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Garmin Oregon 2.98 Available


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Went out doing some caching with 2.98b under heavy tree cover today. I too can confirm that the algorithm to estimate the accuracy seems to have been changed. While the displayed accuracy was somewhere between 4 and 22 meters the Oregon would actually end up pretty close to ground zero.

 

Personally I only care about how accurate my Oregon actually is and not that much about how it calculates its accuracy estimate. However, I think it would help a great deal to know how the accuracy is estimated as this would give me a much better idea about how to interpret that accuracy.

 

One more thing I noticed with 2.98b today. While walking towards a cache the compass as well as that blue arrow on the map page would sometimes point into a totally different direction even so the map page tracked my movements just fine. If I was e.g. walking north the map would actually show me walking north on the map, while the pointer was pointing west. Just as if I was walking sideways (which I was not).

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One more thing I noticed with 2.98b today. While walking towards a cache the compass as well as that blue arrow on the map page would sometimes point into a totally different direction even so the map page tracked my movements just fine. If I was e.g. walking north the map would actually show me walking north on the map, while the pointer was pointing west. Just as if I was walking sideways (which I was not).

 

There is one forest preserve in northern Illinois that would do this all the time on my Colorado 300. The compass needle (and blue triangle on the map) would point to the west even though I was walking due north. It was rather odd seeing the track log emitting out the "side" of the triangle on the map and not the "back". The first time it happened, I thought it was just a Colorado compass issue as it corrected itself once I was back out on the road and moving again. When I returned to that forest preserve a second time and the GPSr had the same behavior, I then realized it was probably something local to that area which was causing the "magnetic anomaly" that was impacting my compass...

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2.98 has a hard time locking in on my location when I am walking around the GZ. Seems like it just stalls out for a while, and I don't get any updates. If I wait long enough it will eventually catch up to my location, but it can take a minute or two. I was happier with a lower version. Going to switch back to 2.97 and try that again.

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I tried to upload waypoints and tracks today. It would not upload. It kept giving me a fatal error message. I am tired of messing around with betas. I went back to 2.93. It works better than 2.98 IMHO if it doesn't I will go back to 2.86.

I sent the error info to Garmin.

Edited by redhawk44p
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I put this beta to some good tests with previously found caches and finally switched back to 2.97 beta. Found that I may not have found them with version 2.98 because the updating of the position was so slow that I may have become confused with where to look, with one I was within 5 feet of its location and the "dist to dest" was 234 feet. Tried several other on Saturday and found similar readings ranging from 21-200 feet off. The compass was directing me away from the cache, on a couple of times, it would update after quite a while and then I felt I would not have been able to trust the readings.

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Well, I found about 165 this weekend at GeoWoodstock and the unt performed pretty well with 2.98b installed. However, the unit turned off several times for no apparent reason again, just as it did with 2.97b installed. It only got me to ground zero a couple of times, but each time, it got me pretty close, even under tree cover, which was a nice surprise!

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Also, I know this isn't the place for this question, however, does anyone know what the feature is called that, when routing to a cache and getting close, the unit will beep and say "Arriving at location" for a few seconds is called? I want to DISABLE IT!!!

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Also, I know this isn't the place for this question, however, does anyone know what the feature is called that, when routing to a cache and getting close, the unit will beep and say "Arriving at location" for a few seconds is called? I want to DISABLE IT!!!

 

Yeah, I'm not a big fan of that either. You should be able to set that depending on which profile you're using.

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Unfortunately there's no way to turn off the arrival alerts.

 

I have a friend that has the Oregon 200 and his NEVER displays arrival alerts. I was envious.

He and I went on a cache run 2 weekends ago and found 292 caches. Mine popped up the arrival alerts EVERYTIME, when I got within like 350 feet and again when I got within 100 feet (approximate). His NEVER popped up!

 

Maybe the Oregon 200 doesn't have that "feature" (annoyance, actually). I have the Oregon 400t.

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I have a 400t with 2.80 software and 2.58 GPS software.

 

Are there updates to both or just the unit's software?

