Directions + Caching

[+balidoy]

I posted here before, did some research, and have more questions now.

 

I am looking for a GPS device that will let me do 2 things:

 

1) Get driving directions to points of interest in the greater Los Angeles area, preferably with rerouting in case I miss a turn. I assume I would need to purchase software in addition to the device, and that’s fine with me.

 

2) Geocaching. I want to find caches starting at my home address, which is in Orange County, CA.

 

What brand/model would be best? I would prefer to have just one device that can handle both tasks. Does such an animal exist?

 

I will appreciate your advice.

Edited February 24, 2005 by balidoy

[+Renegade Knight]

In the Garmin line you need Mapsource City Select and pick your GPS.

 

eTrex Legend c

eTrex Vista c

60c or 60cs

76cs

GPS V. (which comes with City Select)

 

Those are the handheld GPS units that route. Magellan has some as well, but I'll defer to someone who knows the line.

 

Where you live has so many roads that it will take a lot of memory to load your maps. Again someone from the area will have to tell you how much memory you will need. That may cause a couple of the GPSs in the list to be dropped.

[+cudlecub]

I own and would suggest the Garmin 76c. It does auto routing and has the memory to hold the large volume of map data for your area. You would have to purchase additional software to have a detailed map with the unit.

[+BlueDeuce]

Within the geocaching realm and auto-routing, 76CS and City Select.

[+briansnat]

I'd say the Garmin Map 76C(S) or map 60C(S). They do auto routing and are fine all around receivers. Since you are in an area that has a lot of map data the 105 megs of memory in the 76C(S) should easily handle the region and then some. The 56 megs of memory in the 60C(S) should also be sufficient for sufficient for your area. I have City Select for all of northern NJ, NYC, most of Long Island and southeastern NY state and part of CT loaded in my 60CS, with room for Mapsource Topo for those areas as well. I'm guessing that area is similar in size and population to Orange County/LA

 

If you are on a budget the GPS V may be the way to go. Its well under $300 these days and it comes with the mapping software included, which makes it an incredible bargain. City Select is an additional $120 or so. The GPS V is great for geocaching and finding your way around, but the limited memory could be an issue in a place like Orange County. For that reason I'd stay away from the Legend C and Vista C as well.

 

The Garmin software handles re-routing very well when you miss a turn.

Edited February 24, 2005 by briansnat

[+NightPilot]

What I use is a PDA (Palm Tungsten T3) and a Garmin Legend. The basic yellow eTrex would do as well, as would a basic Magellan. I use the Garmin alone for finding the cache, and connect it via a cable to my Palm which runs Mapopolis. Mapopolis gives me color maps of the entire US, turn by turn voice directions, autorouting and autorerouting if I miss a turn or just decide to go a different route. No need for a PC, ever. The Palm costs about $400, but it's often on sale for much less these days, if you can find one. Just make sure you get one with the universal connector, if you buy a different model. the Tungsten E won't work for this, nor will any of the Zire models except for the Zire 71, which will work. The T5 is problematic, because it has a different connector, and I haven't seen any cables for it. Mapopolis is $149, including a 1GB SD card, or you can buy smaller areas for less. I get my driving directions, then when I get to the parking spot I disconnect the two units and use the GPS alone. Works for me.

 

Edit: Mapopolis also runs on PPC, but the NavCard option is currently only available for Palm. That may change as time goes by.

Edited February 24, 2005 by NightPilot

[+Sputnik 57]

For grins, I grabbed the City Select maps for the triangle from Grover Beach on the coast, over to Barstow, and down to the border around Tia Juana. The total is 52.1MB, which would fit in a 60C or 60CS easily, but not into a Legend C. The 76CS may be more than you need. Then again, who can argue with more memory (unless the size of the unit matters)?

 

How much did you want to spend?

[+woggie]

I am using the Garmin Quest and love it. It comes with City Select so we will get all of the routing options while driving and it works well for caching at around $500. I am new to caching but have not had any issues using the Quest to do this. I may look at getting a second "lower end" GPSr to use with the Quest but am still on the fence about doing that. The main reason I am thinking of a second unit is so I don't damage my Quest while looking for a cache, it has come close to a couple of falls and almost went swimming! I know the Quest is somewhat "new" and the opinions on its effectiveness for caching differ but from my limited caching it works great.

