now and am glad that it has reached a level where I'm more comfortable contributing. So long as everyone is treating each other with respect I'll pitch in where I can...

 

If anyone is looking to talk in more detail they are welcome to e-mail or even better pay Team DeLorme a visit at our CITO event here at DeLorme headquarters on May 2nd or stop by our booth at GeoWoodstock. I'll give you a personal tour of the PN-40 geocaching firmware and the Cache Register widget. There are rumors of a new geocoin as well...

 

Take care,

Chip Noble

Team DeLorme

www.delorme.com\geocaching

 

THANKS for the update Chip, sounds good!! I hope to make the GW and will definitely stop out if I can! Our weekend cache /camp is the weekend before GW, so I'll be busy though!!!

[+Ramblin Ramsey's]

All of these new features are great, love most of them. However ever since day one a lot of us were looking for a file management feature so that Waypoints, Geocaches, Routes, and Tracks could be stored on the SD card. Will we ever see it?

[+user13371]

...We are planning to help 3rd party apps with communication to and from the device. I've learned my lesson about timelines ...

... but without a timeline, I'm not sure how to read this.

 

How about a hint, even a rough projection? "We expect to have this in early 2010" would mean a lot more than "we are planning to..."

Edited April 23, 2009 by lee_rimar

[+Team DeLorme]

Ramblin Ramsey's, this is high on my list too. It's important for all of our customers, not just geocachers. We've been working on the GC.com Initiative since we released in October but now that 1.6 and 2.5 are wrapping up we're looking at the road map again. Until the planning is finished I can't answer your question but I can say that we're looking closely at it.

 

Lee Rimar, you recall the forum threads surrounding my initial timeline for the Geocaching.com Initiative, yes? There are plenty of people that get upset by schedules given with the best information at the time... those schedules always change as unknowns are researched during the development process. People are making purchase decisions based on forum information so I'm trying harder to hold off until we've worked our way through the process. Topo USA will go gold in a week or so, the firmware is finished, Cache Register is in beta, those are the products and features I'll talk about in public. I have had several discussions with the development team about 3rd party support and will share more when our plan is ready. As I said about GPS data on the SD card, we have received the message loud and clear; geocachers are looking for GSAK support.

 

So I hope this helps, even though I avoided specifics... let me know if you have questions about what we are doing right now, much easier to talk about in a public forum...

 

Chip Noble

Team DeLorme

[stevensj2]

Thanks for the updates, Chip!

 

I just received my pn-40 yesterday, and installed the 2.5b firmware. Haven't had much chance to use it yet, but I've got my maps loaded and I'm looking forward to trying out the geocache features tomorrow evening

[+Ramblin Ramsey's]

Ramblin Ramsey's, this is high on my list too. It's important for all of our customers, not just geocachers. We've been working on the GC.com Initiative since we released in October but now that 1.6 and 2.5 are wrapping up we're looking at the road map again. Until the planning is finished I can't answer your question but I can say that we're looking closely at it.

 

I am glad to hear that it is still in the works....

[+Rockin Roddy]

Thanks for the updates, Chip!

 

I just received my pn-40 yesterday, and installed the 2.5b firmware. Haven't had much chance to use it yet, but I've got my maps loaded and I'm looking forward to trying out the geocache features tomorrow evening

 

If you're free any day (or all weekend) of the weekend of May 15th-17th, come on out to Lazy Hayes Days III and you can truly put that tool through some testing!!! I'll be a busy man, but not too busy to maybe find a cache or two (or even a night cache on Saturday night), and would be happy to meet you!!

[+user13371]

... I hope this helps, even though I avoided specifics... let me know if you have questions about what we are doing right now, much easier to talk about in a public forum...

Chip:

 

Thank you for this. I completely understand why you can't discuss unreleased features and products still in development. You don't want to make promises (or even give the appearance of promises) and then disappoint people.

 

So let me raise a question about the "now."

 

Implied in many of these discussions is the idea that DeLorme would have to develop and test new features to enable communication to and from the GPS for 3rd party support.

 

It seems to me that's a mistake. There is already live communication on the data port, there are already files on the user data partition of the device -- Topo 7, SendToGPS plug-in, and Cache Register all use them.

 

Why not publish accurate and usable information on the communication protocol and file formats? Even if you put a big disclaimer on the top that says "Use this information at your own risk" you would be enabling 3rd party support -- without changing a line of code or developing any new technologies.

 

I have to believe such documentation already exists; your folks in house would need it. It just needs to be published.

 

-Lee

Edited April 23, 2009 by lee_rimar

[+OpenTrackRacer]

Thanks for the update Chip! I'm looking forward to the new software.

 

Any chance of Topo/Netlink being able to take a large selection and break it up automatically into proper sized chunks for download like we talked about a few months ago? A fire and forget option for downloading maps (throttled or queued of course to prevent abuse) is about at the top of my list, right next to a one button method to rotate through imagery types on the PN-40 itself.

