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Using Garmin etrex 10


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What do you mean by the satellite feature and written coordinates? 

The most basic thing you can do is navigate to a set of coordinates:
Select "Go To" > Coordinates > input the coordinates. Be aware that there are different formats for writing coordinates. Geocaching.com displays coordinates in the Degrees Minutes format (DD MM.mmm) as opposed to Decimal Degrees (DD.dddddd) or Degrees-minutes-seconds (DD MM SS.sss), so be sure that your GPS is set to display coordinates using Degrees-Minutes (it might come pre-set to do that).

You can load geocache information directly to your eTrex in a .gpx file. You will need a premium membership to do this currently since the "Send to GPS" button no lon ger works, and .LOC files are completely useless - your GPS won't even read them and you'll have to convert them prior to loading. Basecamp will import a LOC file and then send the coordinates to your GPS as a waypoint. If you do that, you can then select "Go To" > Waypoints > select the waypoint that matches the cache you want to find.

Remember, your eTrex will get you to the general vicinity of the cache - within 10-30 feet of most caches. Once you get this close, it's time to put the GPS down and search for the cache with your eyes.

Good luck, and let us know if you need any more specific help.

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you need a premium membership. You need one anyway to make lists and send them via garmin express.

The eTrex 10 should be compatible with Garmin Express. It's older models that predate paperless caching that you are SOL on. I have no sympathy (and I'm guessing Garmin doesn't either) on that front. Those devices are well over 10 years old now, and in the tech world, there's no excuses to still be relying on outdated and obsolete technology for primary use.

Edited by Mineral2
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Dear Mineral2

Thanks for your unsympathetic reply. My device is probably 5 years old and it has all the capability that I need. I have continued to use many outdated but useful devices such as printers. Most times the legacy devices are useful because the user does not wish to go beyond its original function. There are lots of people on the net who have the intellectual curiosity, take up the challenge and provide a workaround. You are obviously not one of these and continue to give into  the ever continuing upgrades to consume "stuff"at ad infinitum. Garmin should have provided legacy compatibility for its brand name devices.

Be assured that I will find a workaround without your help or sympathy!

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14 minutes ago, County Couple said:

Dear Mineral2

Thanks for your unsympathetic reply. My device is probably 5 years old and it has all the capability that I need. I have continued to use many outdated but useful devices such as printers. Most times the legacy devices are useful because the user does not wish to go beyond its original function. There are lots of people on the net who have the intellectual curiosity, take up the challenge and provide a workaround. You are obviously not one of these and continue to give into  the ever continuing upgrades to consume "stuff"at ad infinitum. Garmin should have provided legacy compatibility for its brand name devices.

Be assured that I will find a workaround without your help or sympathy!

 Good luck using your mid-90's dot matrix printer with today's computer. I suppose you could find a workaround to connect that old parallel cable to a modern USB port. But it's probably not worth it, is it? Are you still using Windows 95 with Internet Explorer 3.0 to connect to geocaching.com? Good luck. I don't even think those old browsers would support the html5 and xml code that underlies the website. Do you still back up files to floppy discs? Those devices, like many others, have an end of life for support where it's no longer profitable to continue maintaining software updates or hardware parts to keep those old devices working.

 

Sure you can use your eTrex Legend or Vista for navigation alongside a map and compass. Those will still work for that purpose until the internal hardware breaks down. But Garmin has decided that it's not worth keeping up support for these models now that, for about 7 years now, ever single one of their in-production models supports a standard USB connection, a larger storage capacity, and direct GPX support with paperless geocaching functionality. They're directly compatible with today's file standards and hardware connectivity standards. 

If you're using an eTrex Legend or Vista, you're going to have trouble with geocaching. It's not impossible, but you will require some extensive workarounds that users of the eTrex 10/20/30 models won't have. You don't need the latest GPS, but anything designed prior to the Colorado series, the first to have all of the modern features, are no longer supported by Garmin. And, at this time, no matter what GPS you own, you're going to need a premium membership to really take advantage of it, because none of the GPS manufacturers have expressed any interest in rebuilding their communicator plugins on a more secure platform. So good luck, I hope you find a solution, and in the meantime, you can always use apps (either the official app or an API partner app), unless you're still stuck using an old flip phone.

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[ Moderator note: please be polite and helpful to each other. ] 

There's a bit of unnecessary hyperbole here, perhaps caused by imprecise terminology due to Garmin's confusing naming scheme.

Garmin eTrex 10, the subject of this thread, is about 6 years old. (2011-05), Geocaching-aware, has a USB mini-B, shows up as a mass storage device, you copy GPX files to it. It's a reasonable, albeit low-end, device. I'd be surprised if any software that supported the post-Colorado era devices didn't support these. (GPSBabel has no special code for it; it Just Works with our GPX writer.)
 

The original eTrex hails from 2000. It has a serial port and thus needs a USB-serial adapter and all the pain that goes with that to attach to any modern computer. You certainly can geocache with it, but you're going to suffer. If you already have the cables and adapters and such, you can use GPSBabel or EasyGPS to get PQs or even .loc files to it, just like you've been able to do since the early 2000's. Honestly, if you've not already made that investment, it's hard to recommend doing so.

Between these two points (2007) was the eTrex H, which was a respin of the original. It's basically the same primitive design, terrible screen, serial port, etc. but it has a better receiver chip that doesn't lose a signal if you're in tall grass. I'm guessing this product existed only because there were so many schools and books using the original and they ran into parts availability problems that they went to a maintaining engineer and said "change as little as possible, but replace the GPS chip (that we can probably no longer get)".

As for being" legacy, a mid-life booster ten years ago to a 17 year old design can distort our views, but in tech, these are quite old devices. They can be made to work in today's ecosystem, but you're going to pay with your time and frustration. They're not quite an Okidata 200 or an Epson FX-80 from Mineral's posts, but some of the issues to conquer are similar.

My general guideline is "etrex followed by a number is viable. If it has a serial port, cut your losses".

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On 7/23/2017 at 0:14 PM, County Couple said:

The etrex is no longer supported by garmin  express connect. Does anyone know how to download gpx files from geocaching.com?

Downloading .gpx files from geocaching.com will require a Premium Membership.  With a PM, you can download gpx files individually from each cache page or en masse via Pocket Queries.

 

What you can download as a Basic Member are .loc files, individually from each cache page, by clicking the "LOC waypoint file" button.  These .loc files contain minimal info, just the coords and cache name.  It won't include the cache description, hint, or past logs.  Once you have the .loc file, then you'd need to convert it to a .gpx file before copying it from your computer to the \Garmin\GPX folder of your device.  I've read that GPSBabel will do the conversion.  I haven't tried it, so I have no first-hand experience with it.  There may be other programs as well.  I'm not sure.

 

Good luck!

ETA:  My comments above are assuming the OP is asking about an Etrex 10 (yellow etrex), since Etrex 10 is in the topic name.

 

Edited by noncentric
clarify etrex 10 assumption
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...which exactly the ambiguity caused by being imprecise with the model name.

 

For an eTrex or eTrex H, actual geocaching info isn't stored in the GPS. The coords and the cache name are about all it'll hold - you can print the reset or copy and paste it to a Google Doc on your phone or whatever, but it won't go in the GPS.  

On "eTrex with a number", while the unit will do hint, description, logs, etc. you need a premium membership here to get the data to put into the GPS.

Which generation of eTrex in play is pretty important to the direction the question goes.
 

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