[+balidoy]

Thanks to all who replied! It was very helpful.

 

I am leaning toward the Garmin GPSMAP 60C because of its portability and decent amount of memory. A few days ago I went over to my local REI store and played with one for a moment, and I liked the feel and look of it. The quality of the display is amazing, no glare at all. Of course that was inside the store. Also I am partial to color, just a personal preference. Looks like I can get it at amazon for about $445 including City Select.

 

I will post again if I have more questions. This forum is great!

Edited February 24, 2005 by balidoy

[+robert]

I use the 60CS with CitySelect and give it a huge THUMBS UP!

[+briansnat]

The quality of the display is amazing, no glare at all. Of course that was inside the store

 

Believe it or not, its actually better when you get it out in the sun. It brightens instead of fading like so many color screens on other devices.

[+OccidentalErrant]

Here is a site that will help you as well as the posts by other members here.

 

http://www.gpsinformation.net

 

[+IV_Warrior]

With the Magellan Meridian Series and Mapsend DirectRoute software you get turn by turn directions and basically unlimited Map memory. Need more storage space for maps? Get a bigger SD card, or another one. The units have been said to work with the 1 GB SD cards, which should be more than enough to handle the maps you'll want to load.

[+MisterNixter]

I bought my 60CS for geocaching, but found it works so well for trip routing and finding my way from one place to another that I no longer use my laptop and DeLorme GPS unit.

[+balidoy]

Woogie,

I was not aware of the Quest until you drew my attention to it. Looks like I can get it for the same amount (about $450 from amazon) I would pay for the 60C+map software. And if I am not mistaken, the city select map comes included in the Quest's price. So now I have a little more comparing to do...

 

IV Warrior,

I will check out the Magellan Meridian Series also.

 

Thanks again to all who replied!

Edited February 26, 2005 by balidoy

[+Renegade Knight]

Woogie,

I was not aware of the Quest until you drew my attention to it. Looks like I can get it for the same amount (about $450 from amazon) I would pay for the 60C+map software. And if I am not mistaken, the city select map comes included in the Quest's price. So now I have a little more comparing to do...

 

IV Warrior,

I will check out the Magellan Meridian Series also.

 

Thanks again to all who replied!

Can you drop the quest into the rocks and have it come out as well as normal GPS?

[+briansnat]

Woogie,

I was not aware of the Quest until you drew my attention to it. Looks like I can get it for the same amount (about $450 from amazon) I would pay for the 60C+map software. And if I am not mistaken, the city select map comes included in the Quest's price. So now I have a little more comparing to do...

 

IV Warrior,

I will check out the Magellan Meridian Series also.

 

Thanks again to all who replied!

Can you drop the quest into the rocks and have it come out as well as normal GPS?

Quest has some limitations for geocaching. It doesn't have a field replaceble battery (from what I understand), which can be a problem. If you're halfway through a day of geocaching and your unit conks out when you're 3 miles from your car, you're SOL.

 

Also, the screen doesn't re-orient it self for handheld and dashboard use like the GPS V does, meaning that the screen is facing the wrong way when you're using the unit in your hand.

 

IV Warrior,

I will check out the Magellan Meridian Series also.

 

 

The Magellan Meridians are nice units, but they don't autoroute as well as Garmin units. If you miss a turn with a Garmin, it knows it and automatically recalculates the route. With the Magellans, if you miss the turn they get confused and you have to start over at "go to" again, which can be an inconvenience while driving.

[+diverhank]

I am leaning toward the Garmin GPSMAP 60C because of its portability and decent amount of memory. A few days ago I went over to my local REI store and played with one for a moment, and I liked the feel and look of it. The quality of the display is amazing, no glare at all. Of course that was inside the store. Also I am partial to color, just a personal preference. Looks like I can get it at amazon for about $445 including City Select.

