Caching Abroad

[+Seganku]

My friend is travelling to Africa at the beginning of next month and I've loaded up my old Etrex H with caches for her. Will any of the settings need to be changed for the unit to work properly in another continent?

 

Thanks for any advice in advance

[+The A-Team]

My friend is travelling to Africa at the beginning of next month and I've loaded up my old Etrex H with caches for her. Will any of the settings need to be changed for the unit to work properly in another continent?

 

Thanks for any advice in advance

Nope, it should work just fine. One thing to keep in mind is that after changing location so significantly, it can take much longer to lock onto satellites the first time. I've heard of GPSs taking as much as 30 minutes after such a change of location. When I went to South Africa a few months ago, my Garmin Oregon 450 took about 10 minutes. Make sure it has a good view of the sky, and just give it some time. Once it has locked on, it will work as normal until it comes back home, at which point it would have to re-adjust again.

[+Markwell]

Also - watch out for those sparsely populated background maps. If you don't have street level maps loaded, it's no big deal. But I'm so used to having all of North America loaded on my GPS - if I were traveling out of the country and had to deal with a non-mapped city, I'd certainly have a "OMG" moment.

[+StarBrand]

Yup maps are kind of a gotcha and really heed the advice to fire up the GPS and then just let it sit for a good long while to download the sat data and get used to a new location.

[+tomtwogates]

Don't think maps are an issue - the old Etrex H has no maps - as said before just leave it out to find the satellites - moving from South Africa to Europe it took up to half-an-hour to lock on!

[+Seganku]

Thank you

[+The Jester]

You can speed up the lock on time if you specify a new location when you turn on the GPSr. That way it'll know what part of the constellation to scan.

[+cachemaster84]

I have this same question for my Garmin 60CSx. Will we need new maps or will our gps "know" where we are???

[+Glenn]

I have this same question for my Garmin 60CSx. Will we need new maps or will our gps "know" where we are???

No, the GPS does not need any maps to determine your coordinates. However you may need maps to know where you are once the GPS is tell you your coordinates.

[+Markwell]

I have this same question for my Garmin 60CSx. Will we need new maps or will our gps "know" where we are???

No, the GPS does not need any maps to determine your coordinates. However you may need maps to know where you are once the GPS is tell you your coordinates.

To further illustrate, here's a page that compares the maps of various cities. Without worrying about the technical issues, just look at the difference in the maps. If your friend can live with a map like the one below, then there's no need for additional maps.