Garmin 60 CSX

[Contra1971]

just to confirm

 

is the Garmin 60 CSX a good unit to go with

 

right now I have the Magellen Maridian Gold

and it does very good

 

but I wanted to go color and USB

 

is $150 a good price?

[+mpilchfamily]

Its one of the better units on a budget.

[AZcachemeister]

The 60CSX is a legendary unit.

So is the Meridian Gold.

A color display is nice, but it may not be as great as you think, since color displays tend to suffer in full sunlight.

For about $20, (or maybe even less these days) you can get a Serial/USB adapter that will solve that connection problem/issue.

[knowschad]

I was going to say that my 60CSx will go with me to the grave, but it looks like AZC put it even more succinctly.

[Contra1971]

The 60CSX is a legendary unit.

So is the Meridian Gold.

A color display is nice, but it may not be as great as you think, since color displays tend to suffer in full sunlight.

For about $20, (or maybe even less these days) you can get a Serial/USB adapter that will solve that connection problem/issue.

 

I actually got the USB adapter, but it is so old i gotta use EasyGPS and I kinda wated to be lazy and use it right from the site, and the color is kinda cool, it adds altimeter

 

and I still keep the compass

 

is the price good, $150?

[+Frank Broughton]

yes $150 is a good price and yes it is a very good GPS. A bit dated but still one of the best. I use it and really like it. I would buy another one for $150 for sure.Make sure it is the GPSMAP 60 CSX not just the s.

Edited September 14, 2011 by Frank Broughton

[Contra1971]

yes $150 is a good price and yes it is a very good GPS. A bit dated but still one of the best. I use it and really like it. I would buy another one for $150 for sure.Make sure it is the GPSMAP 60 CSX not just the s.

 

cool thanks

[+lamoracke]

I have an Oregon 450T but I still use my Garmin 60 CSX because mainly I like the routing better and its just easier to use, for me.

 

Obviously Oregon has other advantages but I like the 60 in many ways.

[+BruceS]

Moving to GPS and Technology section of forums.

[+Gus]

It's unfortunate that Garmin has discontinued the 60csx. It has been very good to me for the past 4 years.

It's the unit we used to hide all 1500 of the new ET Highway caches as well as the 1000+ old ET Highway caches before that. We've had nothing but compliments on how accurate all the coordinates are.

[+Viajero Perdido]

...color displays tend to suffer in full sunlight.

The 60CSx is brilliantly readable in bright sunlight. I've never seen anything else like it. Other units need you to turn on the backlight to even come close.

 

It's one of the features I love of my trusty 60CSx. And if mine broke tomorrow, I'd try to find another, instead of some newer model.

[John E Cache]

just to confirm

 

is the Garmin 60 CSX a good unit to go with

 

right now I have the Magellen Maridian Gold

and it does very good

 

but I wanted to go color and USB

 

is $150 a good price?

I did the same upgrade when my Merri Gold fell off of my kayak and now resides on the bottom of the Tualatin River. The 60csx is infinitely better except for one thing. On the Merri Gold if you wanted more waypoint storage you just got a bigger flash card. The 60csx has a limit to the number of caches/waypoints.

[+power69]

The 60CSX is a legendary unit.

So is the Meridian Gold.

A color display is nice, but it may not be as great as you think, since color displays tend to suffer in full sunlight.

For about $20, (or maybe even less these days) you can get a Serial/USB adapter that will solve that connection problem/issue.

color displays also eat more battery!

[+Woodstramp]

...color displays tend to suffer in full sunlight.

The 60CSx is brilliantly readable in bright sunlight. I've never seen anything else like it.

 

I totally agree with that observation. That is one of the main reasons I will never sell mine.

[+Woodstramp]

[

color displays also eat more battery!

 

Well, the first color display handheld I bought, a Delorme PN20, would exhaust a good set of fresh alkalines in 7 hours of real usage.

 

I think Garmin advertizes in the specs that the 60cxs will get like 18 hours out of those same alkalines. In my first usage/rundown test it lasted 22 hours before a low battery warning. I'd say that is outstanding. Another reason I will never sell mine.

