Entering coordinates on PN-20

[+Roughrider56]

Can someone help me out there with my Earthmate PN-20. I bought the unit last year for geo-caching while on vacation. It really worked slick, I downloaded all my geo-caches we were interested in on the unit prior to leaving on vacation. That really works great except with one problem, multi-caches. I have not been able to figure out how to enter coordinates manually into the unit. After an hour of pushing every button on the unit we gave up on locating the second cache. I've been playing with this unit off and on for over a week now and have not been able to figure it out..... how do I enter manually the coordinates? I would appreciate any and all help especially the exact procedure for doing so, thanks in advance.

[+embra]

Create a waypoint by pushing the button with the pushpin icon on it. In the resulting screen, use the rocker pad to hilight the coordinates and press enter, then use the rocker pad to change the coords to whatever you want. Press enter when they read what you want them to. You can also change the name and waypoint symbol if desired. Rocker back to the save option and press enter to save your new waypoint.

[+Roughrider56]

Gotcha! Thanks. One more question.......Geocach coordinates are like

N 45° 03.428 W 095° 45.274 & on the PN-20 it has one more number after the 428 & 274, what do I enter as I can't eliminate the number on the unit?

[+embra]

You can just add another zero at the end so it rounds off to the gc.com coords. I forget what difference that last digit adds in terms of precision, but it's not much (and gc.com feels like we can probably get along without it).

[+dakboy]

You can just add another zero at the end so it rounds off to the gc.com coords. I forget what difference that last digit adds in terms of precision, but it's not much (and gc.com feels like we can probably get along without it).

I think it's less than 5 feet, but I don't recall.

 

Do Garmin & Magellan go to that level of precision in the first place?

[+embra]

You got me curious enough to look it up (I rely on the wisdom of the community to correct me if I misinterpreted the particular source I located or if the source is incorrect).

 

1 degree of latitude = 1 nautical mile = 6080 feet. (A degree of longitude varies in length depending on how far the position is from the equator.)

 

So .001 degree of latitude = 6.08 feet, and .001 degree = .6 feet (about 7 inches). So I think a good argument could be made that that 4th decimal place isn't particularly meaningful for the accuracy afforded by consumer handhelds.

 

AFAIK Garmins and Magellans only go out 3 places in decimal minutes (at least I think that true of those going back a few years).

[kchunks]

Also, when you manually enter a waypoint you can select the geocache symbol from the menu and the unit will give you the choice of leaving it on the waypoint page or moving it to the geocache page.