New to the game... help

[+Swedishbrick]

So have a seven month old son that I am at home with taking care of few days each week. So I am thinking that Geocaching would be a great way to get out enjoy the weather and check out some new parks and areas of the local area I might not otherwise go to. Plus as he gets older we can go after more and more difficult caches.

 

That being said wanted your opinions on best bang for your buck unit that will provide good resource for geocaching.

 

Or if you have hid your old unit tell me where and I will pack the little guy up and go hunt it down! :-)

 

If it stops raining going to try my first find at a local Park w/o GPS assistance. (Thank you Google earth)

[+ShawnHudson]

So have a seven month old son that I am at home with taking care of few days each week. So I am thinking that Geocaching would be a great way to get out enjoy the weather and check out some new parks and areas of the local area I might not otherwise go to. Plus as he gets older we can go after more and more difficult caches.

 

That being said wanted your opinions on best bang for your buck unit that will provide good resource for geocaching.

 

Or if you have hid your old unit tell me where and I will pack the little guy up and go hunt it down! :-)

 

If it stops raining going to try my first find at a local Park w/o GPS assistance. (Thank you Google earth)

 

How much you looking to spend? I prefer the Garmin 60Cx but I've heard you can get some Garmin Oregon 200 series about 265 but I cant seem to find them.. But all in all I think a Garmin 60Cx is quite good. Scroll down in this forum and there are several posts about which ones to buy with a lot of good info

[+StarBrand]

You don't mention a budget so here goes:

 

Low-level - for about $125 you can get a Garmin Venture HC or for $170 the Garmin Legend HCx. Both have color screens, long battery life, a Geocaching mode, high sensitivity, very rugged, nice small form factor and reliable. The Legend adds routable mapping and expandable memory.

 

Mid to High - For about $280 you can get the Garmin 60CSx - long considered the "cream of the crop" for Geocaching GPSr. Many of the above features plus altimeter and compass. All buttons on the front make it a nice choice for in-car use as well. Only bad part is no native paperless geocaching support.

 

High End - Look at the Garmin Oregon Series - $275 to $500 full paperless Geocaching and a killer touchscreen Interface Plus a camera at the top of the line and built in maps. Also the Garmin Colorado series is highly accurate and paperless but a few users have reported waterproofness issues.

[+Swedishbrick]

Thanks for the input. If the weather holds I am going to try and hit a few today that are near by. Figured how to put them into my Megellan Maestro 3225 (not a great unit for geocacheing) takes a little bit of time to get them loaded but with that and my pocket Pc should be able to get this party started.

 

Then I will keep an eye out for a new/used unit. Garmin is the way I am leaning.

 

Thanks again!

[+daddysbike]

Get it right the first time and buy a Garmin 60CSx. Do some research and you'll see it has a long proven record.

 

Steve

[+Jeep4two]

If you are leaning toward Garmin and you have flexibility in your budget there really are only two to consider.

 

StarBrand's Mid-High (60CSx) or High End (Oregon 300, 400, 500, 550). All you really have to do is pick your price point and decide whether interface is more important (Oregon rocks) or whether you have to have the greatest accuracy (The 60CSx still stands as the champ here).

 

I personally opted to upgrade from my eTrex Legend to the Oregon over the 60CSx for the features, integrated topo map (I got the 400t) and promise of continued development of the units software. I've not been let down yet (example: Today after loading the new 2.98 beta release of the software I hit a benchmark to check accuracy - it dialed in at 2 ft when the unit was lying on top of the benchmark disk - and tested on a local geocache, was litterally on top of it when it showed 1 ft to location). Needless to say I'm happy with its performance, feature set, and interface.