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I just purchased mine yesterday too. Man the User's Manual is AWFUL. Luckily this is my 3rd eTrex so the learning curve won't be so bad. I don't like the screen savers, I prefer to get the leather case and either clip it to my backpack or hang it around my neck. I'm still trying to figure out how to get free maps onto mine so I would also appreciate those tips. If buying a mini-SD card for it, does anyone know if there is a maximum GB that the unit can handle?

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Hi,

 

I'm still trying to figure out how to get free maps onto mine so I would also appreciate those tips. If buying a mini-SD card for it, does anyone know if there is a maximum GB that the unit can handle?

Just follow the instructions on my site,they are quite straightforward...make sure you carry out each step, otherwise the maps will probably not work.

 

If you get stuck, email me and I'll try and assist.

 

I've used a 16GB MicroSD card with my own Etrex 30, works fine,just make sure the card you buy is compatible, not all are!

 

Hope this helps?

 

Regards,

Martin

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We previous had an etrex 10 and upgraded when Amazon had their great deal the other week. Agree that the manuals are hopeless. We loaded on a few geocaches and went out and gave it a go (with an i-phone as a back up) learnt lots more about both units when we were out in the field having a fiddle with the different buttons to see what they did. BUT DID CONSIDER THROWING OUT THE WINDOW ON MORE THAN ONE OCCASION BEFORE WE GOT THE IDEA!!!

 

We have bought an 8GB card for ours which works great. We use it with Base Camp and ended up buying the Birds Eye maps from Garmin for £20. We couldn't get Talkie toaster maps to load but another thread suggests using the .com version rather than the .co.uk version we had been using. Have also just discovered the joy of pocket queries and GSAK which has meant I was able to upload 500 caches to the unit in a matter of moments!

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Yea, I would probably recommend bringing a backup GPS if you have one. There is a bit of a learning curve and I have been out "in the field" more than once when I either didnt load the caches properly, or I wasnt able to use the GPS to navigate to the goal.

 

You will enjoy it once you get the hang of it! Also, try to find open/free maps.. they can be better in terms of detail at least where I am.

 

Shaun

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The cache limit is 5000, but I find that I have to limit it to about 3000. I've loaded more than that but it risks locking up the unit (that has happened to me many times). If you've loaded a new GPX file to the Etrex 20, make sure you then start it up and test that it loads all the geocaches into memory. This can take a while if you load 3000 (maybe 10 minutes), but in my experience once a new GPX file has been loaded into mem ory start up time is quite quick.

 

And also in my experience, if there are too many caches it can fail to load them into memory; then the unit freezes and when you eventually get it to restart it ignores the GPX file so you end up with no cache details.

 

3000 still sounds like a lot of caches, but it can easily represent a radius of less than 20 miles so only half an hour's drive from home and you have no cache details.

 

I use GSAK to auto-load all my Pocket Queries for a fairly wide area, then use GSAK filters to create a subset of geocaches, which I then upload to the Etrex. Or if I'm visiting another area I simply ask GSAK to get all geocaches within the area and then upload them.

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A 4Gb MicroSD card will be more than enough. You don't need a high speed one as the device only reads from the card, and writes very little data to it. If you want to know about doing PQ's and maps etc click on the link to my resource site below my signature and go to the Paperless caching and GPS pages.

 

Chris

Graculus

Volunteer UK Reviewer for geocaching.com

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