EPE on Magellan 315?

[Guest jamie]

ing still?

thanks

jamie w.

[Guest scott]

Welcome to one of the "features" of the M315. There is no way to turn off the auto-averaging. There are a couple of ways around it, neither of them are perfect.

 

1. Wrap your hand around the antenna until it loses lock. When you take your hand off you'll have a few seconds to get a snapshot reading, unfortunately its not always accurate.

 

2. Move! If you move over 2 mph (I think thats the #) it stops averaging.

 

This has been a sore spot with M315 users for quite awhile, and Magellan (as far as I know) hasn't addressed it yet, probably never will.

 

-scott

 

[This message has been edited by scott (edited 02-07-2001).]

[Guest scott]

Welcome to one of the "features" of the M315. There is no way to turn off the auto-averaging. There are a couple of ways around it, neither of them are perfect.

 

1. Wrap your hand around the antenna until it loses lock. When you take your hand off you'll have a few seconds to get a snapshot reading, unfortunately its not always accurate.

 

2. Move! If you move over 2 mph (I think thats the #) it stops averaging.

 

This has been a sore spot with M315 users for quite awhile, and Magellan (as far as I know) hasn't addressed it yet, probably never will.

 

-scott

 

[This message has been edited by scott (edited 02-07-2001).]

[Guest jamie]

ah, thanks! i guess the EPE would be, essentially, changing while it is auto-averaging anyway, but it would be nice to see the number move, just to get an idea. I guess, indeed, I'll just have to walk in circles around my caches. heh

jamie

[Guest taybri]

When you are standing still the averaging feature renders the EPE pointless. It averages the errors for as long as you stand still and produces what should be a very good position.

[Guest scott]

Yes, it should render it pointless. But I've seen it drift several meters while standing still. Was it way off when I stopped or did it get some error introduced while I was standing there? You just have to wait longer or force it to lose the lock and start over.

 

-scott

[Guest O-man]

Jamie- to give you an appreciation of alternatives, I have an Etrex and must take several readings then manually calculate the average position. Since all consumer GPS devices have a margin of error, having one that does this calc for you is a nice feature. I also have a feeling that the quadrifilar (sp?) antennae in the Magellan is a better receiver that the internal patch in the Garmin Etrex. Any body have any thoughts here?

[Guest Hamster]

I have an etrex, and yesterday I bought the magellan 315. One of the two units is either going to ebay or back to the store. I have been comparing them side by side. Normally, my Etrex does not lock on to satelites inside of my house, but woudn't you know it, when I want to test it, it does.

 

Anyway, I took them both in my car, put them in their "ideal" positions (etrex horizontal, 315 vertical) and the 315 obtained a lock very fast, the etrex never saw any birds. Function wise, I like the 315 better, for instance, it allows you to see your coordinates in two different systems/datums at once. So like, you can see your coordinates in dd mm.mmm in WGS84 and at the same time in UTM Nav27. Very usefull for map reading. The only thing bothering me is the fact that the readings on distance are in terms of miles. For example .05 miles, rather than in feet.

 

I'm very happy with the unit otherwise though. I have not gotten it wet, and I have not tested them both in the woods. As soon as i do, I'll let y'all know whats up. I like the averaging function.

[Guest doc_api]

I found with my 315 that if I just wave my arm with the unit in it that the averageing will stop momentarily, allowing me to see the EPE for a second. Gotta wave relatively fast, and watch at the same time that the unit is moving. I was getting an EPE of 0 or 3 feet, though, so don't know if this would work under less ideal conditions.