What was your very first GPSr

[+kywaterfowler]

I saw post on the Getting Started forum about what device you use for geocaching and I was wondering what was my first GPSr that I owned. Mine was a Magellan GPS2000. What was your first GPSr?

[+Ms.Scrabbler]

iQue

[+Niemela]

Magellan 300 (before the dawn of geocaching)

[knowschad]

I bought my first GPSr the day after finding my first Geocache with a friend (Chad, actually). It was a blue eTrex. That monochrome LCD screen was terrible!

[+Sins DS]

AN/SRN-9 Block I NavStar receiver, in 1979. The US Navy let me use it.

Edited October 6, 2010 by Sins DS

[+Snoogans]

A 1995 Magellan GPS2000. It STILL works.

 

I found my first 175 caches with it.

[+briansnat]

The old Garmin Legend.

[+kywaterfowler]

A 1995 Magellan GPS2000. It STILL works.

 

I found my first 175 caches with it.

Recently I fired my Magellan GPS2000 up and it would never lock onto the sat's. It was pretty cool back then. I used it for making hunting locations.

[+SSO JOAT]

Ha, you guys talking about "old" Legends... LMAO

 

My first GPS was the Garmin GPS-40, circa ~1992 or there abouts. No maps. Nothing fancy. You turned it on and about 10 minutes later it told you what your location coordinates were... plus or minus about 300 feet (remember SA?). You could save waypoints and it would point which way to go to get back to them. And it would leave the "breadcrumb" track logs as you moved, though it wouldn't hold very many track points, so if you spent all day traveling across the wilderness and then tried to backtrack via the tracklog, about 3/4 of the way back the track log would suddenly disappear as the first part was being overwritten by the most recent points. Had to carry paper maps and compass as the GPSr alone wouldn't give you all the info you needed. Good times in the woods.

[+Coyote's Girl]

Mine was, and is, a Garmin Gps80 MIL. It's heavy, ugly and mono-chrome. And it works. The only thing that makes me sad is having to hand-enter the co-ords.

[+OHail]

A Garmin GPS12Map I got in 2000. I started caching with it in 2007. Its display started going out in 2008 and I replaced it with a Colorado. I sure do miss the 12Map.

Edited October 6, 2010 by OHail

[+2Wheel'in]

Garmin GPS II+...used it on the bike, the kayak, and for truck navigation. I think that was in 1996, my how things have changed

 

Bill

[+DragonsWest]

Garmin Etrex Vista, now gathering dust as it will likely never be repaired.

 

After my first day geocaching with my friends I went home and bought one the next day. It was terrible on batteries and had an awful time in the trees.

 

Replaced with a GPSMap 60C, which was a real workhorse, better in trees and much better on batteries.

 

Now using an Oregon 450, which makes the old 2003 version of the Etrex Vista look like an abacus, compass and divining rod, all bound with duct tape.

[+SSO JOAT]

Now using an Oregon 450, which makes the old 2003 version of the Etrex Vista look like an abacus, compass and divining rod, all bound with duct tape.

 

OMG... I literally fell out of my chair LMAO! That is just brilliant

[+cfever]

A 2001 Magellen Meridian! I still use it from time to time, especially for the 7 year old to use. Still works great! Slow to lock on to the sats but seems to keep the signal really well. Can you believe I used to try to use it for road navigation before the Garmin Nuvi, man things have come a long way!

[+W7WT]

I still have a Garmin 45 that I had before Geocaching started. When I first heard of geocaching in August of 2001, I found a cache within a mile of my home. i went after it but the 45 lost sat coverage when I entered the woods. Then drove to Fred Meyers and bought a maggy 330. It did the job. In an open field with no woods the Garmin 45 did just fine.

[AZcachemeister]

Mine was a Magellan Meridian Platinum...and I still use it to this day.

[+captnemo]

Mine was a Garmin GPS38, had no maps but did have track lay down screen and an arrow to lead you where you set the coordinates. Had it long before I startrf Geocaching and never used it for Geocaching. I still have it and it still works, I loan to anyone who needs to find us when we are camping. I just load the coordinates and they follow the arrow to our camp.

 

In 2001 I upgraded to a GPSV and was showing it to a friedn who asked if I was into that new thing called Geocaching. The rest is history. Oh, I still use the GPSV for caching as I find it easy to use and rugged.

[+tomfuller & Quill]

In 1997 the PA Bureau of Forestry let me use a Corvallis Microtechnology MC-GPS which had a list price of $4995 and weighed in at 3.5 lb. It had rechargeable batteries and a port to plug in an external antenna.

With Differential Correction and taking 3 three minute waypoints, the position was nearly always within 5 feet of where it should be.

