76c Arrived...yay Quick Comparo To 60c

[+wickedsprint]

So my 76C arrived in the mail today...this is an incredible unit. If you are on the fence between a 60C or a 76C..highly recomend the 76C...if only for the basemap and additional memory. The 76C has the same basemap as a GPSV wereas the 60C has an even more rudimentary one..mainly only highways with the 60C. The basemap on this unit after some preliminary checks against my big paper road atlas appears to be spot on for every city I checked. (rand mcnally big pages) Plus the motorcycle mounts for the 76 series seem to be a little more secure. I just sold my 60C to a squadron buddy for a good price..hence why I am able to compare the two directly. The 115mb of topo should be enough for just about any possible geo cache within reason...lol

Edited August 18, 2004 by wickedsprint

[+Fenix6372]

Congrats on an excellent GPSr choice! I have the 76CS (couldn't pass up getting all the extra bells and whistles I could ) and I absolutely love it, not one thing I don't like about it. Has been excellent in heavy tree cover (had +/- 10 feet without an external last night!) as well as autorouting. Haven't had a chance to "test" the floating/watertight aspects of it, hopefully I never will Gotta love that 115 MB! I've only used up 21.6 MB around the DFW area, can't wait to plan a big trip and really see where it'll get me Congrats again!

[+wickedsprint]

Did you buy city select or another routable program..or will you just route on the basemap like me? I have a V as well, but the spare unlock went to the 60C *shrugs*

Edited August 18, 2004 by wickedsprint

[+Fenix6372]

I got an auto nav kit, so it came with City Select 5, if you have an older one you might think of upgrading to v6, only 75 bucks if I remember correctly... Talk to Garmin, several people have been able to get a free unlock or reduced rate just by explaining what happened, maybe they'll let you do that since you had the 60C for such a short time, who knows?

[Hankhan]

I used my 76CS under some very heavy tree cover this weekend (N Idaho) and it never lost lock. I was sure it would, some of the places I was wandering around in were dark because of the cover.

I autoroute using the basemap on mine. So far it's worked very well for what I want to do with it.

[latvija]

Since several of you have mentioned owning the V and autorouting with the basemap, I've a question...

 

I recently travelled from Topeka, KS to Memphis, TN. There wasn't room for all the maps so I just loaded parts of KC, St. Louis and Memphis.

 

I'd thought the V could mix-and-match a route from Mapsource and basemap. Unfortunately, it never could find a route. This isn't a difficult stretch either - I70 East to St. Louis and then I55 South to Memphis.

 

Anyone else able to get it to create routes from a mix of Mapsource and basemap?

 

latvija

[+wickedsprint]

I had detail maps loaded on my V for the area of austin and parts of california when I drove from florida to california. It did fine. The only part that gets confusing in big cities is jumping the guna nd turning too early because one block length is hard to see ont he screen unless you're zoomed in real well..plus the V tookforever to recalculate a route..so alot of times I would just switch to the atlas until I got back on the highway. About the only thing I trust an autorouting gps for is big picture..what part of the state am I in exactly..and eta to final. For that, the gpsV/76c series works flawless since they have an adequate basemap for that purpose.

Edited August 18, 2004 by wickedsprint

[daetripper]

My V does fine with routing even when I go in and out of detailed map areas.

It always finds a route. Sometimes when using the basemap only, it routes me out of the way instead of a direct route because it doesn't recognize that a shorter more direct or newer road is there.

 

With detailed maps loaded, the V and 76CS are excellent tools to take you from point A to point B.

Just remember the GPS can't tell if a road is closed or under construction or if an exit ramp is closed or moved etc.

You still have to keep eyes opened and navigate to some extent.

[+Team DEMP]

Anyone else able to get it to create routes from a mix of Mapsource and basemap?

 

Well, it depends what you mean by "create routes". The V definitely can route you from A to B using a mix of detailed (download City Select) or base maps. What you cannot do is create a route in MapSource, download the route to the V and try to use it unless every map segment the route will go over is also loaded.

 

So for example, I go from Northern NJ to Wilmington NC - a distance of 635 miles. I load in I think 1 detailed map segment around my house and the rest of 19MB covers the area around Wilmington, NC. I can go to the final destination and the V will route me there. I can't select a pre-defined route downloaded from my PC.

 

You can also look at http://www.elsinga.net/index.html?page=gps5faq and specifically HowTo: create a manual route with via points that follows roads which explains a work around by creating a manual route on the unit by adding specific waypoints. Of course, this is all only necessary if the V doesn't take the route you want, such as (for me) going through Wash DC instead of around it.

 

David

[latvija]

I like the ETA feature on unfamiliar trips. I've always found it accurate to within a minute and it makes for a nice answer to "Are we there yet?"

 

Unfortunately, it just never figured out a route though I had it trying all the way from KC to St. Louis.

 

I doubt we're all that far away technology-wise from subscription services for GPS which DO advise of construction, accidents and such. That we don't have it yet in large metro areas is probably more one of contractual agreements than technological gaps.

 

latvija