GPSr questions

[+StumblinMonk]

I am looking to buy a new handheld.  I currently have an older one that my son carries, and I was thinking of getting one for myself rather than the app option that I have been using.  Who has a good one, and would you recommend it?  

 

Disclaimer: I have a ton of Garmin stuff and am a little partial to the brand.

[+kunarion]

There are tons of threads about GPS comparisons.  But a major consideration may be price.  You get what you pay for.  You may instead opt for a slightly outdated model that remains on Garmin's site, for a pretty good deal.  Shop around.

Some handhelds have a joystick for selections, others have a touchscreen.  You can use the joystick with most any gloves you prefer, and perform many actions without looking at the screen.  You can type using a touchscreen very quickly.  Which interface do you feel most comfortable with? 

Edited April 18, 2018 by kunarion

[+cerberus1]

53 minutes ago, StumblinMonk said:

I am looking to buy a new handheld.  I currently have an older one that my son carries, and I was thinking of getting one for myself rather than the app option that I have been using.  Who has a good one, and would you recommend it?  

 

Disclaimer: I have a ton of Garmin stuff and am a little partial to the brand.

Didn't you answer your own question?        To boot, that new "send to Garmin" feature with the site only works with Garmin.

Gloved hands a lot, I seem to do better with buttons than those toggle things, and forget a touchscreen...  Still using a long-discontinued 60csx and if it ever dies, I'll grab the other 2/3rds 60cxs and get her a 64st (or whatever the newest "number" is at the time). 

[+StumblinMonk]

21 minutes ago, cerberus1 said:

Still using a long-discontinued 60csx and if it ever dies, I'll grab the other 2/3rds 60cxs and get her a 64st (or whatever the newest "number" is at the time). 

I have been eyeing the 64st for a while.  I cannot justify the price jump to the other current models based on the spec sheets. I am sort of hoping that (like I did with my watch) I drag my feet until they announce the 65, or whatever it will be, and I get this one cheaper.  

 

50 minutes ago, kunarion said:

There are tons of threads about GPS comparisons.  But a major consideration may be price.  You get what you pay for. 

I agree with this typically, but I just do not see it in the features offered in some.  

[+stefanwilkens]

What kind of budget are you thinking about?

I can only speak about entry level units. I'm personally enjoying the new Garmin eTrex X range of units. The new screen they use is these units is really nice in sunlight and they have a nice variation in price / features. They all support geocaching to a degree. They all support GPS, GLONASS, WAAS and EGNOS. Be sure to get the X range though, they have new better screen which perform much better in sunlight. A non-x version of the 20 and the 30 also exists, you do not want that.

eTrex 10: black and white screen, no maps, $100

eTrex 20x: color screen, maps, SD card slot, $200 - the minimum in my opinion.

eTrex 30x: color screen, maps, SD card slot, compass, barometer, wireless connectivity with compatible Garmin devices, chirp support, $300

These are good for semi casual caching and hiking, they (20x and 30x) will support routable maps and detailed maps can be gotten for free from http://garmin.openstreetmap.nl/

[+StumblinMonk]

On 4/18/2018 at 0:42 PM, stefanwilkens said:

What kind of budget are you thinking about?

I am not the type that always has to have the newest and nicest, but I also do not like to need to upgrade too soon to stay current.  That said, I really do not have a budget.  I figure I will have this for a long time and do not mind spending a little more to have today's options. I also do not see the justification in some of the price differences, so I doubt I would take an Oregon model over a 64 from Garmin.  

I picked up an Oregon 550t from LetGo for under $100, and I gave it to my son.  Now I want something that is dedicated to this, and not working off my phone for me.  Part of the reason I introduced my kids to this was to get them to put the screens down, so I do not want to encourage walking around the woods staring at a phone.  Also the phone option does not seem to work as well for Wherigo for me. 

Another reason is I want to start hiding as well as finding.  Dedicated units are far more accurate than what is in a phone 

[+Viajero Perdido]

29 minutes ago, StumblinMonk said:

Dedicated units are far more accurate than what is in a phone 

That's not my experience at all.

I did side-by-side tests of my cheapo Android phone vs the trusty 60CSx, and accuracy was essentially the same. Both led me to the cache quickly.

Maybe you meant iPhones.