 

The Garmin webupdater says I'm current, although I'm sure they don't include the BETA. I've seen mention of 2.97 but don't see it anywhere on the Garmin site.

 

Any suggestions?

 

Thanks.

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Hi all, went out bush on Sunday with 2.98b installed.

Travelled about 140 klm in the car then about a 2 klm walk through light cover scrub.

Somewhere along the line... the garmin reverted the profile I was in back to the standard default profile while still retaining my custom profile name.

 

It had changed the background display to the pebbles and had reset map detail from most to normal,[i think it's called] and had changed from meters to feet, changed the menu display order and lost the found cach count.

 

It didn't shutdown and had good lock on birds and good accucary.

Very strange, anyone else had this happen?

I'll email garmin about it and the debug file.

 

thanks Roger

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Went caching yesterday and found 39 caches with 2.98b. Accuracy was off about 40 feet on most caches and they were placed by various users so it rules out 1 user's GPS being the culprit.

 

Unit turned off again for no apparent reason also.

 

Hmmm...

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I spent 3 days caching last week in Virginia Beach, using my Oregon 400t with Ver 2.98b installed. I was successful in finding 37 caches, had no incidents of the unit turning itself off, but I did notice rather "flaky" reception and a wandering compass needle under heavy leaf canopy. Under wide open skies I enjoyed 8 to 10 feet EPE. Because of past "problems" with previous software versions I carry a 60CSx as "backup"...under the same heavy leaf canopy it performed flawlessly beside the 400t - 10 feet EPE, solid reception, and a steady compass needle. I fear there is still some work to be done on the 400t..........sigh.

 

Bill

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I have a 400t with 2.80 software and 2.58 GPS software.

 

Are there updates to both or just the unit's software?

 

The Garmin webupdater says I'm current, although I'm sure they don't include the BETA. I've seen mention of 2.97 but don't see it anywhere on the Garmin site.

 

Any suggestions?

 

Thanks.

 

http://garminoregon.wikispaces.com/Versions list all of the betas and has links to the images.

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Was out caching at GWVII saturday. We had 3 Oregons on site. One Oregon with 2.96 had caches that 2 of us didn't have. 2.96 was able to send to my 2.97 but neither of us could send to the Oregon with 2.98. Just kept searching.

 

I just transferred (in both directions) between my CO and OR running 2.98. The first transfer took a little longer than I remembered (15-20 to connect) but it did finally go through.

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Was out caching at GWVII saturday. We had 3 Oregons on site. One Oregon with 2.96 had caches that 2 of us didn't have. 2.96 was able to send to my 2.97 but neither of us could send to the Oregon with 2.98. Just kept searching.

 

I hope you report this to the beta team.!!

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Went caching yesterday and found 39 caches with 2.98b. Accuracy was off about 40 feet on most caches and they were placed by various users so it rules out 1 user's GPS being the culprit.

 

I've been running v2.98 (beta) for just over a week. With WAAS enabled, I am getting rock solid connections (although WAAS locks are slow and easily lost again). I did not see the massive drifting I had with WAAS up through v2.95 or 2.96. My finds were almost all within +/- 10 feet of zero on the Oregon. There were a few that were further off, but the OR was matching to my wife's 60Cx very closely all weekend too.

 

We didn't find a heavy number of caches, probably around 50 in the whole week. The only "issue" I had was that when I was driving down the road one day, I turned the GPSr off to swap batteries, and when I turned it back on, it locked loading the saved tracks, waypoints, routes, ... I pulled the SD card and booted without it, and all was fine, so I replaced it and all was fine again (until I tried to download the track logs at my PC that night). Other than that, it was behaving great for me...

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Did they take out the customizeable start up screen? I can't seem to figure out how to get that working.

 

It's still there. Garmin :drive > Garmin > startup.txt

 

I had the personalized Start Up screen working fine with Ver 2.97b, but I cannot get it to work/show with Ver 2.98b...........sigh.

 

Bill

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Was out caching at GWVII saturday. We had 3 Oregons on site. One Oregon with 2.96 had caches that 2 of us didn't have. 2.96 was able to send to my 2.97 but neither of us could send to the Oregon with 2.98. Just kept searching.

