Etrax Legend Question

[Rhonlynn]

1. Do you guys tend to loose your downloaded maps when you change your batteries in your Etrax Legends?

 

2. Why is ittoday when I was out looking for the geocache, that my waypoint, when it got on 1 foot, I'd turn, and it'd be on 12 foot, then 3 foot at the next turn? I was standing, practicaly in one place, and my Satellite reception was within a 15 foot accuracy. I have WAAS enabled, but there were some trees. Do Caches sometimes get moved by people? I never did reach 0.0 on my Etrax, and I never found it. Twice, I've reached 0.0, and I ofund the Cache...the first time I did it, though, I had no idea what I was looking for, and didn't realize it'd be hid in a trash bag. haha...But, it lead me right to it. Today, no such luck. Why is that? --Rhonda

[Zuckerruebensirup]

I don't have the GPSr you mentioned, so I can't speak at all to the first point...but as for the second, keep in mind that when you look for something hidden at a given coordinate, you have to factor in both the error from your unit AND that of the person who placed the cache. (Those errors could either be cumulative, or cancel each other out to some extent.)

 

Also, we just did an interesting exercise at our first MIGO picnic, to test out the accuracy of the groups various GPSr's...and found the results to be very interesting. Over a couple hours time, the 'Master' unit got a new reading that was about 40' off from it's original auto-averaged 20 minute reading. And everyone else's agree with the new coordinates. It has made us wonder if the time of day (and resulting relative location of the actual satellites) is a factor.

 

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"I may be slow, but at least I'm sweet!"

[+RGS]

I've got a Legend and no, you won't lose any maps or stored data when you change batteries.

 

As far as the distances changing, that's normal for any GPS. You need to be moving to get accurate readings, so the closer you get to the cache, normally you slow down or stop. As I get within 50-75 feet of the cache, I pay attention to the compass arrow and try to keep that heading as the distance gets smaller. Normally you will never be at 0.0 when you're at the cache. Don't forget that the cache placer also has errors in his coordinates, so the error could easily be 40-50 feet off. Sometimes you can find it right off the bat and other times you need to get 100 feet away and try again, or even come back a different day.