Waas And When To Use It

[+coldstream1]

Hi everyone,

 

I'm a geocaching newbie with a few finds under my belt, but I have a question about WAAS and when I should use it.

 

I have a Garmin Legend C GPSr with WAAS, and can choose to either enable or disable it. My question: if WAAS helps improve accuracy, why wouldn't you want it enabled all the time? I think it drains battery life faster, but other than that, is there any reason why I shouldn't just leave it enabled all the time?

 

Thanks for your help!

Edited December 15, 2004 by coldstream1

[+Renegade Knight]

I have a GPS V and I find WAAS slows down the refresh rate of my GPS. It's noticable and since I like it to update faster I keep it off.

 

There really is no reason to keep it off other than personal preference. If I had a faster GPS I'd probably leave it on.

[dsandbro]

From about the center of the conterminous U.S. the WAAS satellites are about 15-20 degrees above the horizon. If you are in a canyon bottom or have a mountain to the south of you higher than 20 degrees then having it turned on doesn't do you any good anyway. WAAS does not like heavy tree canopy either. Even under good conditions it can take up to twenty minutes for the GPSr to get a good lock on the WAAS and update the position.

 

I usually leave it off unless I need it on.

[+VisionQuest220]

I dunno, I think perhaps WAAS-enabled GPS devices are becoming the norm so that Geocachers and other GPS users can use the universal greeting "WAASup?".

 

Bwahahahahahahahaha!!!

[+Prime Suspect]

Hi everyone,

 

I'm a geocaching newbie with a few finds under my belt, but I have a question about WAAS and when I should use it.

 

I have a Garmin Legend C GPSr with WAAS, and can choose to either enable or disable it. My question: if WAAS helps improve accuracy, why wouldn't you want it enabled all the time? I think it drains battery life faster, but other than that, is there any reason why I shouldn't just leave it enabled all the time?

 

Thanks for your help!

It doesn't always improve accuracy, and can sometimes have the opposite effect.

 

If you have WAAS turned on, once you get WAAS data on enough satellites to calculate a position, it will use only those satellites, disregarding the rest. If the WAAS enabled satellites are in a poor configuration, you can end up with a less accurate calculation than if WAAS were turned off and all the available satellites were used.

 

If you've got a good, unobstructed view of the sky, you might want to turn it on. If you're moving in and out of tree cover, probably turn it off. Your GPS will only consider WAAS data to be valid for around 90 seconds.

[+tirediron]

I've found when 'caching in areas with WAAS availability that my experiences have been much like RKs. Things slow down, accuracy improvements are dubious at best, and under even moderate cover... forget it.

[+jollybgood]

I have a GPS V and I find WAAS slows down the refresh rate of my GPS.  It's noticable and since I like it to update faster I keep it off.

 

There really is no reason to keep it off other than personal preference.  If I had a faster GPS I'd probably leave it on.

Exactly. I have a 60CS keep WAAS turned on. I see no slow down in performance as I did with my old GPSV.

 

If you have a newer faster unit there's really no reason to turn it off unless you just don't want to use it for some reason.

 

I certainly have never experienced any of the odd behavior being described here. I cache in deep woods quite frequently and lose WAAS signals all the time with no ill effect or lose of accuracy. If my 60CS can't find enough WAAS satellites it goes for the normal ones. If it struggles determining which sattelites to go with I'm certainly not aware of it unless my accuracy swithches from 6 feet to 16 feet or whatever.

 

My advice...? Experiment with WAAS. Try finding a few caches with it turned on and with it turned off. Since there are so many differences between makes and models that's realy the only sure way to find out what works best for you,.

 

Me? I'm WAAS all the way. I haven't turned the option off since I bought my unit in June.

Edited December 19, 2004 by jollybgood