newbie needs help with garmin etrex

[cayman]

I'm brand new to this sport,I just bought a etrex

and I can't figure out how to enter a waypoint of a cache. if I get a waypoint off the geocaching site do I type it in my gps unit? any help would be geatly appreciated. thanks

cayman

[enfanta]

I remember this confusion when I got my eTrex. Pull out the manual and take your time reading it but really, it's pretty simple. Go to the "set waypoint" screen (or something like that, sorry, don't have my GPSr here with me) and you'll get the "flag and finder" image. You will need to set an icon for the waypoint, name the waypoint and finally enter the coords for the waypoint. After you have done all this, you hit "ok" and it stores the way point for you.

 

The trickiest part was moving between all the buttons-- I still exit screens I meant to enter on.

 

Anyone else?

[HackAttack]

I'm not sure what type of etrex you have. However I know on the Legend and the Vista use your toggle to go to Main Menu. Then go to MARK(ENTER). Then toggle to the Lat/Long(ENTER). This should bring it up so you can toggle over and enter the lat/long. You can then also toggle to the waypoint name and change the name if you choose, ect. After you have entered the Lat/Long toggle down to Goto(Enter). This will bring up your navigation screen which will have an arrow telling you the way and how far you are from the waypoint.

Hope this helps. I didn't ask before I started geocaching and went out and found my first 80 just walking till the coords matched up (I was also using a blazer12 which only has 2 decimal places). Then someone showed me the goto feature. It sure made it a lot easier. Probably too easy

 

Also I would highly suggest you use easygps to just download your waypoints to your gps. It takes about 2 minutes to download and setup, but will save you a lot of time in the future.

 

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"Boredom is the state of one's mind"

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[HackAttack]

I'm not sure what type of etrex you have. However I know on the Legend and the Vista use your toggle to go to Main Menu. Then go to MARK(ENTER). Then toggle to the Lat/Long(ENTER). This should bring it up so you can toggle over and enter the lat/long. You can then also toggle to the waypoint name and change the name if you choose, ect. After you have entered the Lat/Long toggle down to Goto(Enter). This will bring up your navigation screen which will have an arrow telling you the way and how far you are from the waypoint.

Hope this helps. I didn't ask before I started geocaching and went out and found my first 80 just walking till the coords matched up (I was also using a blazer12 which only has 2 decimal places). Then someone showed me the goto feature. It sure made it a lot easier. Probably too easy

 

Also I would highly suggest you use easygps to just download your waypoints to your gps. It takes about 2 minutes to download and setup, but will save you a lot of time in the future.

 

====================================

"Boredom is the state of one's mind"

====================================

[triple6]

The yellow eTrex has a shortcut that lets you create a new waypoint quickly. Just press and hold the ENTER button until the flag guy comes up; press ENTER again to create it. Now you just need to do is edit the lat/long so that it's the same as the cache you want to find.

 

As with any new piece of equipment, it's worth it to at least skim the user manual. The eTrex is pretty user-friendly, so you'll probably only need to know which buttons are which.

 

Welcome to the obses^H^H^H^H^Hhobby.

 

Remember that you're unique - just like everyone else.

[Cache Canucks]

When you're marking a waypoint with the eTrex (or any other GPSr for that matter), you'll also need to make sure that you're using the same Lat/Long format when entering the coordinates as was used by whatever document you're taking the coordinates from. There's several possible formats with which the same set of coordinates can be expressed (similar to measuring the same amount of distance in either miles or kilometres) ...so you need to ensure that you're comparing 'oranges to oranges' when punching them into your GPSr. Check your manual for the specifics of how to toggle between 'Units of Measure'.

 

On my Vista, it goes something like this:

 

- Main Menu

- Setup

- Units

- Position Format