[+BAMBOOZLE]

just to confirm

 

is the Garmin 60 CSX a good unit to go with

 

right now I have the Magellen Maridian Gold

and it does very good

 

but I wanted to go color and USB

 

is $150 a good price?

 

Thats a great price on a great unit. If I were you, though, I'd pick up a Meridian Platinum ( I own a 60 CSx, Gold, and a Platinum ). Your Mapsend maps , SD card, cords, holster, etc. that you use on the Gold could be used on the Platinum. The Platinum has the best 3 axis compass I have ever seen ( the CSx has a quirky 2 axis compass)....with the latest firmware and 2G SD card a Platinum ( and Gold as well ) will hold detail maps of the whole U.S. and 14,000,000 caches. You should be able to pick up a Platinum for $50-$75 ( I bought 3 new and a half dozen on ebay) Its not color and while you can get an USB cable for it it won't speed up the downloads.

[+Frank Broughton]

just to confirm

 

is the Garmin 60 CSX a good unit to go with

 

right now I have the Magellen Maridian Gold

and it does very good

 

but I wanted to go color and USB

 

is $150 a good price?

I did the same upgrade when my Merri Gold fell off of my kayak and now resides on the bottom of the Tualatin River. The 60csx is infinitely better except for one thing. On the Merri Gold if you wanted more waypoint storage you just got a bigger flash card. The 60csx has a limit to the number of caches/waypoints.

 

Yes, that is the ONLY drawback for me, it is a crying shame Garmin did not change that with a firmware update. No reason they cannot be on the miniSD card.

 

Edit: one more drawback - no multiple style of maps are allowed to be installed. There are workarounds but that stinks too.

Edited September 14, 2011 by Frank Broughton

[+W7WT]

we use the Nuvi 550 for routing and paperless geocaching but we have two 60CSx that we do the hunt with. I bought my wife the first 60CSx and got the 78s for myself. I also have an older 76CSx. I just didn't get comfortable with the 78s and returned it to REI and got the 60CSx at the same price I bought my wifes $220. Her 60CSx seems to be more accurate than mine and always finds GZ first. We are very confortable with them. We load all of the GPSs with GSAK and export to MS S&T maps that I print out and write the size and hint of each cache on the map. Works well for us and we seldom ever have to refer to the Nuvi 550 for any information. Dick

 

 

 

 

 

 

we

Edited September 14, 2011 by W7WT

[+Frank Broughton]

export to MS F&T maps

 

What map is this, did you mean Microsoft Street & Trips.... does it do a good job of printing - better than Google maps?

[+Viajero Perdido]

no multiple style of maps are allowed to be installed. There are workarounds but that stinks too.

Not quite sure what you mean by that. My 60CSx has base map, two brands of topo maps, and transparent overlay hiking maps. I could easily have added "city" maps to the mix as well. Select the maps you need in MapSource, and it combines them all into one file on the unit. I don't consider that a workaround.

 

As to color screens and battery life, my color 60CSx goes two full caching days, sometimes three, on a single pair of tired old NiMH rechargeables. And that's not in battery-saver mode.

[+moose61]

just to confirm

 

is the Garmin 60 CSX a good unit to go with

 

right now I have the Magellen Maridian Gold

and it does very good

 

but I wanted to go color and USB

 

is $150 a good price?

I did the same upgrade when my Merri Gold fell off of my kayak and now resides on the bottom of the Tualatin River. The 60csx is infinitely better except for one thing. On the Merri Gold if you wanted more waypoint storage you just got a bigger flash card. The 60csx has a limit to the number of caches/waypoints.

 

The 60CSX has a limit of 1000 Waypoints/caches. However, if you use GSAK to convert the caches to Point Of Interest files you only have the limitation of the SD card. This way I have loaded 20,000 caches on my 60CSX, including all child waypoints and hints. A very good workaround.

 

I have my 60CSX now for several years and it is really good. I do not even consider at this moment trading it for an other unit.

[+W7WT]

export to MS F&T maps

 

What map is this, did you mean Microsoft Street & Trips.... does it do a good job of printing - better than Google maps?

Yes, I meant MS Street & Trips. I think it does well. Have never used anything else. I usually have about 5 to 6 caches per page.