[+cerberus1]

42 minutes ago, StumblinMonk said:

  Dedicated units are far more accurate than what is in a phone 

7 minutes ago, Viajero Perdido said:

That's not my experience at all.

I did side-by-side tests of my cheapo Android phone vs the trusty 60CSx, and accuracy was essentially the same. Both led me to the cache quickly.

Maybe you meant iPhones.

  Nice try...

StumblinMonk,  civilian GPS  (in a phone or handheld GPSr) is still only accurate to around ten feet on a perfect day.  Perfect days don't happen often, especially when it would mean the CO had one when placing and you had one the day you found it.  Most times when one says their GPS gets them 2 or 3 feet away at GZ they didn't notice that their location bar shows they're off +/- 20 feet or better.   I prefer a GPSr for reasons other than "accuracy", and the other 2/3rds is usually close enough to me with her iphone's GZ that we see no difference today.

To be clear, we did see issues with some earlier phone models, but the other 2/3rds used a blackberry with Trimble for caching as far back as '05.

[+niraD]

2 hours ago, Viajero Perdido said:

That's not my experience at all.

I did side-by-side tests of my cheapo Android phone vs the trusty 60CSx, and accuracy was essentially the same. Both led me to the cache quickly.

Same here. When I listed my EarthCache, I got coordinates from my Android phone (using an app that averages multiple readings) and from my GPSr. They were essentially identical.

[+Harry Dolphin]

9 hours ago, Viajero Perdido said:

I did side-by-side tests of my cheapo Android phone vs the trusty 60CSx, and accuracy was essentially the same. Both led me to the cache quickly.

And, I guess, it depends on how one uses it?  Always wondered why the nearby kid's coords were so far off for his caches.  Ran into him at a mystery cache after an event.  He solved the puzzle.  We entered the coords and headed for the final.  He was sixty feet away when I found it.  

[+niraD]

2 hours ago, Harry Dolphin said:

And, I guess, it depends on how one uses it?  Always wondered why the nearby kid's coords were so far off for his caches.  Ran into him at a mystery cache after an event.  He solved the puzzle.  We entered the coords and headed for the final.  He was sixty feet away when I found it.  

That sounds like his device might have been configured to use cell tower triangulation and/or wifi, instead of using GPS. I've had phones that would switch off the GPS antenna (and leave it off) when the phone got low on power, so GPS could be disabled without the user intentionally disabling it.

[+StumblinMonk]

I am not going to try quote or respond to everyone here...

I am a Samsung user, have never owned an iPhone.   My phone seems to drift and exaggerate that ±20ft accuracy, the older GPSr unit I have seems far more stable.  I like to be a little better than 20ft.

What are your reasons for preferring one over the other?

[+niraD]

57 minutes ago, StumblinMonk said:

What are your reasons for preferring one over the other?

I do most of my geocaching with an app on my Android phone, mainly because it is so convenient. I use my GPSr when I need better durability, battery life, and/or GPS reception (e.g., in steep canyons and/or under heavy redwood forests) than my phone provides.

[+hzoi]

On 4/20/2018 at 10:17 PM, niraD said:

That sounds like his device might have been configured to use cell tower triangulation and/or wifi, instead of using GPS. I've had phones that would switch off the GPS antenna (and leave it off) when the phone got low on power, so GPS could be disabled without the user intentionally disabling it.

The location screen in my phone's settings menu (Samsung Galaxy S5 mini) defines using GPS, wi-fi, and mobile networks to estimate your location as "high accuracy."  Yet using that mode, I can see results like this.

If the phone screen is hard to read, the arrow says 111 feet to the cache, accuracy of +/- 315 feet.  This was on flat land with moderate tree cover.  I'd expect this sort of inaccuracy in the middle of skyscrapers or a Swiss valley, but not in Tidewater Virginia.

(I recognize that having it close to the ground could throw it off, however, I set the phone down for the sake of the photo - it was reading similarly when I was holding it in my hand.)

I somehow don't believe this is "high accuracy" mode.  I am going to start using GPS only to see if that makes a difference.

[+kunarion]

5 minutes ago, hzoi said:

The location screen in my phone's settings menu (Samsung Galaxy S5 mini) defines using GPS, wi-fi, and mobile networks to estimate your location as "high accuracy."  Yet using that mode, I can see results like this.

