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Whats the best Oregon Beta for Accuracy


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I have been using 2.93 on my Oregon for awhile now and not to thrilled with the accuracy. I know there are alot of newer versions out there but not sure seems alot of mixed reviews about them all. I am soon taking a week long caching trip across country and want the best I can get. I understand alot of people are very unhappy with the accuracy. I don't care what the gps says it accuracy is I just want it to acctually have good accuracy. I primaraly use this for geocaching and I am also to to concerned with the jumpy tracklogs. Any help anyone can offer would be greatly appreciated. Thanks

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Personally I thought that 2.97b gave me the best accuracy. However, this version does have a bug where it might not be able to get a signal at all even though there might be plenty of satellites available.

 

2.98b fixes that bug, however there are some discussions about its accuracy. It seems like Garmin changed the EPE algorithm. That is, Garmin uses another algorithm to calculate the accuracy displayed by the unit. In how far they also did change the way the actual position is calculated is less clear though. My experience is that 2.98b shows a much worse accuracy than 2.97b while the actual accuracy is not that much worse. Yet sometimes it feels like 2.97b did not just display a better accuracy but actually was more accurate.

 

Bottom line: In terms of accuracy I would prefer 2.97b. However, since it has a bug that might render your GPSr useless in the field, I would not recommend it for a longer trip.

 

What do others think?

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I have been using 2.98 for some time and it seems okay. It rarely gets a WAAS bird but that seems to have been true for this whole series. Yesterday was under heavy cover. Partner had Colorado. There were times where mine was 180 degrees off for some time while his seemed to always be pointing in the right direction. Have encountered this before in same situation but if I just keep walking in the direction I know the cache is it seems to correct but not for some time. Watched distance go from 500 to almost 300 before it did.

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I had posted this a few days ago, it had some of my conclusions on accuracy over the course of the beta:

 

http://www.gpsfix.net/garmin-oregon-beta-298-recommended/

 

Throughout the beta cycle there have been five GPS firmware versions:

 

2.58: Started beta cycle at 2.85, same as prior to beta cycle. Sluggish, heavily averaged. WAAS does not work at all under cover.

2.63: Introduced with software 2.86. Removed a lot of averaging, very jumpy tracks under cover.

2.70: Introduced with software 2.93. Slightly more averaged/filtered than 2.63, some people noticed WAAS improvements. My feeling is that this might be the best GPS firmware release to date.

2.80: Introduced with software 2.94, but this GPS firmware has a major bug which resulted in some visible satellites not locking, avoid this GPS firmware.

3.40: Introduced with software 2.98, fixed the issues in 2.80, feels similar to 2.70 to me. WAAS maybe slightly worse than 2.70.

 

http://garminoregon.wikispaces.com/Versions

 

Has my detailed notes on each release.

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I had posted this a few days ago, it had some of my conclusions on accuracy over the course of the beta:

 

http://www.gpsfix.net/garmin-oregon-beta-298-recommended/

 

Throughout the beta cycle there have been five GPS firmware versions:

 

2.58: Started beta cycle at 2.85, same as prior to beta cycle. Sluggish, heavily averaged. WAAS does not work at all under cover.

2.63: Introduced with software 2.86. Removed a lot of averaging, very jumpy tracks under cover.

2.70: Introduced with software 2.93. Slightly more averaged/filtered than 2.63, some people noticed WAAS improvements. My feeling is that this might be the best GPS firmware release to date.

2.80: Introduced with software 2.94, but this GPS firmware has a major bug which resulted in some visible satellites not locking, avoid this GPS firmware.

3.40: Introduced with software 2.98, fixed the issues in 2.80, feels similar to 2.70 to me. WAAS maybe slightly worse than 2.70.

 

http://garminoregon.wikispaces.com/Versions

 

Has my detailed notes on each release.

 

What I will add is that for all the releases listed above, the accuracy is very consistent if you have WAAS disabled. I drive the same route to/from work every day with my Oregon track log turned on and when WAAS is off, the tracks are so consistent that I can zoom al the way in and the width of the logs on the display is around 25 feet, which is also close to the width of the road I am on at the time. When WAAS is enabled, up until v2.98 I would see track log drifts as far as 300 feet off course in as little as 5 minutes from the start of the trip, but I might also go 2-3 days with no drifting at all. Since loading v2.98 I have had WAAS enabled and I have not seen any drifting off the track as set when WAAS was disabled (and by the road on the City Navigator 2009 NT map).

 

I will say that when I loaded one of the betas v2.93 or 2.94 I saw a significant improvement in the quickness in which I would achieve a lock on the WAAS satellites and in how much better the lock would hold. When I loaded the v2.98 software, this went back to the older behavior where I might get more than half way home before I ever get a WAAS lock (if I get one at all). When I do get them, with the v2.98 software, I do not see the drifting problems I had seen with the earlier versions. I am very pleased with the performance of this most recent beta release.

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I have been using 2.93 on my Oregon for awhile now and not to thrilled with the accuracy. I know there are alot of newer versions out there but not sure seems alot of mixed reviews about them all. I am soon taking a week long caching trip across country and want the best I can get. I understand alot of people are very unhappy with the accuracy. I don't care what the gps says it accuracy is I just want it to acctually have good accuracy. I primaraly use this for geocaching and I am also to to concerned with the jumpy tracklogs. Any help anyone can offer would be greatly appreciated. Thanks

 

I have Ver 2.98b loaded, and over the course of the past couple of weeks have been very pleased with it. I believe tracklog recording is better than with previous beta versions; however, it is still a little "jumpy" at walking speeds - on the road it's great.

 

Noticed something interesting when geocaching though...under wide open skies the EPE stays fairly low (10 to 14 feet), but under heavy canopy it varies widely (20 to 70 feet); however, the countdown Distance to Destination will consistently lower as I approach a geocache. It's gotten to the point where I completely disregard the EPE when it's high - just watch the Distance to Destination count down to a few feet...and by golly, there's the cache!! In effect, the accuracy is great :) -- the EPE, not so much :rolleyes:. Anybody else noticing the same?

 

Bill

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