is the orignal garmin etrex any good for geocatching

[mead2006]

hello everyone

 

i'm a beginer geocatcher and was wondering if the orignal etrex from garmin is any good (this is the yellow one i have attached pic)found a used one on kijji so wondering if its a godd one to have

 

thanks so much

 

Edited October 26, 2011 by mead2006

[+ollave]

If it's the Legend, then yes, with two provisos:

 

1. newer units are "high sensitivity" and will work better under clouds, tree cover and such

 

2. older units have serial inputs, and (especially for Mac users) serial is dead and USB rules. So I'd only consider a second hand older unit if it came with a demonstrated WORKING cable and any necessary drivers.

 

I still occasionally use my Geko 201, which is roughly equivalent to an early yellow Legend. I'm more prepared to risk it than a smart phone and external GPSr logger. (I drop everything I cache with. I've dropped a torch and had it land on the on-off switch and turn off. I've dropped myself (and been injured). I dropped my phone the second day I had it and the back came off (fortunately went back on and still works). I dropped it again and it rebooted. Yes, I do buy cheap phones, why do you ask?

 

Edit to avoid unwanted smiley. 'a', 'b', changed to '1', '2' in list.

Edited October 25, 2011 by ollave

[mead2006]

If it's the Legend, then yes, with two provisos:

 

1. newer units are "high sensitivity" and will work better under clouds, tree cover and such

 

2. older units have serial inputs, and (especially for Mac users) serial is dead and USB rules. So I'd only consider a second hand older unit if it came with a demonstrated WORKING cable and any necessary drivers.

 

I still occasionally use my Geko 201, which is roughly equivalent to an early yellow Legend. I'm more prepared to risk it than a smart phone and external GPSr logger. (I drop everything I cache with. I've dropped a torch and had it land on the on-off switch and turn off. I've dropped myself (and been injured). I dropped my phone the second day I had it and the back came off (fortunately went back on and still works). I dropped it again and it rebooted. Yes, I do buy cheap phones, why do you ask?

 

Edit to avoid unwanted smiley. 'a', 'b', changed to '1', '2' in list.

 

its the one pictured above just added a pic so people know which one

[+ceeG]

I used to have one of those. It will work fine but with the two provisos ollave mentioned - not having a high sensitivity reciever will pretty much mean you can't cache under trees, and the serial data port means that you'll pretty much have to key everything in manually. If you can get a cable and you have a computer with a serial port (the usb-serial adapters were pretty dodgy for this from memory) you'll be able to get waypoints on a bit more easily.

 

Also it's not a mapping unit so all you'll get is the compass arrow and distance.

[+Bear and Ragged]

If it's the old 'Yellow' they're good.

I found my first 300 caches with one!

 

Downside is, they are not as accurate as the newer 'H' versions, and the non-serial link for the computer.

 

But they will do the job!

Edited October 26, 2011 by Bear and Ragged

[+coggins]

its the one pictured above just added a pic so people know which one

actually, there is no way to tell which version by the image as there are two models that look the same:

 

1. eTrex v2.3 and below- non WAAS with green backlight

2. eTrex v3.0 and above- WAAS and orange backlight

 

In any case, either will get the job done.

Edited October 26, 2011 by coggins

[+hydrodis]

Same model as Iam using. Works fine ,a little harder to use under cover. A cable and driver can be purchased at www.gpsbitz.co.uk or www.rnrplace.com. Bought a cable from them a couple of months ago with a usb connection. Came with a driver disc. Or down load the driver direct from the web site.