 

I just transferred (in both directions) between my CO and OR running 2.98. The first transfer took a little longer than I remembered (15-20 to connect) but it did finally go through.

 

Ditto. I was sending / receiving both fine with 2.98 last weekend.

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I've been running v2.98 (beta) for just over a week. With WAAS enabled, I am getting rock solid connections (although WAAS locks are slow and easily lost again). I did not see the massive drifting I had with WAAS up through v2.95 or 2.96. My finds were almost all within +/- 10 feet of zero on the Oregon. There were a few that were further off, but the OR was matching to my wife's 60Cx very closely all weekend too.

 

We didn't find a heavy number of caches, probably around 50 in the whole week. The only "issue" I had was that when I was driving down the road one day, I turned the GPSr off to swap batteries, and when I turned it back on, it locked loading the saved tracks, waypoints, routes, ... I pulled the SD card and booted without it, and all was fine, so I replaced it and all was fine again (until I tried to download the track logs at my PC that night). Other than that, it was behaving great for me...

 

Much the same. Did some heavy caching and routing this last weekend in TN with 2.98, spot on each time and no routing issues. Had WAAS fixed most of the time.

 

TBH, my only bugbear now with this unit is the time it takes to realise you are off -route when routing by roads. Much further than the etrexes / GPSMAP units.. needs a lower threshold or adjustable threshold like the PN-40. If you are driving down a parallel sidestreet, <~0.2mi away, it will never realise.

Edited by Maingray
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Did they take out the customizeable start up screen? I can't seem to figure out how to get that working.

 

It's still there. Garmin :drive > Garmin > startup.txt

 

Thanks. I was looking for a setting on the unit like the 60csx has. I never would have thought of that.

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Was out caching at GWVII saturday. We had 3 Oregons on site. One Oregon with 2.96 had caches that 2 of us didn't have. 2.96 was able to send to my 2.97 but neither of us could send to the Oregon with 2.98. Just kept searching.

 

I just transferred (in both directions) between my CO and OR running 2.98. The first transfer took a little longer than I remembered (15-20 to connect) but it did finally go through.

 

Ditto. I was sending / receiving both fine with 2.98 last weekend.

 

While at GeoWoodstock, I received a cache wirelessly from a Colorado 300 without issue, although it took a little longer than it did when I used my Colorado to Colorado wirelessly.

 

Now if they could fix the Wherigo aspect so it would work without freezing up. There was a Wherigo at GWS and several people asked if they could use my Oregon 400t to complete it if I didn't want to do it. I told them, it's NOT that I don't want to do it, it just doesn't work well at all on the Oregon yet.

 

Maybe soon...

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I projected my first waypoint with my 400t today for a cache. I am running 2.98. The cache required me to project a point .27 miles away. The Oregon would not let me do hundredth of a mile. I had to do .3 miles. Luckily the cache was in an obvious spot and I found it easily. Am I doing something wrong or is this just the way it is.

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I projected my first waypoint with my 400t today for a cache. I am running 2.98. The cache required me to project a point .27 miles away. The Oregon would not let me do hundredth of a mile. I had to do .3 miles. Luckily the cache was in an obvious spot and I found it easily. Am I doing something wrong or is this just the way it is.

 

I think that is just the limits of the software. I remember that one of the lower end units was much more restrictive and all projections had to be in one unit (tenths of a mile?) One way you could work around this to multiple the miles by 5280 to get feet so your0.27 miles = (0.27 x 5280) = 1425.6 feet = 475.2 yards. I'm not positive, but you should be able to enter either of those into your projection screen.

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Has anyone had any sucess with the Oregon Whiz program and this beta 2.98? I have had no success at all at loading the custom images. Is there anyone out there that could spell it out for me?

 

My second question is; has anyone tried out a tracklog with this version. Still jittery?

Edited by yogazoo
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Let me say first of all that I am an ordinary user of garmin products and have spent a lot of money on this Oregon. I understand that the beta software releases are just interim until there is a full firmware upgrade, but I am starting to get nervous. I have a niggling feeling that there is a GPS chipset issue that Garmin are struggling with and would like them to come clean and tell us if there is a sensitivity problem.

