Jump to content

Car GPS's.


zinnia123

Recommended Posts

Just a quick question about car gps's, can you punch in cords in like your hand held. If you don't have an address and you want to drive to your cache how do you add it. I was thinking of getting a car gps to take with when on the road looking for that cache. So was wondering if any one else uses this combination. Thanks.

Link to comment

Just a quick question about car gps's, can you punch in cords in like your hand held. If you don't have an address and you want to drive to your cache how do you add it. I was thinking of getting a car gps to take with when on the road looking for that cache. So was wondering if any one else uses this combination. Thanks.

 

Some you can and some you can't. It depends on the type of car gps you have. I have a Garmin Nuvi and I can enter the coordinates by hand or even load the .gpx files in.

 

We use a Garmin Nuvi to get to the cache site in the car and then an Oregon to get from the car to the cache.

 

Carolyn

Link to comment

Some you can and some you can't. It depends on the type of car gps you have. I have a Garmin Nuvi and I can enter the coordinates by hand or even load the .gpx files in.

 

We use a Garmin Nuvi to get to the cache site in the car and then an Oregon to get from the car to the cache.

 

Carolyn

I don't know much about car gps's how can you tell if you can add the cords to them. What should I look for? I just find that using a handheld is so distracting while driving. It's best when you have some one with you. But if iam on my own I want a good gps that's not so distracting while driving. . :D

Link to comment

The best combo would be a decent car GPS for automotive navigation and a an inexpensive hand held for geocaching. Car units do not work particularly well for geocaching. They aren't durable enough, aren't waterproof and the battery life is insufficient. They also lack the compass navigation screen that is a key feature for most geocachers. Nevermind the fact that they aren't physically designed to be held in the hand,.

Edited by briansnat
Link to comment

The best combo would be a decent car GPS for automotive navigation and a an inexpensive hand held for geocaching. Car units do not work particularly well for geocaching. They aren't durable enough, aren't waterproof and the battery life is insufficient. They also lack the compass navigation screen that is a key feature for most geocachers. Nevermind the fact that they aren't physically designed to be held in the hand,.

 

Thanks, I have my handheld already, Just looking for a good car one that would let you add in the cords. How can you tell that you can add cords in when you are looking at the specks.

Link to comment

The best combo would be a decent car GPS for automotive navigation and a an inexpensive hand held for geocaching. Car units do not work particularly well for geocaching. They aren't durable enough, aren't waterproof and the battery life is insufficient. They also lack the compass navigation screen that is a key feature for most geocachers. Nevermind the fact that they aren't physically designed to be held in the hand,.

 

Thanks, I have my handheld already, Just looking for a good car one that would let you add in the cords. How can you tell that you can add cords in when you are looking at the specks.

 

I had this problem to before getting my current Navman S150, i ended up downloading the instruction manual and reading through it. I can enter cords. when plugged in to computer and store them in my places, though still need my GPS to get to GZ. :D

Link to comment

Just a quick question about car gps's, can you punch in cords in like your hand held. If you don't have an address and you want to drive to your cache how do you add it. I was thinking of getting a car gps to take with when on the road looking for that cache. So was wondering if any one else uses this combination. Thanks.

 

 

The only thing I use for geocaching is my Garmin nuvi 205W. While I can manually enter coordinates (the best way to know if a device is capable of that would be to download it's manual) I find it much easier to use pilotsnipe's macro with GSAK. This allows me to go completely paperless with the Nuvi. Currently have 2300 cache sites loaded. I use the car navigation feature to get me close to the site and when there switch to the "Where Am I?" tool that gives me the exact coordinates of my current location. Knowing what coordinates I am looking for I can then go in the proper direction to get myself right to GZ.

 

Probably not the best method but it certainly works for me.

Link to comment

:D

I use a Nuvi 255W as my auto unit, and yes you can load Lat / Lon by hand.........and also load pocket quires (by cable) or individual caches also by cable. There are several forums around that cover most all the auto type units and just what they will and won't do........Let Google Be Your Friend........

Edited by GIDEON-X
Link to comment

The best combo would be a decent car GPS for automotive navigation and a an inexpensive hand held for geocaching. Car units do not work particularly well for geocaching. They aren't durable enough, aren't waterproof and the battery life is insufficient. They also lack the compass navigation screen that is a key feature for most geocachers. Nevermind the fact that they aren't physically designed to be held in the hand,.

 

Thanks, I have my handheld already, Just looking for a good car one that would let you add in the cords. How can you tell that you can add cords in when you are looking at the specks.

 

I know you can key in coordinates in most, if not all Garmin Nuvis. Even the inexpensive ones like the 205

Link to comment

The best combo would be a decent car GPS for automotive navigation and a an inexpensive hand held for geocaching. Car units do not work particularly well for geocaching. They aren't durable enough, aren't waterproof and the battery life is insufficient. They also lack the compass navigation screen that is a key feature for most geocachers. Nevermind the fact that they aren't physically designed to be held in the hand,.

