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Magellan Palm companion


Guest gst

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Perhaps someone who owns a Magellan Palm companion can answer some of these questions:

 

Are you generally happy with the unit? Is it durable, accurate?

 

One of my concerns is taking it in the backcountry for longer trips. I know that you can carry extra batteries for the Magellan, but what do you do if your Palm battery is dead? Or can the Palm run off of the power supply of the Magellan?

 

I use my current GPS in conjunction with my laptop connected by a serial cable. Can the Magellan companion connect to a laptop?

 

Thank you.

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Guest swangner

>Are you generally happy with the unit? Is

>it durable, accurate?

 

It's fairly durable, and pretty accurate. The most fragile part of it will be your Palm handheld.

 

>One of my concerns is taking it in the

>backcountry for longer trips. I know that

>you can carry extra batteries for the

>Magellan, but what do you do if your Palm

>battery is dead? Or can the Palm run off of

>the power supply of the Magellan?

 

No, the Palm won't run of the power supply of the Magellan unit.

 

>I use my current GPS in conjunction with my

>laptop connected by a serial cable. Can the

>Magellan companion connect to a laptop?

 

No, it's specifically designed physically to clip onto the Palm unit, and doesn't have a standard PC serial connector.

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Guest nekosoft

I've got the Magellan springboard GPS for my Handspring, and it's aparently the same receiver as the PalmOS model. At last two caches I've found the unit read I was between 9 and 25 feet away from the waypoint I marked, so accuracy isn't spot on, at least in my unit.

 

As far as really good PalmOS gps aps go, the heavy hitter is Delorme's Solus Pro. It's not terribly spendy, but so far it seems pretty good. The software I got with the Magellan is a Quo Vadis product, if I'm not mistaken, and it seems good. The one to watch for is the freeware Mapopolis, which is rumored to incorporate GPS communication into the next release, which would bring that program on par with the software in the considerably more expensive Geode springboard gps.

 

nekosoft

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Guest swangner

neko, the theoretical accuracy of any GPS receiver is 10 meters (33 feet), so being 9 or 25 feet away from a marked waypoint is well within these limits. BTW, this is a limitation of the entire GPS system, not the individual receiver. For me, it's proven to be as accurate as any other receiver I've used.

 

Also, what you have to realize is that at least part of the error in position may be due to inaccuracy on the part of the cache hider when recording the position.

 

[This message has been edited by swangner (edited 02-28-2001).]

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Guest gpbard

I have a Magellan Companion. More money will buy more features but I find it satisfactory.

 

I tried Solus Pro 2 but it did not work consistently well with my Magellan and Delorme agreed that there were incompatibilities and I have return the program to them.

 

Rand McNally Street Finder has possibilities I think. Also, as one user mentioned, MapQuest would be great if they set it to work with gps.

 

I am buying extra memory for my Visor so I can load in more maps from the Magellan Map Companion program. As it is, it would be difficulty to have many maps loaded if you are using the Magellan Map Companion program for cross country trips.

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Guest chriscmoor

I am just getting started in geocaching. I currently use a Palm VIIx and would love to have an add-on GPS module for it, especially, since its web clipping capabilities is like having an unlimited map database at my fingertips. Is the Magellan unit compatible with the Palm VIIx? Where would I find such a unit if one does exist?

 

------------------

Chris Moore

Montgomery, AL

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