"Make Do" Dad's Famous Words

[thcri]

Two years ago I purchased a Garmin E-Trex Vista. The reason I bought it was because I thought I knew a lot about GPS's. Yeah and a friend of mine told me what he bought so I had to out-do him.

 

Yeah right, his five minutes of deciding what was best and mine ten minutes of figuring out what is best got me the Vista. Not saying I would have bought something elso but I sure wished I knew about this discussion group before I bought mine. So now I have it, lets use Dad's famous words and see if we can fine tune the Vista to my needs.

 

Here is what I mostly do with it. I use it in the car for traveling, I like the exit features to tell me what is up ahead. I like making waypoints of places I have been and really love. I use it on my ATV when out in the woods. And last I now have taken an interest in Geo-Caching.

 

My frustrations are when Geo-Caching and using the Go-To feature it will point to the direction I am suppose to head. Such as 20 feet to the north. As soon as I start heading to the north maybe by 2 or 3 feet it will tell me that I have to go south 5 feet? Yes I am under trees, so is this normal when under trees? But I have found this trouble even when I am in the open. Is there a good set-up to use to make this more accurate. I have set out on 4 caches so far. Two I have found pretty easy but the hints have helped me more than anything. In other words I get close then use the hints to get to where I need to be. One Cache was awful tough and today I was on one that was a 1 and a 1 and I could not find it. It was suppose to be under a log, I found a log but nothing was under it. Today I did have some tree cover but really struggled with the GPS sending me in a direction only to tell me I am going the wrong way.

 

I have this GPS and really don't want to spend the money on another one and if someone out there has the Vista and found a great way to set it up it would be appreciated.

 

murph

[Lancer-Deuce]

I have the same issue, but I have a Magellan SportTrak Pro. It does a great job when I'm moving, but when walking and am close to a target point, its accuracy gets way off. Now I know this isn't military precision bombing, and the instructions say that this is good up to 3 meters, but I've had the unit tell me I'm 5 feet away and then a couple minutes later tell me I'm 50 feet away and I'll I've done is turn in circles.

[+Team Lyons]

Here's what I do when my "yellow" etrex does what you described. I go to "waypoints select the one I need again and press "goto" You may have to do it a few times but it's what works best for me. I have a Garmin V on the way I'm hoping that this unit will be better in the bush. HTH.

[peter]

quote:

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Originally posted by Lancer-Deuce:

I have the same issue, but I have a Magellan SportTrak Pro. ...the instructions say that this is good up to 3 meters.

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Remember that the 3 m spec is for situations where you have an unobstructed sky and good reception of the WAAS corrections. Neither of these may be true where you're looking so the accuracy of any GPS receiver may not be that good.

 

One technique to use when looking for something hidden where reception is poor (whether from cliffs, buildings, dense trees, etc.) is to back off a bit to nearby spots with better reception. If there's a clearing to the east of the cache, go there and get the bearing and distance (let the GPS settle for a minute of so first). Let's say it's 100' at 95 degrees. Sight in that direction (using the elec. compass of the Vista/Plat/76S or a separate compass) and remember where the 95 deg. line goes. Now look for another spot with a clearing; maybe to the north. Go there and get a bearing and distance; say 60' at 170 deg.

 

Now by going about 60' along the 170 degree line and going 100' along the 95 degree line you should get to the same area both ways (if you don't try to find a third clearing). Conduct a search of all likely hiding places in that area.

[+Schnauzer Patrol]

I've had the same problem with the GPS V giving strange readings when I am very close and standing still. The latest occurance was when I was standing on top of a 9000' mountain with no trees to obstruct. I had good reception. I was within 10' of the cache but couldn't find it and was getting various distance and direction readings. I walked away from the cache location a few yards and did a little circle. The unit then homed in and took me right to the cache. In fact, I was standing on a pile of boulders and the cache was hidden in a pocket between boulders about 5 feet directly below me. The GPS V acurracy was reporting 4 feet - best I've ever seen.

[+Alan2]

Once you're that close, the inherent error of 10 or 20 feet will cause the bouncing in the arrow. As you "pas" the actual point, which is changing due to the error, the arrow will start pointing somehwere else.

 

Once you get that close, start looking around for the cache and forget the arrow.

 

Alan

[+Searching_ut]

Learning how to read and follow a GPS unit to an exact location is probably as much art form as anything else. I have multiple units, and have found my eTrex Legend works as good, if not better than anything else.

 

What you describe is actually quite normal. I was in a tree lined canyon awhile back, and my sportrak was suffering this problem in the exteme. At one time, time it said I only had 75 feet to go to the north. I climbed to that point, and it said I needed to head .31 miles west. I was obviously getting severe multipath reception (Signals bouncing off the canyon walls). Ended up moving around to find spot where I thought the readings were good, then triangulating with a compass.

 

Just get out there and keep looking. In no time at all, you'll be doing great. As for the Vista, I personally consider it about the best unit on the market for handheld use.

[+Team Lyons]

quote:

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Originally posted by Searching_ut:

Learning how to read and follow a GPS unit to an exact location is probably as much art form as anything else. I have multiple units, and have found my eTrex Legend works as good, if not better than anything else.

 

What you describe is actually quite normal. I was in a tree lined canyon awhile back, and my sportrak was suffering this problem in the exteme. At one time, time it said I only had 75 feet to go to the north. I climbed to that point, and it said I needed to head .31 miles west. I was obviously getting severe multipath reception (Signals bouncing off the canyon walls). Ended up moving around to find spot where I thought the readings were good, then triangulating with a compass.

 

Just get out there and keep looking. In no time at all, you'll be doing great. As for the Vista, I personally consider it about the best unit on the market for handheld use.

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Now that I've put some thought into it, I don't think geocaching would be as fun if the gpsr would lead you to the exact location of the cache. It's anoying when your pressed for time and your gpsr is going crazy but like you said it's kinda like an art or a game you play with the gpsr itself.

Cheers.

[Jedda]

But how impressed are you with your gps when it takes you to the exact spot , doest happen a lot, but its a good feeling when it does(makes up for the times it takes you nowhere near it)