If the phone screen is hard to read, the arrow says 111 feet to the cache, accuracy of +/- 315 feet.  This was on flat land with moderate tree cover.  I'd expect this sort of inaccuracy in the middle of skyscrapers or a Swiss valley, but not in Tidewater Virginia.

(I recognize that having it close to the ground could throw it off, however, I set the phone down for the sake of the photo - it was reading similarly when I was holding it in my hand.)

I somehow don't believe this is "high accuracy" mode.  I am going to start using GPS only to see if that makes a difference.

 

I get similar results on my HTC U11.  Two Samsung tablets, iPad Retina, and iPhone 5S were much better at placing me in a consistent spot.  So I guess it's an issue at least with an individual device, or something about a certain model.  I haven't tried shutting off "high accuracy mode", to deactivate one function of it such as "Bluetooth location".  But I noticed on my handheld GPSrs, shutting off WAAS and GLASNOS could at times improve precision.  I supposed the reason was that the device can run calculations faster if it has fewer things to calculate.  Or something.

[+noncentric]

I have a suspicion that the GPS sensors within cell phones might be less durable than those within GPSr's, but that might just be me?  My former cell phone, and LG Optimus Pro, seemed to get worse and worse with GPS location and I think it might be because it was dropped one too many times. For a while, I just thought it was just a matter of the +/- 30 feet variance that is not uncommon, but then Google Maps was telling me to take an exit off the freeway after I had already passed the exit. And it was telling me to turn on streets much later than expected, sometimes when I'd already passed the street.  My Samsung Galaxy S7 was working pretty well with caching in urban areas, but it's taken a couple drops lately and now it's starting to perform 'poorly' with driving directions as well.  My GPSr has taken quite a few drops onto hard surfaces, yet I haven't noticed any performance differences, so this might be another aspect of GPSr 'durability' to consider, beyond just the waterproof aspect.

[+JohnCNA]

22 hours ago, hzoi said:

I somehow don't believe this is "high accuracy" mode.  I am going to start using GPS only to see if that makes a difference.

I'd love to see an actual phone software/firmware engineer weigh in about how these very disparate readings interact. I would think a reading from a high-accuracy source like GPS would cause a different reading from a low-accuracy source like cell tower to be ignored instead of getting averaged in with the GPS data. But I wonder sometimes. 

I have always had good results when comparing accuracy between a Samsung GS6, GS8 and my Garmins. The few times I used both while placing a cache - setting both to average and settle for a good while - I got readings of .001 difference between the two.

After reading your post I checked my phone's settings and I see that I had misinterpreted the meaning of the "High Accuracy" setting to be GPS Only. You're right - High Accuracy turns everything on. Which doesn't really make sense to me. 

[+hzoi]

22 hours ago, kunarion said:

I noticed on my handheld GPSrs, shutting off WAAS and GLASNOS could at times improve precision.

By GLASNOS, do you mean EGNOS (European version of WAAS), or GLONASS (Russian GPS)?

I use WAAS/EGNOS on my Montana all the time and have not had issues.  I have, however, opted not to use GLONASS after this incident last year.

[+kunarion]

48 minutes ago, hzoi said:

By GLASNOS, do you mean EGNOS (European version of WAAS), or GLONASS (Russian GPS)?

I use WAAS/EGNOS on my Montana all the time and have not had issues.  I have, however, opted not to use GLONASS after this incident last year.

 

Yes, GLASNOST is "openness and transparency", a different Russian thing. 

I just now looked at the WAAS/EGNOS setting on my Garmin Oregon, and it's been "Off" for a couple of years, about 350 caches.  I shut it off one day to see if anything changed in regards to precision.  I'm guessing that it makes a difference on some places on the planet. 

My phone has no such setting.  As mentioned, it would be good to know how a wifi or a cell tower could affect precision.  Maybe with those being ground based, it helps the phone pin its location to a spot... the tower doesn't move, so a GZ that "moves" can be thrown out.  But then that means the phone will insist on one spot, which may be consistent (precise, always pointing to spot that the phone calculated), but not "accurate" (pointing to the real-life surveyed coordinates on the ground).  As for "Bluetooth", the only such signal in this forest is the headset I'm wearing, so it moves when I do.

