HCx to 30x issues

[+paleolith]

I recently bought an eTrex 30x to replace my old HCx, which had failed. I'm still trying to get behavior I liked on the HCx to appear on the 30x. I realize I'm asking several questions at once, but I think it's better than starting several threads, and the questions do all relate to migration.

 

It doesn't help that since my HCx totally failed, I can't examine it to figure out how I did stuff.

 

I use the GPSr mostly for bicycling at the moment -- also for geocaching but my issues relate to bicycling. Aging eyes and the placement of the device about 3' from my eyes (recumbent cycle) make it hard to see.

 

#1) On the HCx, I had a screen set up with three large-number fields: distance, speed, and time of day. The first two are fine on the 30x. On the HCx, I had time of day set up as HH:MM and it displayed as large as the other numbers. On the 30x, I have not been able to find a HH:MM option, only hh:mm:ss, and it displays small even on the large-numbers format. Is there a way to get a large time of day display?

 

#2) The HC had a way to automatically save tracks to the microSD card. I've put that microSD into the 30x but it doesn't seem to use it. After just a few hours of riding, it says my track storage is already half full. Very odd for a modern device to be so limited, and if I go out for a week with no ability to download, it'll apparently fill up. Is there any solution?

 

#3) I get an enormous amount of what I'll call "scatter" in tracks. (I would call it jitter except that Garmin uses that term for something else.) When I'm stopped, the track "moves" about every 25-45 seconds (roughly). Sometimes 15', sometimes 1', sometimes even 0'. I end up spending a lot of time in Basecamp to delete these clusters of scatter, and it's enough that I can build up significant mileage if I'm stopped for an hour. I thought I remembered a sensitivity setting for this on HCx, but I don't remember where and can't find any such thing on the 30x. The HCx did this a little, but at least an order of magnitude less. How can I deal with this?

 

Thanks for any and all help,

 

Edward

[+Atlas Cached]

1. my quick search did not return any option for HH:MM.

2A. All modern Garmin GPSr record all tracks to internal memory. You can manually move them to the microSD card when connected to a computer.

2B. What are your track recording options set to? (Setup > Tracks > Record Method/Interval)

3. See 2B. If not already, try using method 'distance' and test your results with multiple distances between 15 ft. and 30 ft.

 

More info here.

[+Mineral2]

Is there a dashboard called "Status?" 

On my Oregon, the "Status" dashboard will display the time in large numbers as only hour and minute, no seconds.

I'll  recommend that if you mostly use your GPS as a bike computer, you might be better served with a bike computer. Not that the eTrex 30x won't work as one, but the Garmin (or other brand) bike computers do have a bigger screen designed for displaying your data and maps in an easy to read manner while cycling. The downside is that they don't have geocaching abilities built in, so if you geocache by bike, you'll probably want to carry both with you.

Since you mentioned your aging eyes, maybe a bigger screen would serve you better? In which case if you really do want an all-in-one handheld, I'll just put a plug in for the Oregon series - 600 or 700. Their touch screen design and larger (but not too large) screen makes for a nice bike computer.

[+Atlas Cached]

The Oregon 6x0/7x0 series do make nice Bike Computers! I purchased an additional 7x0 just for my bicycle!