Toys Wanted, Money To Spend!!

[nobby.nobbs]

ok not a major dilema but i've got some cash to spend and want to upgrade from my geko 201. like look of 60c but not the price and have now seen might not be good idea to buy from usa due to map being wrong. also is it really that much better than etrex range. was resisting the pda option but not sure now. can i link my 201 to a pda and track myself on os maps on the pda? should i go for the extrex or 60c or god forbid go for a magellan sporttrak?

 

i hate making decisions especially that involve loads of cash. the easiest solution would be pda and link if that works. if not what unit could do that? 60c seems lots of cash without providing very good mapping unless you need street maps. is there not a unit that gives decent recreational maps?

 

i know, loads of questions but i defer to the collective experience for their comments.

 

cheers for any help.

[SlytherinAlex]

ok not a major dilema but i've got some cash to spend and want to upgrade from my geko 201. like look of 60c but not the price and have now seen might not be good idea to buy from usa due to map being wrong. also is it really that much better than etrex range. was resisting the pda option but not sure now. can i link my 201 to a pda and track myself on os maps on the pda? should i go for the extrex or 60c or god forbid go for a magellan sporttrak?

 

i hate making decisions especially that involve loads of cash. the easiest solution would be pda and link if that works. if not what unit could do that? 60c seems lots of cash without providing very good mapping unless you need street maps. is there not a unit that gives decent recreational maps?

 

i know, loads of questions but i defer to the collective experience for their comments.

 

cheers for any help.

Don't worry about the wrong basemap in the 60C. With 50odd Mb of mapping memory you can load a huge chunk of the UK in from Mapsource.

 

And the Magellan Sportrak, a fine piece of kit. Just a little slow on the uptake but once it settles, accuracy is teriffic. I've lost count of the number of times I've picked mine up after filling a log book in and it has been showing 6ft or less to the cache.

 

A.

[+Cave Troll and Eeyore]

The 60C/CS is a great unit.

We have put Garmins Roads and Recreation maps for the whole of England , Scotland & Wales into ours and it took up approx 34mb of memory.

R&R is the same as Metroguide except you dont get individual house numbers.

[+t.a.folk]

Is there any advantage searching for a cache with a top of the range G.P.S. if the cache being searched for was placed using a basic model G.P.S. ? This is a genuine quiry ,I'm not intenting to be tongue in cheek.

[+Pharisee]

Is there any advantage searching for a cache with a top of the range G.P.S. if the cache being searched for was placed using a basic model G.P.S. ? This is a genuine quiry ,I'm not intenting to be tongue in cheek.

I suspect that the only difference is that the 'top of the range' jobby has more bells and whistles, the accuracy is going to be exactly the same.

[+Pengy&Tigger]

I suspect that the only difference is that the 'top of the range' jobby has more bells and whistles, the accuracy is going to be exactly the same.

We were caching with Cave Troll and Joan last weekend. Mark and I had a 60CS and a 60C. Pengy and Joan had etrexs. Mark and I went in the wrong direction and Pengy and Joan went the right way.

 

Don't expect better accuracy by spending more money. You pay for the extra features.

 

T

[+Cave Troll and Eeyore]

We were caching with Cave Troll and Joan last weekend. Mark and I had a 60CS and a 60C. Pengy and Joan had etrexs. Mark and I went in the wrong direction and Pengy and Joan went the right way.

 

T

Perhaps it is because Pengy and I know the failings of our little Etrex's (recently I had to live without mine for two whole weeks while it was in the Garmen GPS hospital) the little Etrex is brilliant I think mine missed me as much as I missed it.

 

Unlike Tigger and Mark (Cave Troll) who are both totally awe inspired by their new 60c/cs's following blindly where love leads (cache what cache just watching the screen blinded to all else by the lovely colour scheme and gismo's).

 

Joan

[+Naefearjustbeer]

A fancy gps does have some advantages my 60cs is much better under tree cover, the etrex used to loose its signal quite easily. But saying that when I had a signal the etrex was fine. I just like fancy gadgets. The fancy unit has a altimeter and compass and lots of other thngs like a geocaching mode. But at the end of the day all you need is the arrow pointing at the location and it will do the job perfectly

 

To get back on topic if you want really good mapping go for a pda with memory maps. I dont think the 60cs maps compare in detail, They are good for road navigation though, Once you leave the road to start walking the gps maps are useless. Or if you are still struggling to spend your money you could always send it to me and I will spend it for you

[+MarcB]

I love my yellow base model SporTrak, only problem is the battery compartment which, without lubrication, can be difficult to extract.

MarcB

[+MarcB]

That sounded bad!

[nobby.nobbs]

your right that sounded both painfull and slightly worrying!!

 

don't worry i don't need help with the actual spending. i'm just trying to find out if the bells and whistles are really worth the extra cash. so far geko has got me to within searching distance of caches and the only ones i haven't found are due to as much me having a no-brainer moment than anything. to be honest too many bells and whistles will be wasted as it'll be too complicated to bother. mainly looking for more accurate better sat tracking than anything else.

i have my paper notebook with the details of all the caches i've done so far. antiquated but sentimental list.

 

if the overall opinion is that the extra cash not really going to improve my already high level of enjoyment of the sport i won't bother. lots of other things to spend cash on!

[+Pharisee]

I've been using an Etrex Legend since I started hunting wild tupperware. It's found me over 700 so far and still counting. The only 'bells and whistles' feature it has (if you ignore silly things like it telling me it's a good day for fishing) is the map feature. I've got it's paltry 8Mb of memory loaded with sections of MapSource Roads & Recreation and while it's reasonably OK for road navigation, I doesn't show footpaths or bridleways. I have the 'Track' permanently turned on. That's helped me on a number of occasions when I've become 'geographically challenged' and I've used my outward track on the map to find my way back. I have been considering an 'up-grade' to one of the new Legend C jobs but I'm still trying to justify it and failing miserably

[+Sue and Bernie]

Pharisee,

 

I've put a few comments down about the Vista C in another thread. Those comments would generally apply to the Legend too.

 

The colour screen is a great improvement naturally. Inclusion of sounds and alerts are very useful. Garmin have tidied up a lot of the other features too. The geocaching specific modes are good.

 

To fully exploit these new units, you have to feed them with City Select or City Navigator data. If you already have a spare "unlock" available (as I did), then these new eTrex units are a viable upgrade. We now effectively have a mini StreetPilot 3 on the handlebar of the pushbikes, auto-routing to cache locations and pinging loudly at every turn.

 

The 24 MB of our Vista C holds Norfolk, Suffolk, Essex, Kent and East Sussex - note London area omitted. Map changes are quick using USB but I suspect that the 8 MB memory of the Legend C would be restrictive in the amout of data you can have loaded.