Oregon 650

[+rangercarol]

I bought an Oregon 650 today and have been getting familiar with it. I am stunned to see how crude the basemap is; it is useless for geocaching. I may be naive, but I didn't see anyone else mention that I must immediately pay more money to Garmin for detailed maps. I would expect this device to display detail at least as well as my Iphone with the Geocaching app.

 

Perhaps I missed something obvious and that the detail is there and I didn't figure out how to get it. I did see a reference to free maps form Open Street Maps. Is there any risk there? Thanks for the help.

 

Rangercarol

[+BikeBill]

You'll probably get lots of replies on this but you are correct in that the basemap is very, uh, basic. You can spring for additional Garmin maps, use Open Street Maps or explore other options. I have my Garmins loaded with free topo maps from GPSFileDepot, http://www.gpsfiledepot.com/ I've been very happy with their accuracy and features. Getting them from the website into your 650 will be a bit of a chore but it's not too bad.

Edited December 20, 2015 by BikeBill

[+lee737]

I just sprung for the detailed Garmin maps - they are very good.... considering how much paper topographic maps cost, I thought it was good value.....

[+on4bam]

Perhaps I missed something obvious and that the detail is there and I didn't figure out how to get it. I did see a reference to free maps form Open Street Maps. Is there any risk there?

 

Since I got my Oregon 600 I've not used anything but openstreet map and opencycle maps. Also, before that, on my Colorado 300 I used OSM. Take a look at garmin.openstreetmap.nl It's easy to download and install if you just read up a little. There are downloads je just copy to a micro SD card and insert in your GPS.

[+DragonsWest]

I've had my Oregon 600 since it came out. Open Street Maps are your only friend.

 

I've had California/Nevada, Georgia, Florida, Michigan and not many complaints. For Topo I have an old USGS hydrology survey which is pretty good except for the central valley of California where it has about 2.5 million wells cluttering the screen.