Edited September 14, 2011 by W7WT

[+White Dane & Irish Setter]

I love my 60CSx. Even though I have bought newer Garmin models like the 62, I still use the 60.

 

I have event written my own software, (that I give away for free) which is like but only better than "Access Field Notes" which is provided at GC.com for newer GPS units.

 

With my EGL software all you do when you get back from a day or week of caching is plug in the GPS, start up your browser and read your finds and DNF right from the GPS into the browser. The software gives you a listing of your finds and DNF in the order in which you found them. It time stamps each find for you. It tells you how long you spent searching for the cache. It gives you the find # out of how many finds for that day. You get all this in a pre-formatted text that you can copy-n-paste right into the online log.

 

Here's the best part you get two links one takes you right to the cache page the other takes you right to the logging page. No more logging on the wrong cache because you typed in the wrong gc code. No double logging the browser page shows which caches have been logged and which still need to be logged.

 

In addition to this there is a bunch of other tools and stuff you can do to customize your logs. If you create a field note on the GPS like "Dropped coin", it get uploaded with your data. It uses 4 different icons to either mark your finds or DNFs. You can also mark a find on a cache that needs maintenance, when you upload your data you get a reminder notice you can either edit or just cut and paste right into your log notes that the owner needs to maintain his cache.

 

You can create two standard notes that can be added to the other pre-formed note I described above. Say for example you were out caching with a group and you wanted to enter "Caching with so and so today.....", you type that message once and it gets added to each of your finds. You can create a second note and add it to all your DNFs.

 

And if you want to see where you went and where the caches were located, there is a google map imbedded into it. With that you can display your track and all your finds and DNFs along the route.

[+Frank Broughton]

Not quite sure what you mean by that. My 60CSx has base map, two brands of topo maps, and transparent overlay hiking maps. I could easily have added "city" maps to the mix as well. Select the maps you need in MapSource, and it combines them all into one file on the unit. I don't consider that a workaround.

 

 

Cool - can you tell me how you merge a topo map and a street map with MapSource to send to your 60csx? I am interested in finding out. I have numerous maps installed with my MapSource install. Can I select one map pick some tiles and then pick another map select some tiles and then merge somehow with MS before sending them to the GPS?

Edited September 15, 2011 by Frank Broughton

[+Viajero Perdido]

Yes, exactly. Select tiles from one map, repeat as needed with other maps, then click Send To GPS.

 

You'll notice the list of map tiles on the left pane grows longer as you add tiles from more sets.

 

EDIT: Once those are in the GPS, you can enable & disable complete map sets by going Setup Map / Information / Menu. ("Information" shows you enabled & disabled tiles, but hitting Menu at that point lets you enable & disable entire sets, which is more likely what you want.)

Edited September 15, 2011 by Viajero Perdido

[+Frank Broughton]

Excellent Viajero, I will give that a try today, Would be nice to have street and topo maps of my area on the GPS. Now if we could only hack the firmware to remove the 2,025 map tile limit - that would be perfect.

[+Frank Broughton]

Just found this:

 

Overlapping Maps

You can use the technique above in GMapTool to create one big gmapsupp.img file with two map files of the same area. Or, if you don't yet have the two maps' image files, you can use Mapsource to create a mapset of the two overlapping maps. When is this useful? I use this for an area where I want to go hiking and have both a topo map for the hike and a routable map for the drive (turn-by-turn directions) such as City Navigator. I also use this when I want to compare two maps, such as Mapsource New Zealand and the free map of the same area, which may well be superior. To switch between maps on the 60CSX, go to the Map page. Press Menu, then Setup Map, then press the Right rocker button until you get to the icon with an "i" in a circle at the top of the screen. On that screen, you can select or unselect maps tile-by-tile, which may not be so useful on a 1000-tile map. Press Menu again, and you will be able to hide or show entire maps from within the mapset (not from other img files on the card, of course, but from from the big gmapsupp.img file you created).

 

From this excellent page on the 60csx: http://www.asiteabou...et/g_60csx.html

 

Good thread here at GS on this too: http://forums.Groundspeak.com/GC/index.php?showtopic=163273

Edited September 15, 2011 by Frank Broughton

[Ben_Nevis]

 

is the Garmin 60 CSX a good unit to go with

 

That bit of kit is massive!