Smallsy489 Posted June 14, 2011 Share Posted June 14, 2011 Hello everyone, Im an intern working on a mapping project for some town parks. I was told to check up on the geocaches in the area to make sure they are maintained and not damaging to our nature areas. My question is,the gave me a Garmin GPSmap76S to work with and the accuracy is AWFUL. Has anyone worked with this unit before or have any pointers on how i can go about this project with bad accuracy. So far Ive only found one geocache and i basically just stumbled upon it. I've been trying to find very easy ones , ones that say they are on a hiking trail and dont include much bushwhacking. Any pointers or should i just tbag this project lol Quote Link to comment
sparksd Posted June 14, 2011 Share Posted June 14, 2011 Hello everyone, Im an intern working on a mapping project for some town parks. I was told to check up on the geocaches in the area to make sure they are maintained and not damaging to our nature areas. My question is,the gave me a Garmin GPSmap76S to work with and the accuracy is AWFUL. Has anyone worked with this unit before or have any pointers on how i can go about this project with bad accuracy. So far Ive only found one geocache and i basically just stumbled upon it. I've been trying to find very easy ones , ones that say they are on a hiking trail and dont include much bushwhacking. Any pointers or should i just tbag this project lol I recently replaced my old 76S with a 62st. My experience was that the 76s has good accuracy in the open with a clear view of the sky but suffers badly when under cover. But even in the open, it hasn't matched the 62st wrt accuracy, speed in establishing a position, etc. That's the shortcomings of an older unit. Dave Quote Link to comment
+Maingray Posted June 14, 2011 Share Posted June 14, 2011 If you are simply cataloging them for your job, consider emailing the owners for extra hints as well... or even for them to accompany you on your trip. Quote Link to comment
+NOSNOW Posted June 14, 2011 Share Posted June 14, 2011 On another note. If the cache you found is the the park you are working for, there are some PMO (premium member only) in the park that with a basic membership you will not be able to see. You could have the park department contact Ground Speak for more information on them. Quote Link to comment
+Cardinal Red Posted June 17, 2011 Share Posted June 17, 2011 Hello everyone, Im an intern working on a mapping project for some town parks. I was told to check up on the geocaches in the area to make sure they are maintained and not damaging to our nature areas. My question is,the gave me a Garmin GPSmap76S to work with and the accuracy is AWFUL. Has anyone worked with this unit before or have any pointers on how i can go about this project with bad accuracy. So far Ive only found one geocache and i basically just stumbled upon it. I've been trying to find very easy ones , ones that say they are on a hiking trail and dont include much bushwhacking. Any pointers or should i just tbag this project lol I have a fair amount of experience with two GPSmap76S units, and the accuracy is NOT awful. And while the receiver sensitivity isn't great by modern standards, it isn't terrible either. I found a lot of caches in the deep woods. What was the error on the one cache you "stumbled" on? What DATUM is the GPS set to? It should be WGS84. Are you using the Geocaching Location FORMAT? Click Sequence: MENU - MENU - SETUP - LOCATION Location Format = hddd°mm.mmm' Map Datum = WGS 84 How are you getting the coords into the 76S? Then are you using GOTO? I have no idea if you even know how to use a GPS. Also, make sure you keep the Compass turned OFF if you don't know how to calibrate or use it. Press and hold PAGE a few seconds till a message appears. Each new press will toggle between the states: Compass Turned On / Compass Turned Off The message will clear automatically but ENTER will clear it faster. If you have any more questions / problems let me know. Quote Link to comment
+vannamei Posted June 17, 2011 Share Posted June 17, 2011 Hi, I'm working with a GPSmap76CSx since quite a while and I did not find the accuracy insufficient. You should have WAAS/EGNOS enabled, when available in your area. With GARMIN units you MUST have the unit switched to "NORMAL" mode, NOT "Energy save" mode. In Europe I get +- 2 meters on flat land with EGNOS. In the US it should be similar or even better with WAAS. The power consumption of the unit will probably double (half the time on a set of batteries) as in the power-save modus, but the additional accuracy is worth it (My unit runs for about 12 hours on a set of high quality batteries). You should also be familiar with the calibration process of the build in compass. This is very important. Calibrate the thing every few hours or after considerable change in location (more than 5 miles). When geocaching, I calibrate as soon as I get near the site. When within some 20 meters of the site, place your unit level on some surface and let it sort out its final calculations for some 5 minutes. This will greatly improve accuracy. I don't know exactly why this is so, but I suspect it has to do with failure correction of ionosphere interferences as gps satilites pass thru the (for the unit)visible part of the sky as well as some minor differences between the clocks in the different satelites. Hope this helps. The Garmin Unit itself is defenitely NOT your problem. Cheers Burkhard Quote Link to comment
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