Explorist GC - Questions

[+jacob501]

I just bought this unit for 95 dollars brand new-in the box on craigslist. It has been great and I really like that it can hold so many geocaches and all the info for them.

 

1. If I am going on a road trip across the country and I want to find caches along the way, I know how to use the caches along a route feature and make a PQ. But I am also going to be in a certain state for a month before I drive back home. Since the GC can hold ten PQs then how would I get all of the geocaches in a large area of the state with 7 or 8 different PQs??

 

2. I also haven't figured out how to download pictures to the gps! I drag and dropped my PQ into the Geocaches folder and the waypoints file into the waypoints foler. But when I open the geocaches with pictures on the gps I get a message saying I have to use VantagePoint or a Geocaching.com Plugin. I downloaded VantagePoint and tried to use it...but...I was wondering what the Plugin was? And I haven't worked out VantagePoint yet. I like GSAK a lot better.

 

3. When I bought the GC, I thought the compass/pointer would be like every other gps I have seen, like my Garmin Etrex H.

 

 

The GC has a really confusing pointer. What really frustrates me is that the pointer in the middle points to what direction you are CURRENTLY GOING and then there is a tiny little red arrow on the compass that points to the way you SHOULD be going. In my opinion, they have it backwards!!!

 

4. How accurate is the GC?? I can't even tell! The lowest it has gotten on the Satellite page is 16 feet! And that is rare. Usually it can only get 26-36 feet. But then I tested it out outside just to see if this accuracy thing was wrong. I walked quickly toward an object, marked a waypoint there, walked away to somewhere and told the gps to go to the waypoint. It got me withing 3-6 feet of it! How is that 26 feet accuracy? And I still haven't found any geocaches with it so I don't know how accurate it is in the field or under trees!

 

5. I read something on the forums that said that if you hold the gps more vertically it gets better accuracy. Has anyone tried this? Does it work? Or is it even true?

 

Thanks!

Edited June 19, 2011 by jacob501

[+jacob501]

NOBODY?!?!?!

[+mpilchfamily]

Thats allot of questions for us to try and answer for you. Give people a little more then a couple of hours before you start feeling neglected. Besides its still pretty early on a Sunday morning. Give people time to wake up.

 

1) As you said you'll need to run several PQs to cover the area you want. You'll need to run each PQ so the circle overlaps a bit on each. Then use GSAK to sort it all out and drop the duplicates. I know it can be done but have never done it myself. So someone else will need to break it down for you.

 

2)Never tried to get the pics on a GPSr.

 

3)Check around the settings. There may be a setting to customize the compass layout.

 

4)The accuracy shown on the unit is a very ruff estimate and doesn't really represent the accuracy very well. Marking a point then going right back to it and getting within a few feet isn't much of an accuracy test. The GC is just as accurate as any other GPSr with a high sensitive receiver. So don't worry about it too much.

 

5) the way you hold the unit shouldn't affect the accuracy hardly at all. If it did then you would run into all sorts of accuracy issues with the slightest bit of cover overhead.

[+CacheFreakTim]

1) I would create a bunch of PQ's for the areas you will be in and then import them into GSAK. Once in there you can basically create one .gsk file to send to your GPS with the caches you want. The one thing to keep in mind is if you are doing this over a large area or creating a bunch of PQ's the GC has a limit of 10,000 caches.