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which gps to buy?


mattsfg

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Hi all any ideas on which would be the best h/h gps unit to buy?

Im a newbie and keen to explore some more , have found 3 without a gps but need one for the more serious caches.

Any thoughts much appreciated.

Thanks

 

You've posed a "how long is a piece of string question".

 

What's your budget?

 

You've probably got three basic level of sophistication here:

  • A basic unit that will guide you to a position; you'll need to carry maps and printouts of the cache details (or carry a PDA with the appropriate software)
  • A slightly flasher unit that has a mapping facility; you'll still need to carry the cache details
  • A paper-less unit which as well as having superior mapping will also load all the cache details on the unit

I'm quite happy with my Garmin Venture HC ( a second level machine). I got it from the States through Amazon. For caching locally I use printouts. If I'm away on holiday with heaps of possible caches I have the GPX files loaded on my PDA.

 

Which raises another point. If you are going to get serious with this game you will need to get Premium membership. This allows you to build sophisticated queries of cache location; place; age; type; etc and download them as a single GPX file. You can then upload them into your GPSr. As a non-Premium member you can only upload one cache at a time.

 

Hope that helps.

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Hi all any ideas on which would be the best h/h gps unit to buy?

Im a newbie and keen to explore some more , have found 3 without a gps but need one for the more serious caches.

Any thoughts much appreciated.

Thanks

 

You've posed a "how long is a piece of string question".

 

What's your budget?

 

You've probably got three basic level of sophistication here:

  • A basic unit that will guide you to a position; you'll need to carry maps and printouts of the cache details (or carry a PDA with the appropriate software)
  • A slightly flasher unit that has a mapping facility; you'll still need to carry the cache details
  • A paper-less unit which as well as having superior mapping will also load all the cache details on the unit

I'm quite happy with my Garmin Venture HC ( a second level machine). I got it from the States through Amazon. For caching locally I use printouts. If I'm away on holiday with heaps of possible caches I have the GPX files loaded on my PDA.

 

Which raises another point. If you are going to get serious with this game you will need to get Premium membership. This allows you to build sophisticated queries of cache location; place; age; type; etc and download them as a single GPX file. You can then upload them into your GPSr. As a non-Premium member you can only upload one cache at a time.

 

Hope that helps.

Regards for that .

i am looking at a garmin oregon550 which does all the stage 3 things you listed, anyone out there have one or have found any faults etc,

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Hi all any ideas on which would be the best h/h gps unit to buy?

Im a newbie and keen to explore some more , have found 3 without a gps but need one for the more serious caches.

Any thoughts much appreciated.

Thanks

 

Stated out using a car gps, worked ok, but a bit awkward, using gps while carrying the printout of the cache you are looking for. Get a gps that has paperless geocaching, there are several types that do this.

 

Been using a Colarado 400i for several months now, fantastic to use, cuts way down on the paperwork, but there are other ones that work just as well

 

Greg

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I have the Gamin Dakota 10 which is the bottom (cheapest) of the Dakota/Oregon/Colorado range. Can't fault it, very accurate and so easy to use my 9 year old can handle it! Having said that, in hindsight, I would've gone for the next model up as it and the others have the capability of adding other maps by a SD Card. Just another handy feature.

Thats my 10 cents worth :laughing:

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I don't know if you got a new GPS yet.

 

I am also looking a upgrading and have done a bit of research with great help from KiwiGPS. Worth contacting this guys, he has a lot of knowledge and is very helpfull... (PS. this is no advertisement for him)

 

I had a choise of 4 Garmins in my mind.

 

1st was the colorado, for some reason I liked the idea of the turn button at the top but heard they wear out very quickly and a lot of people are not too happy with that... So Out goes that one as my preffered option...

 

Next, someone recommened the Oregon 550 to me, an awesome choise and would still be one of my choises if I did not also think of the battery life. See I am traming when I get the chance and do the odd hunt so having a bit of extra battery life is critical to me. Well the touch screen of the Oregon (which is very nice) is unfortunately the cause if it draining its batteries a little faster than the other two models I was thinking of...

 

The 78s and the 62s to me their functionalities were very closely matched if the floating capability o fthe 78 is not a factor to you... what was the deciding factor was that the 62s, which is not released in NZ yet has peperless geocaching, and the round style antenna which enables it to have top notch signal reception in which ever postition you hold it... further it is rugged and replacement for the 60 series which was and still is very popular to a Lot of people....

 

So I'll just wait to upgrade me old Lowrance till later this year when I can obtain a 62S...

 

Good luck!!!

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I recently took delivery of a Magellan Explorist GC. Great device for paperless geocaching. Took it to Melbourne for a caching trip recently. Only downside I've found are (1) the maps which are a bit limited when you have been used to Google maps on an iPhone, and (2) when solving a puzzle cache you can't add a waypoint to the Geocache entry. You have to add it as a Waypoint and there is no way (that I've found so far) of linking the two. Despite that - I still think it's a great GPS.

Edited by Guwapo
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I recently took delivery of a Magellan Explorist GC. Great device for paperless geocaching. Took it to Melbourne for a caching trip recently. Only downside I've found are (1) the maps which are a bit limited when you have been used to Google maps on an iPhone, and (2) when solving a puzzle cache you can't add a waypoint to the Geocache entry. You have to add it as a Waypoint and there is no way (that I've found so far) of linking the two. Despite that - I still think it's a great GPS.

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Brought a Garmin Dakota 20 last week. New to geocaching and find the 'paperless' approach really good. Nice discrete size for around town hunts. Performance of Dakota seems pretty good with Urban use, yet to take it for a run for some rural cache's. Was looking at a 60's series GPS but got the Dakota for same price as a 60sx (?), with the 62 another $150 bucks dearer at the time.

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We just bought our first gps --> Garmin GPSmap 62s

It's worthwile to do some browsing on the internet for prices.

 

Cheers

 

Hey I just bought the same model! I had an eTrex H, but was sick of manually typing in the coordinates.

 

The 62s I can combine the car nav to get to the cache, the compass for hints that say 'North of such and such', the Blackberry with the cache details, and the handheld GPS to search GZ into one device. Its a lot better under cover too - seems to be working quite well inside near the windows. Am stoked, although I haven't taken it out and searched for a cache yet.

 

Am looking forward to finding a Chirp cache too to test that out. Its a shame it can't handle Wherigo caches though.

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