 

At the moment I cannot rely on my GPS. That is a strong statement to make, but I have just uploaded a track to Google Earth and it is telling me that I went somewhere that I did not go. I had open views of the sky as I walked and it tells me that I went off the track for 75metres for a distance, then returned to the track.

 

Garmin have a reputation for positional accuracy, and as a ruggedised outdoors product there is a safety expectation, and indeed obligation on their part for this kind of money. Just imagine if that was over water and I decided to follow the track again another day - and it just so happened there was rocks on the route displayed. Garmin, if there is a problem, how about considering a product recall...or if not, pull out the stops and fix it.

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Let me say first of all that I am an ordinary user of garmin products and have spent a lot of money on this Oregon. I understand that the beta software releases are just interim until there is a full firmware upgrade, but I am starting to get nervous. I have a niggling feeling that there is a GPS chipset issue that Garmin are struggling with and would like them to come clean and tell us if there is a sensitivity problem.

 

At the moment I cannot rely on my GPS. That is a strong statement to make, but I have just uploaded a track to Google Earth and it is telling me that I went somewhere that I did not go. I had open views of the sky as I walked and it tells me that I went off the track for 75metres for a distance, then returned to the track.

 

Garmin have a reputation for positional accuracy, and as a ruggedised outdoors product there is a safety expectation, and indeed obligation on their part for this kind of money. Just imagine if that was over water and I decided to follow the track again another day - and it just so happened there was rocks on the route displayed. Garmin, if there is a problem, how about considering a product recall...or if not, pull out the stops and fix it.

 

Good post Haitoman.....I believe you hit the nail on the head...... :blink::P

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I'm a gps user from the 'beginning' and I travelled all over the world with a gps, my experience with the gps signal is FROM the beginning I have had big misreadings everywhere, not frequent but I have.

I think the main problem is we don't except mistakes and we think the gps is working everywhere without mistakes and on the inch.

 

Another thing is, the Us can modify the signal to a error and so on. We have good people wanting to go from a to b, we have bad people who want to do bad things using a gps signal, well Now is the time.

 

As a test go to a place with a highrise, so the signal is coming only from one side, your gps will give an error of about 6 > 7 feet, because it's seeing the sat's it THINKS to know where it is, now mark this place as a waypoint and look it up on a map, you will see that the coörd's will be about 200 or more feet opposite the place you where standing and marked.

So bottom line is, accept differences.

Edited by splashy
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I'm a gps user from the 'beginning' and I travelled all over the world with a gps, my experience with the gps signal is FROM the beginning I have had big misreadings everywhere, not frequent but I have.

I think the main problem is we don't except mistakes and we think the gps is working everywhere without mistakes and on the inch.

 

Another thing is, the Us can modify the signal to a error and so on. We have good people wanting to go from a to b, we have bad people who want to do bad things using a gps signal, well Now is the time.

 

As a test go to a place with a highrise, so the signal is coming only from one side, your gps will give an error of about 6 > 7 feet, because it's seeing the sat's it THINKS to know where it is, now mark this place as a waypoint and look it up on a map, you will see that the coörd's will be about 200 or more feet opposite the place you where standing and marked.

So bottom line is, accept differences.

 

In a word...No...I will not accept that. In your example you are hiding yourself from satellites which provide you with additional information from which the unit calculates positional accuracy. I have used a Garmin Nuvi for years both in on and off-road modes and it has never, ever told me I was 200ft offshore when near the coast. I also had an old Garmin GPS II that never, ever had a problem laying down an accurate track out in the water while fishing. I will happily accept 20-30 ft no problem, but not 200-300ft errors.

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You must have had it. Now way you never had misreading and what are we talking about 100 200 feet, if so, so what?? It's bringing you home even with these errors.

 

Anyway

We have good people wanting to go from a to b, we have bad people who want to do bad things using a gps signal, well Now is the time.

 

You have to accept it, because there's nothing we can do about and it's not gps type/make related many people report this problem all over the world.