 

Thanks, I have my handheld already, Just looking for a good car one that would let you add in the cords. How can you tell that you can add cords in when you are looking at the specks.

 

I know you can key in coordinates in most, if not all Garmin Nuvis. Even the inexpensive ones like the 205

Yep, I have a 200 and you can put in coordinates and it will give you driving directions to it.

Link to comment

May I suggest one of the Garmin Nuvi 500 series as you can easily add geocaching waypoints and works great in the car as well.

 

I'll echo StarBrand's suggestion. A buddy of mine got a Nuvi 500 last week and it came preloaded with City Navigator and Topo maps. You can load up GPX files and it has great geocaching capabilities. He has found it to be a very good hybrid for both auto and geocaching use so far.

Link to comment

B)

I use a Nuvi 255W as my auto unit, and yes you can load Lat / Lon by hand.........and also load pocket quires (by cable) or individual caches also by cable. There are several forums around that cover most all the auto type units and just what they will and won't do........Let Google Be Your Friend........

 

We also use the 255w Nuvi from Garmin. This is the only GPSr that we use. We add POI's for caches in the area that we plan on caching or punch in the Lat/Lon by hand for FTF runs. We live in the Seattle, WA area and the few times that it rains :D;):P we put it in a small plastic bag. That way we go from driving to caching without having to stop.

Link to comment

I use a Garmin Nuvi for urban caching to drive close to cache then switch to Garmin GPSMAP60csx when I get out of car

 

the Garmin Communicator software makes it easy to upload a cache to both units at the same time if you have enough USB ports (2)

 

happy hunting

Link to comment

The best combo would be a decent car GPS for automotive navigation and a an inexpensive hand held for geocaching. Car units do not work particularly well for geocaching. They aren't durable enough, aren't waterproof and the battery life is insufficient. They also lack the compass navigation screen that is a key feature for most geocachers. Nevermind the fact that they aren't physically designed to be held in the hand,.

 

Thanks, I have my handheld already, Just looking for a good car one that would let you add in the cords. How can you tell that you can add cords in when you are looking at the specks.

 

*on a Garmin Nuvi, you can do that, but.....

*typing in coordinates are not important to me...I just send it from the geocaching.com page

*with a garmin Nuvi and there is a Garmin plug-in that allow that to happen

*I also use Garmin so I can use my maps in my handheld and my car gpsr (just got the 24K topo and they are an excellent addition to both GPSrs).

*Since I am a premium member, I can use pocket queries to load both up at the same time with about four hundred sites or so. They then appear on the car gpsr's map that way also.

 

Having said that, I have already seen a lot of people doing that already on this forum. The Garmin Nuvis also allow you to use Pilotsnipe's macro to load the cache information into the car gpsr.

Link to comment

Just a quick question about car gps's, can you punch in cords in like your hand held. If you don't have an address and you want to drive to your cache how do you add it. I was thinking of getting a car gps to take with when on the road looking for that cache. So was wondering if any one else uses this combination. Thanks.

 

Some you can and some you can't. It depends on the type of car gps you have. I have a Garmin Nuvi and I can enter the coordinates by hand or even load the .gpx files in.

 

We use a Garmin Nuvi to get to the cache site in the car and then an Oregon to get from the car to the cache.

 

Carolyn

 

Ditto, except I have Lowrance hand-held. Great combo! The Nuvi 200's are cheap...the 205's were advertised last X-mas on sale for under $120 at some stores. You can download pocket queries to them or put in coordinates manually. Don't use them on the trail...they're not waterproof and have a short battery life when not plugged in (and you DON'T want them to run down). Good luck on this great adventure[:unsure:]

Link to comment

I use a Garmin Nuvi 350. I bought it refurbished in 3/09 for $110. It works amazingly well. When you set the screen to the lowest brightness the battery lasts up to 8 hours. It works fantastically well with the GSAK macro so you can go caching paperless. Set the GPS to off road, pedestrian and if you have a topo map use that and deselect the street navigation map. There are some free State topo maps or you can buy Garmin Topo. Follow the GPS to the spot. When the GPS says you've arrived hit menu and then the top left corner of the screen. It gives you a read out of your exact coordinates. If you check the last 3 digits of the N & W you can land right on top of the cache. It will indicate as close as 3 feet of accuracy and when under trees as poorly as 17 feet but every time I use that feature the cache is under my feet when I stand at the exact coordinates. The only problem with it is that it's not easy to hold. Now that I've discovered I love caching it's probably time to upgrade to a good handheld but money is a little tight now.

Link to comment

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

Loading...
×
×
  • Create New...