Edited April 24, 2018 by kunarion

[+Lynx Humble]

On ‎23‎/‎04‎/‎2018 at 11:21 AM, hzoi said:

The location screen in my phone's settings menu (Samsung Galaxy S5 mini) defines using GPS, wi-fi, and mobile networks to estimate your location as "high accuracy."  Yet using that mode, I can see results like this.

If the phone screen is hard to read, the arrow says 111 feet to the cache, accuracy of +/- 315 feet.  This was on flat land with moderate tree cover.  I'd expect this sort of inaccuracy in the middle of skyscrapers or a Swiss valley, but not in Tidewater Virginia.

(I recognize that having it close to the ground could throw it off, however, I set the phone down for the sake of the photo - it was reading similarly when I was holding it in my hand.)

I somehow don't believe this is "high accuracy" mode.  I am going to start using GPS only to see if that makes a difference.

With my previous Samsung Galaxy S4 I had the same issues going in the woods I often had 30m/100ft margin of errors and my position playing pinball. Not very useful with dozens of trees...

But now I own a S7 and the GPS is really great and accurate.

On ‎20‎/‎04‎/‎2018 at 8:32 PM, Harry Dolphin said:

And, I guess, it depends on how one uses it?  Always wondered why the nearby kid's coords were so far off for his caches.  Ran into him at a mystery cache after an event.  He solved the puzzle.  We entered the coords and headed for the final.  He was sixty feet away when I found it.  

It's why I almost never run for a FTF when I saw a new username because it's common to be offset of 25m/80ft or more...

[+StumblinMonk]

So kind of a funny situation.  My Samsung S8 drifts around, used my Oregon 550 to place a few caches this past weekend (only one published so far) and i got 3 DNF and I suspect it is an accuracy issue.  I had a family member borrow this GPSr about a week back and he had to triangulate his position because he had doubts due to other markers in the area.    Now I need to use a different device to see how far off everyone was looking...

Looking at the marker on the map they should have all been close enough to find.

[+BAMBOOZLE]

Get a 78S.......its a 62S in a much better case that won't fall apart.

I have 3-62S, 1-64S, Oregon 450, and several Meridian units but the 78S is the best.

[+NYPaddleCacher]

On 5/14/2018 at 2:28 PM, BAMBOOZLE said:

Get a 78S.......its a 62S in a much better case that won't fall apart.

I have 3-62S, 1-64S, Oregon 450, and several Meridian units but the 78S is the best.

 

Sheesh.  How many GPS devices do you need?    It looks like the 78S is based off the old Garmin 76Cs .  The 76 was a basically a Garmin 60Cs but with a different case (which allegedly floats).  The 60Cx (or Csx) is probably the most popular handheld GPS used by geocachers ever made.  The price isn't outrageous either.   I had a 76Cx for several years and the only thing that I didn't like about it was that it's one of the larger consumer handheld GPS devices.  I have a Oregon 450 now and preferred the buttons over the touch screen.

 

[+Geopeps]

HOW DO I DOWNLOAD CACHES TO MY DELORME PN60? WITHIN THE LAST WEEK, I CAN NO LONGER DOWNLOAD THEM FROM MY APPLE COMPUTER,

[+IceColdUK]

On 20/05/2018 at 11:52 AM, Geopeps said:

HOW DO I DOWNLOAD CACHES TO MY DELORME PN60? WITHIN THE LAST WEEK, I CAN NO LONGER DOWNLOAD THEM FROM MY APPLE COMPUTER,

 

If I were you, I’d start a new thread for this discussion. :-)

[+NanCycle]

On 5/20/2018 at 4:52 AM, Geopeps said:

HOW DO I DOWNLOAD CACHES TO MY DELORME PN60? WITHIN THE LAST WEEK, I CAN NO LONGER DOWNLOAD THEM FROM MY APPLE COMPUTER,

 

Try searching for similar questions.  There are many open threads on this topic--not all related to DELORME PN60; many other GPS units are also affected.

[+Jayeffel]

is GPSr different from GPS? 

[+kunarion]

9 minutes ago, Jayeffel said:

is GPSr different from GPS? 

 

The orbital network of satellites may be differentiated from a hand-held receiver by calling the network "GPS", and the receiver "GPSr".

 

Most of the time, I can guess that a person with "a GPS" is talking about the hand-held device. So "GPS" informally can mean a user's handheld device, and create little confusion.

[+Jayeffel]

thanks