 

I made a course yesterday, when I projected it in mapsource I saw that for about 1/2 mile it was 20 yards of track in open terrain, I know for sure I didn't walk on water. But also with my old 12XL years back I made tracks that where offtrack, so nothing new there.

Edited by splashy
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My crosspost from Wherigo Topics

 

Wherigo changed behaviour under Oregon 2.98

 

I have been testing my new cartridge on the Garmin Oregon 2.98 Beta version and it has different (worse) behaviour than under 2.97 Beta.

 

In 2.97, when you select an Item in the Inventory, it displays the name, picture and an "actions" button.

 

In 2.98, when you select an Item in the Inventory, it just displays an "actions" button. The name and picture will only appear if you select the actions button and then go back. If you come back down from the inventory again another time, the behaviour remains the same.

 

There was no mention of changes to Wherigo in the beta release notes.

 

I switched back between 2.97 and 2.98 just to make sure I wasn't hallucinating!

 

This even happens on a small vanilla cartridge fully developed in the Builder

 

Is any one else experiencing this issue?

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I have been running 2.93 for quiet awhile now not extreamly please with the accuracy of the unit. I am not to worried personally about the tracks and the unreliability of them. But my question is in all the betas that Garmin has put out which one do most people feel is the best in terms of accuracy. I am not using for street navigation, I use it 99% for geocaching. Any help or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

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Finally got the chance to cache with 2.98 today, and its good to see consistency. Because the last few betas have been keeping me about 30-40 feet away from where the cache is. At one point the GPS accuracy was peaking at 150 ft.. Given this was under thick tree cover, but I never had issues like this with the last official update. I'm really holding my breath for the next true version.

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My crosspost from Wherigo Topics

 

Wherigo changed behaviour under Oregon 2.98

 

I have been testing my new cartridge on the Garmin Oregon 2.98 Beta version and it has different (worse) behaviour than under 2.97 Beta.

 

In 2.97, when you select an Item in the Inventory, it displays the name, picture and an "actions" button.

 

In 2.98, when you select an Item in the Inventory, it just displays an "actions" button. The name and picture will only appear if you select the actions button and then go back. If you come back down from the inventory again another time, the behaviour remains the same.

 

There was no mention of changes to Wherigo in the beta release notes.

 

I switched back between 2.97 and 2.98 just to make sure I wasn't hallucinating!

 

This even happens on a small vanilla cartridge fully developed in the Builder

 

Is any one else experiencing this issue?

 

 

 

This is indeed a problem. I have had people experience it with my cartridges. And it is a significant problem for the Wherigo community. 8 of my 13 published cartridges use this method to give the player the coordinates to the geocache. And since I don't have actions associated with the Item, they have no way of getting the coordinates. I have modified my code to get around the problem.

 

Email sent to Garmin Beta Team.

 

I have also reported the problem on the Wherigo Builder Forum. Here is a link to that thread where this particular issue can be tracked.

 

http://forums.Groundspeak.com/GC/index.php...p;p=entry

Edited by Tequila
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I think they're tanking the Wherigo thing. There hasn't been any support for it from mfr, at least for the Oregon. I'd like to develop cartridges myself but why bother? The compiler is buggy and the Oregon doesn't function with the cartridges correctly. It's too bad because there is potential for great fun.

Edited by mattalbr
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I think they're tanking the Wherigo thing. There hasn't been any support for it from mfr, at least for the Oregon. I'd like to develop cartridges myself but why bother? The compiler is buggy and the Oregon doesn't function with the cartridges correctly. It's too bad because there is potential for great fun.

 

I agree that Wherigo hasn't taken off the way they probably would have liked.

 

However the Builder works fine once you get some experience on using it. And, after a few cartridges, you learn how to get around its limitations by using a text editor.

 

The OR works fine too as long as you know its limitations. It does not work well if there are too many (>7) zones active at the same time. Again, with practice, you can develop cartridges that work fine. I have 13 published.

 

I am surprised at the latest bug because I have seen nothing stating they made any changes to the player.

