Oregon 300 Accuracy

[SwissTeam]

I just picked up an Oregon 300 from REI and I'm in the process of checking it out. Walking or driving the same route several times, gave me accuracy differences of up to 30 ft. Is this a lot? 60CSx owners, what do you notice in regards to track differences? I heard, the 60CSx is hard to beat in accuracy. I will eventually decide between the Oregon 300 and the 60CSx. Your input is greatly appreciated.

[jkettu]

I suppose you know the difference between accuracy and epe? Based on my short but frustrating experience with Oregon, 30ft is pretty dadgum good for it. Ymmv. If possible, test it against a benchmark or other known point feature. Or, unless you insist on having paperless feature, just get the 60 and be happy.

[+BiscuitMunchers]

I would check and see which firmware is installed. Right now I have the beta 3.22 installed because I wanted to play with the google earth map feature. The important thing is the GPS Software version. I have 3.70 and it seems to be more accurate.

[+Chrysalides]

I just picked up an Oregon 300 from REI and I'm in the process of checking it out. Walking or driving the same route several times, gave me accuracy differences of up to 30 ft. Is this a lot? 60CSx owners, what do you notice in regards to track differences? I heard, the 60CSx is hard to beat in accuracy. I will eventually decide between the Oregon 300 and the 60CSx. Your input is greatly appreciated.

You'd need to perform the test at the same time with two GPSr to get any meaningful data unfortunately. Under ideal conditions and with a bit of luck even an ancient unit with WAAS disabled can give spot on accuracy.

[Grasscatcher]

I just picked up an Oregon 300 from REI and I'm in the process of checking it out. Walking or driving the same route several times, gave me accuracy differences of up to 30 ft. Is this a lot? 60CSx owners, what do you notice in regards to track differences? I heard, the 60CSx is hard to beat in accuracy. I will eventually decide between the Oregon 300 and the 60CSx. Your input is greatly appreciated.

 

You heard absolutely correctly about the 60CSx. I have a 76CSx (internally same as 60CSx) and recently got an Oregon 550t. I have done some very careful comparison between them by hiking a single track trail, in canyon country, three separate times. Five mile loop trail, guaranteed same path within +/- 18inches , three separate days, 2 GPSs one day, 3 GPSs 2nd day, 2 GPSs 3rd day.

 

Results: Under Ideal/Good conditions both units track each other very well and repeat with themselves very well day to day. However, when conditions start to deteriorate and start to become more difficult (under canopy or in canyons), the Oregon 550t appears to show some weakness. (see WAAS below)

 

In several difficult areas around the loop, the 550t appears to be more susceptible to multipath error (canyon walls) and it's results varied close to 100 ft (day to day with itself and also to other units). To be fair, the 76CSx looked kinda lousy in one of the same areas on one of the days.

 

If you are looking at the tracks plotted on 1:24000 maps , 7 tracks look like one except for slight deviations in the absolute worst areas. For quality comparison, I zoom in on magnification to the point where even the topo contour lines are very pixelated and I can see individual tracks and individual trackpoints. Overly critical ?, maybe, but you can really start to see unit capabilities/weaknesses.

 

The Oregon is weak/lousy in the area of acquiring /maintaining WAAS reception. Slow to acquire lock and easy to lose. (Kinda like the PN-40) Is that critical?, that's for you to decide.

 

Also have compared coordinates between units and (numerous) Benchmarks with "Adjusted Coordinates". Results-both usually within 1-2 meters (I use UTM) of published, extremely accurate, coordinates.

(Note: in open country). That's easily as good as you can expect.

Edited November 26, 2009 by Grasscatcher

[seldom_sn]

This 60CSX owner went to the REI sale too. Since then I've taken the OR 300 and the 60CSX out for two hikes. The OR had software 3.3 (since upgraded to 3.4) I didn't use WAAS either day, and have never seen a significant improvement in EPE using WAAS with the 60CSX. Both hikes were in and out over the same terrain. Probably 70% was over the same trail both ways.

 

Hike 1 had both units attached side by side to my belt. Hike 2 had the OR on my belt and the 60CSX attached to a Gilsson antenna in my hat. Observing conditions must have been pretty good both days. There were hills and valleys, some tree cover, no canyons. Tracklog differences were not significant either day. EPE's varied during the hike. Some times 30' on the OR and 10' on the 60CSX; other times the reverse. The errors didn't show up in the tracklog comparisons, and the tracks checked well with georeferenced orthophotos (more reliable than Google earth).

 

The antenna didn't give the 60CSX a significant advantage, but both indicated strong signals.

Edited November 26, 2009 by seldom_sn

[Grasscatcher]

If you want to see my file with 7 tracks, go on Topografix forum and under ExpertGPS subject heading, look several threads down and find "Analyzing Tracks" thread. GPX file attached there.

 

What differences I see between the two are higher sensitivity to multipath errors by the Oregon, and poor handling of WAAS signals. MP may be due to ceramic antenna and the WAAS problem is probably chipset peculiarities since the PN-40 has the same shortcomings and I believe the same (brand at least) chipset.

Edited November 26, 2009 by Grasscatcher