[stevensj2]

Thanks for the updates, Chip!

 

I just received my pn-40 yesterday, and installed the 2.5b firmware. Haven't had much chance to use it yet, but I've got my maps loaded and I'm looking forward to trying out the geocache features tomorrow evening

 

If you're free any day (or all weekend) of the weekend of May 15th-17th, come on out to Lazy Hayes Days III and you can truly put that tool through some testing!!! I'll be a busy man, but not too busy to maybe find a cache or two (or even a night cache on Saturday night), and would be happy to meet you!!

That sounds fun, I'll have to remember those days. I can't wait for the summer to begin.

[logansackett]

Chip,

 

I just received the PN-20 with Topo 7. Someone said there would be a coupon to upgrade to Topo 8 for free but I didn't receive it. Will users be able to upgrade to 8 for free and if so where will it be available? Thanks.

[+Pax42]

Chip,

 

I just received the PN-20 with Topo 7. Someone said there would be a coupon to upgrade to Topo 8 for free but I didn't receive it. Will users be able to upgrade to 8 for free and if so where will it be available? Thanks.

I know I'm not Chip but I think you can find the answer to your question here (2nd page of thread): Upgrade

 

And be aware, it's not exactly free. You still have to pay shipping ($9.95). Still a heck of a lot better than full price .

[+Team DeLorme]

Lee Rimar: We released documentation for the DeLBin Exchange protocol used by Topo but it was considered too difficult to implement. Our engineers have been working on an updated protocol for the Send to GPS and Cache Register projects but haven't had any free time to document since we're still in development with those projects. It's a good request, just a matter of scheduling...

 

OpenTrackRacer: Both suggestions are on our feature request list from your last contact. We focused our effort on pre-cutting the maps for the PN from Topo USA's NetLink tab but do appreciate the suggestion to allow someone to pick a larger coverage area and have NetLink "do the right thing."

 

Logansackett: Specific link to answers here: http://forum.delorme.com/viewtopic.php?t=1...sc&start=16. Thanks for pointing us in the right direction Pax42!

 

Thanks,

Chip Noble

Team DeLorme

[+Searching_ut]

Indeed, impressive customer service. I've really got to give you guys credit for that. I look forward to seeing TOPO 8

[stevensj2]

I was going to write up a detailed comparison between the pn-40 and Colorado, but no one should really care _that_ much about what I think Plus, with a lot of work this weekend, I didn't have the time to take comparative photos and all (I was also going to through in some comparisons with a eTrex Vista, since I have one sitting around lately).

 

To make a long story short, I had both of them and needed to return one of them. So I spent some time using both at the same time, looking at their functions, ease of use, and lastly, their waypoints and track logs.

 

I exported each of the GPX files for the track logs and overlaid it on a USGS topo in ArcMap. On one end, I was impressed; with another, I was disappointed.

 

Long story short: I returned one of my units today. With the other, I found my first three caches (not logged yet...waiting to upgrade to prem. for easier tracking).

 

I'm not going to say which one I preferred and kept, but I will say that if I ever drop it in the woods, it won't be that hard to find. From what I hear, its also pretty good at toting around a single Tic-Tac

 

(Just kidding, of course. The pn-40 rocks, and I'm extremely happy with it. Topo 7 and I still have our bouts, but I usually get it to submit. Sure does go down swinging, though.)

 

Once I get my website finished, I'll likely post a review from the newbs perspective (maybe).

Edited April 26, 2009 by stevensj2

[+TotemLake]

I was going to write up a detailed comparison between the pn-40 and Colorado, but no one should really care _that_ much about what I think Plus, with a lot of work this weekend, I didn't have the time to take comparative photos and all (I was also going to through in some comparisons with a eTrex Vista, since I have one sitting around lately).

 

To make a long story short, I had both of them and needed to return one of them. So I spent some time using both at the same time, looking at their functions, ease of use, and lastly, their waypoints and track logs.

 

I exported each of the GPX files for the track logs and overlaid it on a USGS topo in ArcMap. On one end, I was impressed; with another, I was disappointed.

 

Long story short: I returned one of my units today. With the other, I found my first three caches (not logged yet...waiting to upgrade to prem. for easier tracking).

 

I'm not going to say which one I preferred and kept, but I will say that if I ever drop it in the woods, it won't be that hard to find. From what I hear, its also pretty good at toting around a single Tic-Tac

 

(Just kidding, of course. The pn-40 rocks, and I'm extremely happy with it. Topo 7 and I still have our bouts, but I usually get it to submit. Sure does go down swinging, though.)

 

Once I get my website finished, I'll likely post a review from the newbs perspective (maybe).

I'd be interested to read your impressions. Let us know when you have the website up.

[+Rockin Roddy]

My PN-40 received a workout yesterday, waterproof, CHECK! Does it float with the power kit battery in, nope. Not that I could see anyways! Did it last 7 hours on the power kit battery, CHECK!

 

Anyone interested in the story can read it here: My kayak adventure.