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For me, it's not the "latest" bug. It has ALWAYS been like this on my Oregon 400t, REGARDLESS of what firmware I have installed on it. It has ALWAYS frozen up when attempting to do a Wherigo. In fact, I've NEVER been able to complete 1 single Wherigo with it. When I had my Colorado, it worked fine.

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For me, it's not the "latest" bug. It has ALWAYS been like this on my Oregon 400t, REGARDLESS of what firmware I have installed on it. It has ALWAYS frozen up when attempting to do a Wherigo. In fact, I've NEVER been able to complete 1 single Wherigo with it. When I had my Colorado, it worked fine.

 

Which Wherigo are you having trouble with? I have 12 Wherigo's published and this is the first problem anyone has experienced.

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I noticed some improvement in the moving/stopped time indicator, however under tree cover it is still very inaccurate and practically useless. Today I went on a short hike with the GPS clipped on top of my backpack. After 40 minutes walking at an average speed of 4 km/h, the GPS showed 20 minutes stopped time. GPS accuracy was good - 4~9 meters. Email sent to Garmin.

 

I also miss the detour function for car navigation from the Colorado. The fastest way to force a recalculation on the OR is via Where to?>Recalculate off road, Where to?>Recalculate on road. If you haven't selected a point on the map you could also do it via Where to?>Find another>Recent finds>(top most destination). Takes about 10 seconds, but can be quite distracting while you drive.

Edited by FigureItOut
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Horrible, Horrible, Horrible. Upgraded to 2.98 and did a short out and back hike. GPS locked onto all birds and indicated good signal strength. However accuracy was never better than 20 meters and on my out and back track the tracklog consistently showed differences of 20+ meters. Made me think we had reverted to 2.85 (which I personally think was the worst). It's great Garmin is consistently upgrading the software, but it's getting VERY worrisome that they cannot seem to dial in the accuracy and that every time lately they release an update they seem to introduce some other major bug. Note that the trail was either wide open sky or light tree cover. File sent to Garmin Beta. Also, due to the "drift" or the unit thinking I'm still moving it makes the use of the compass while standing still useless. It's still nowhere near as good as my 76csx...glad I "upgraded" :-(

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Like rrtsb I've yet to be satisfied with the accuracy of the unit while moving (stationary after a few seconds is setisfactory). I've been on the horn with Garmin and I've also been sending the beta team e-mail requests to improve this aspect of the Oregons operation. I've been looking at purchasing a PN-40 since Delorme has addressed the issues with this type of accuracy and from the forums it seems that the PN-40 is now on par with the 60csx.

 

Garmin has alot of innovation built into their products. They always seem to have the resources to introduce new and interesting functionality. In spite of all the innovation, the Oregon leaves me often dissapointed when I return home from a day out hiking, load my tracks up on Google Earth or Arc GIS Explorer and look at the terrible tracking the Oregon line exhibits.

 

With the Oregon, finding waypoints (geocaches) once the unit settles down, seems pretty accurate. Moving (walking, hiking) at slow speeds the Oregon looses all credibility.

 

Garmin/Cartesio, are you listening?

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Like rrtsb I've yet to be satisfied with the accuracy of the unit while moving (stationary after a few seconds is setisfactory). I've been on the horn with Garmin and I've also been sending the beta team e-mail requests to improve this aspect of the Oregons operation. I've been looking at purchasing a PN-40 since Delorme has addressed the issues with this type of accuracy and from the forums it seems that the PN-40 is now on par with the 60csx.

 

Garmin has alot of innovation built into their products. They always seem to have the resources to introduce new and interesting functionality. In spite of all the innovation, the Oregon leaves me often dissapointed when I return home from a day out hiking, load my tracks up on Google Earth or Arc GIS Explorer and look at the terrible tracking the Oregon line exhibits.

 

With the Oregon, finding waypoints (geocaches) once the unit settles down, seems pretty accurate. Moving (walking, hiking) at slow speeds the Oregon looses all credibility.

 

Garmin/Cartesio, are you listening?

 

Agreed, It's like having a Cadillac that's no better than a Lada !!!!

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