the right GPS

[CacheWolf]

can anyone help me I'm trying to find out if the Magellan Meridian gps is good for caching with?

[+geospotter]

The Meridian is an excellent GPS for caching (I use one myself). It has expandable memory, WAAS, and maps.

 

Whether it is the right GPS for you depends on your budget and your needs.

 

BTW, I'm also in western Mass.

[+Renegade Knight]

You can't buy a new hand held GPS that won't do you a good job geocaching.

 

You would be hard pressed to find an old handme down GPS that woulnd't do an ok job geocaching.

[+WalruZ]

It'll work fine.

 

What is the *right* GPS depends on what sort of geocacher you are, and until you've cached a little, nobody, including you, can answer that question.

 

Some cachers just go off on the odd saturday and find a cache or two. any old gps will do there.

 

Some have to go every 2 or 3 days. Still, don't need much.

 

Some cachers have to go every day or so, but they only hit 1, maybe 2 caches on any given trip. Really, even the cheapest unit is still ok.

 

Some people go ape sh*t and cache all the time. They cache in the morning, they cache at lunch, they cache on the way home, they cache on their way to the movies, they stop going to the movies and just cache. They quit their jobs because jobs interfere with time caching, and you need more time to get your average caches-per-day up. They cache on vacation, and pretty soon vacations just turn into caching trips. These OC people would have you buying the most expensive model and loading every cache in your 1/4 of the country into it, just so you could cache cache cache without having to, like, go home or anything.

 

MeThinks you'll be fine. Don't forget to waypoint the car.

[+Oat]

Is a Megellan 310 ok to use for finding caches? I was given one as a present and was hoping I could use it for this.

 

http://www.magellangps.com/en/products/product.asp?PRODID=94

 

Thanks.

[+jaywc7]

Well, this is certainly a great topic. Like Renegade Knight put it so perfectly. I believe really any GPS will do for GeoCaching. The only variable is of course the accuracy. One who is fairly new would benefit from accuracy, however accuracy increases $. I began my GPS experiences with an old-school Magellan Blazer 315. I think I bought it somewhere around 1997 or 8. I was doubtful that it would even make it past Y2K! (it did) I would suggest begining with a cheap GPS and upgrading when neccesary. I recently upgraded for the reason that I am a pilot, and flying with a 315 was just worthless (of course the aviation GPS's cost in the thousands!) I was debating over the Garmin Etrex Vista and the Magellan Sportrak Pro. There are simple little things which you want to be aware of, and really understand before you purchase. For instance, the Vista has buttons on the side! Whereas the Pro has them on the front. Little things like that prove to be important in the long run. Final Note: Be sure to thoroughly weigh all the pro's and con's before spending a cent...

 

A Serial Cacher never stops...

[+Camping Hoosiers]

I believe that the only measurable difference between all units are the features. My experience has been limited to a handfull of differenct kinds of Garmin units however I always have felt that the accuracy was very close between the least expensive and the higher end units. So yea, in my opinion I agree that ANY late model GPS will do a good job Geocaching.

 

see ya, jeff'