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Upgrading my 60CS?


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Hi guys and gals,

 

I started geocaching about 8 months ago, and bought myself a second hand GPSMAP 60cs first to see if I would stick to it. I have the lastest versions of MapSource, GSAK and the firmware. Most of the time I like the unit, but there are 3 things that annoy me:

-Poor accuracy near rockfaces, cliffs or under trees (even one tree!)

-If under trees and lose signal, can take up to 30 minutes to find GPS signal again, if at all

-Compass goes beserk every second time I use the unit and I seem to spend alot of time calibrating it

 

I see cachers around here that log their finds saying the GPS took them straight to it. But for me if there are trees it's hardly ever the case.

 

Would upgrading to a 62s help my accuracy under trees issue? I've read that the chipset is similar to the 60's, and a lot of bad comments about that unit.

I'm reading good stuff about the Colorado450, but I'm a bit old school and am weary of touch screens (screen reliability, accuracy, accidental touches, breaking/playing up more easily).

 

Paperless and more memory would be good but are not priorities or the reasons I'm thinking of upgrading.

I could be open to other brands of GPS, but I'm used to my garmin setup now and am happy with it, so you'd have to work hard to convince me.

 

Thanks for your help

Regards from NZ

fanfan-77

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Since you might be in Nw Zealand, the trees you talking about will be full of water, thus shielding the gps from the sky.

This is normal, but you should have a reasonable reception of the sats and not to much difficulty finding caches, if you try to find caches in a canyon with wet trees, yes it can be hard, because the sat signal will multipath to the wall and covered by the trees.

Actually the 60 model is one of the best, the Colorado is a rotary switch, not a touchscreen and out of production/sale.

Newer (top) models generally don't have a better reception, but have more MB and functions like paperless, profile.

 

Try to compare your gps with another (rent one), maybe you have a faulty one.

MASTER reset the Gps.

Lay it somewhere with a clear view without anything moving nearby, after a 10-20 minutes you should have many sat bars showing, make a waypoint, mark that spot, go away from that spot about 200 yards, now find the way back, like a cache.

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The chipset of the 62s and 60cs are very different. The newer GPS’s use a “high sensitivity” chipset which is a huge difference. You do have a 60cs and not a 60csx because a 60csx has a similar chipset to a 62s? The 62 series and the Oregon have the same chipset. The 62 series, as with all Garmin releases over the past several years, is going through its firmware evolution. It seems to take a couple years to get straightened out and by then there’s a newer model released.

 

There is also a huge difference between operating systems between the 60cs and 62s. The owner’s manual is worthless. Check out the Garmin wiki’s pinned in the Forum FAQ’s for the best source of information.

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See, that proves I'm really confused! All those models and numbers get all mixed up in my head :)

I must obviously meant Oregon450 :)

so the 60cs and 60csx don't have the same chipset. That adds to the confusion, since they have the same series number!

Does that mean that a 62s would perform better than my 60cs under trees?

I wouldn't have expected the OS to be much different, although I guess it would have to be more complicated to allow for the paperless options. User's manual was pretty worthless for the 60cs, so I guess I can self-teach another unit.

I think I might wait if I get a 62s, to give more time for more firmware corrections to happen.

The Oregon is tempting, but can we trust those touch screens?

 

Thanks again for your thoughts

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I went from a 60cs to a 60csx and the reception under tree cover went up dramatically between the two. You also get a faster lock if you lose signal with the 60csx. If you are in a deep canyon even the newer high sensitivity receivers aren't that much of a help, but you will lock on to satellites as soon as you are in the clear. The compass on the 60cs and the 60csx are pretty weak when you compare it to the newer triaxial compasses on the Oregon 450, 550 and the 62s.

 

In your shoes I would go with the 62s and I'm pretty sure you'd be very happy with the results. If you wanted to go cheaper with the 60csx you would still have the compass issues, and you wouldn't have the paperless features of the 62s, but you would see much better reception.

 

I currently have a oregon 550t, and I love the touchscreen. I do 95% of my caching at night, so I don't care about the main drawback of the touchscreen, which is the daylight viewing.

Edited by btl-a4
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