Before that, I used a LORAN the size of a breadbox for a few days.

I didn't find my first geocache until August 2005 in Oregon with my Magellan 2000XL.

[Keystone]

I bought my Garmin GPS V in June 2002, ordering it the day I discovered this website. I had a hunch that "this is for me" and I might as well buy the best available at the time. I was right. Sadly, that GPS died when dropped in a cold Maryland stream, halfway through a 12 mile trek to a geocache.

 

I do need to move your thread from "Geocaching Topics" over to "GPS and Technology." I put a lot of thought into it.

[7rxc]

You can put me down for a Garmin 45 (xl) from the mid 90's... Still use it and it still works if you don't mind the old tech... Like W7WT said forget it in trees, but with some clear spots and compass triangulation you can get to a very broad GZ most of the time... Tried a Lowrance ?? and an Etrex Legend from our SAR group as well... same problem with trees etc. Finally broke down this year and got a Map 60cx... which is much better for trees and mountains...

 

Who knows if I win the lottery? One last thing, the 45 cost me more than the top end Garmins now...

 

Doug 7rxc

[+kentwoodkrew]

Explorist XL which quickly lost waas ability when I cleared the memory. The current oregon 450 with free maps works fine

[+BZLuck]

SOMEWHERE in this house is a Garmin eTrex Summit... Bought about the same time as my Garmin Street Pilot III (but I DO know it's whereabouts.) Lord knows how much I paid for the both of them 10+ years ago.

 

Once I came across caching and this site, I spent 3 days looking for that old eTrex. DNF.

 

The irony was in the inability to locate my GPS...

 

Just bought a Magellan GC, (while it was on sale for $169) since I have a Nuvi something-or-other in my car for turn by turn. Figured the GC will take us from car to cache and I can't see using it for a whole lot more.

 

There are a half dozen caches within biking distance of our house, and we are going to kick off our first official searches this weekend on 10-10-10 to be a part of the mass logging hoopla.

[sviking]

Had to carry paper maps and compass as the GPSr alone wouldn't give you all the info you needed. Good times in the woods.

 

But, the point was you KNEW how to use that map and compass. Now, so many take to the woods and would be completely lost if their GPSr failed...or they ran out of batteries...

 

That said, my first personally purchased GPS was a Lowrance Global Map 100. It was the first commercially available "mapping" GPS unit that was actually affordable.

[+The Kamikaze Clan]

My first is what I have now: my Nautiz X7 (Getac PS236). I have a background in the sport of orienteering and prior to the geocaching I had no need for a GPS:r.

 

I got the Nautiz early 2010 as a helper in my job, and I got into geocaching almost immediately.

[+Woodstramp]

Interesting that so many have mentioned the Magellan GPS2000.

 

Bought one from a coworker like three years ago for $20. It was my first GPS. Just wanted one to try for marking hunting/fishing spots.

[+ryan3295]

My first of many, was a magellan 315 back in 2001.

[+The Yinnies]

Garmin Vista CX

[+fegan]

Before geocaching was around I didn't own a GPS.

 

Before I signed up on Geocaching.com I had a Garmin Nuvi 200W.

 

A couple of months after I signed up on Geocaching.com I upgraded to a Garmin Colorado 400t...which I still use today.

[vagabond]

not counting the one I had on the boat in the early 90s my first was a Lowrance globalnav 212, found 187 caches with it in my first year of caching, the sucker took 4 aa batteries and they might last a day of caching if I was lucky

[+embra]

I'm not sure when--but I think it was the mid-90's--I got a DeLorme Earthmate. It was the plain yellow receiver that required a computer or Palm PDA to provide a screen with which to see what was going on. It was a PITA trying to manage the two connected devices in the field, but it was a breakthrough product in that it got people in the GPS game for $100 (assuming you had the other hardware already).

[+eastriver]

Magellan 315. Placed Canada's first geocache with it. GC41 (now GCBBA)

[+larryc43230]

My first GPS unit was a Garmin GPS III+ purchased from Amazon on May 4, 2000 (I just looked it up ). It cost me about $395, including shipping. That was long before I discovered geocaching; I used the unit to help me find Ohio covered bridges and mark their locations. I loaned it to a friend "for a week or two" and never saw it again.

 

I bought a Garmin 60CSx when I first started geocaching, then pretty much replaced it last year with an Oregon 550t.

 

--Larry

[+ikonixx]

My first GPS was a yellow Etrex back in 2003 or so. I used it to find my way back to good fishing spots back then I inadvertently threw it out a couple of weeks ago while doing some cleaning. Oops!

 

I use an iPhone 4 with the official app for caching now.