Vista C Questions

[canyonlander]

Hi-- My Vista C has been eating batteries alive. I think I've been getting less than 5 hours from the battery life. I realize that I can manage it best by turning off the compass, turning off WAAS, and watching the backlight display level. BUT, I bought it for those features and it's a hassle to navigate through all the menus to selectively turn various features on and off. The display looks really dark unless the backlight is turned on and I wanted this unit because of WAAS. Do I have to disable lots of features on this GPS to get the advertised battery life? This GPSr goes throught batteries faster than any other small electronic device I've ever owned.

 

Also, I use MapSource to download waypoints into the GPSr. Even though I don't use the routing features of MapSource, I still get turn by turn routing in my VistaC. The routing info keeps refreshing on my GPSr and it makes it impossible to geocache with that feature getting in the way. I don't want routing information, only just the waypoints, but haven't been able to find a way to turn the routing off. Not only that, but I'm not sure why the routing info gets downloaded from MapSource if I don't use the routing tool. Any ideas on how to use MapSource without the routing info popping up? Thanks so much

Edited December 1, 2004 by canyonlander

[SergZak]

Also, I use MapSource to download waypoints into the GPSr. Even though I don't use the routing features of MapSource, I still get turn by turn routing in my VistaC.

 

What MapSource product are you using? City Select v6? MetroGuide USA v6? City Select has the option of transferring route calculation data to the GPSr. Make sure you deselect this option on the very bottom (you may have to scroll down to see it) of the "Maps" tab. MetroGuide does not have this option since the maps do not contain route calculation data. If the GPSr still autoroutes when using MetroGuide, it's doing so on the unit's built-in basemap which *does* contain autorouting data regardless of what maps youve uploaded to the GPSr. To avoid this, be sure and do a direct route goto. When you select the waypoint you want to go to, simply select the "Off Road" option. This will route you directly to your waypoint without autorouting on the basemap or detail maps. You can also autoroute (follow road) as close to the waypoint as possible, then recalculate the route (menu key/recalculate/off road) using the off road option.

 

As for the battery life, I've found that having the backlight level set to 30% is adequate. If you need it higher than that for a few seconds or so, use the the following shortcut: with the backlight off, press and release the power button once to set the backlight to a preset level setting that you can set in the setup/display menu options or press and release the power button twice to bring the backlight up to its full level.

 

Turn off the compass when you don't need it. Simply press the Quit/Compass key for longer than 3 seconds.

Edited December 1, 2004 by SergZak

[+Searching_ut]

As mentioned by SergZak, when you select a waypoint to "goto", tell the receiver to go off road to eliminate the road routing issue.

 

As for the batteries, 5 hours seems short even if you're running the backlight constant. It also sounds like you might be using standard alkaline batteries, which aren't a good choice for high drain devices like a digital camera, or GPS unit with the backlight on. If you run any of the newer NiMh batteries of 2000 Mah or higher, you should get quite a bit more battery life than that. I generally set my backlight to power down after 30 seconds, but use it fairly often (Just touch any button or the clickstick to turn it back on) Doing this, I get well over 12 hours on a battery charge, which is about the longest I've used my unit on any given day. I haven't really tried to compute battery usage over multiple days.

 

Regarding turning the compass on and off, all you need to do is press and hold the upper right hand button for a couple seconds and it will toggle the electronic compass on or off (The button is the one with the compass looking symbol printed on the face of the receiver)

[canyonlander]

Wow, you guys are great. Thanks so much for the detailed information...

 

Pat