I'd consider getting a Garmin Street Pilot 2610 for getting to the street nearest the cache waypoint and a Garmin Legend for caching. I use the SP2610 for this purpose to great effect. I can create a route with geocache waypoints as via points that auto-sorts to minimize distance and I get voice guidance with turn by turn direction and great map display to each of the cache waypoint. I've also got touchscreen control and a remote control which is great while driving. The whole thing costs a little more but well worth it.

 

If you want one that does both get the Quest. If you don't mind the lack of robustness and waterproofing, the IQue 3600 is even a better solution when used with a software called Cachemate. You have a complete description of each cache, complete with hints, past logs that you can sort per distance or whatever, you can mark it found with date and time, make notes...and best of all you can navigate to a cache you choose from the list. I would pay a lot of money for a ruggedized, waterproofed Ique. This would be the ultimate street navigator/caching GPSr.

 

The 60S is great except imho is very lacking when it comes to street navigation when compared to the SP2610 or even the Quest.

[+balidoy]

How do you use the Quest for geocaching? I downloaded its manual, but did not see an option for setting a waypoint with longitude/latitude.

[+Blind Avocado]

I live in Corona just across the OC border. I have 60c with city select, and with the 56 megs of memory I can get all of southern California from the Mexico border all the way up to Oxnard. I drive all over LA, Orange and Riverside counties for my work and it has not let me down yet. The only problem is with 1000 waypoints in this high cache density area I can only load caches in about a 23 mile radius.

[+robert]

The Magellan Meridians are nice units, but they don't autoroute as well as Garmin units. If you miss a turn with a Garmin, it knows it and automatically recalculates the route. With the Magellans, if you miss the turn they get confused and you have to start over at "go to" again, which can be an inconvenience while driving.

I don't think that's completely accurate. IIRC, on my buddy's Meridian, you have to hit menu and recalculate, while on my 60CS it does it automatically. You don't need to start from GO again, just menu->recalculate. Something like that.

[+Alan2]

Here's another option. I use a Pocket PC with over 3,000 caches loaded out to about 100 miles. The NYC area is crowded like LA. You're realy not limited to quantity due to the CF card whih has 256M. When driving with Mapopolis, I get full voice and visual autonavigation prompts on a great color screen twice the size of a stand-alone GPS that only gives you beeps for turns like the 60. It has the latest street maps from NavTeq. The cache icons are overlaid on the Mapopolis street maps so you can autonavigate from you girlfriend's house to the cache.

 

In the woods I usually use my Vista with Garmin's Topo loaded. I no longer use Metroguide or Roads and Recreation because of Mapopolis. So there's plenty of room to load the smaller Topo files. Although I can hook up my Vista to the PPC with a cable to provide the satellite info, I have a separate CF slot GPS that slips into the PPC. It's easier to handle that way.

 

With the PC I've gone paperless as well. I no longer print out the cache info. And I use the PPC for work since it has Outlook loaded for appointments, TO DO's telephone contact lists, etc and games. I use it to copy HTML, Excel and Word and other files from my desktop. It's a mini-Windows based computer.

 

It's actually not mandatory to use a separate GPS in the woods but if you don't I would get a shockproof and waterproof case for your PPC. I can store pictures of parks trail maps and 24K topo maps from National Geographic. It'll show your location on a 24K topo map in the woods better than any GPS. The downside is you get about 3 hrs of battery so a spare battery or cheap backup GPS would be smart to have anyway.

 

Good luck on whatever you chose. I'm sure you'll have fun regardless of your selection.

Edited February 26, 2005 by Alan2

[+woggie]

Balidoy,

 

I am sure you will get a lot of opinions on what GPSr to get, I have the Quest and I like it. It gives me the most flexability for use while on trips and caching. I get the voice directions while I am driving and with a quick change in the routing options I am able to use it to navigate to a cache. Does it have limitations, sure it does, but given the price and functionality you get with it to be able to use it in "both worlds" I would recommend it. As briansnat pointed out it does not have a field replaceable battery so that "could" be an issue. The most I have used mine on battery, without dropping it in the charger, is about (9) hours and it still had juice left. It charges pretty quick in the car/home charger. The one concern I have will be how well the battery holds a charge later down the road. The screen orientation is not a huge issue, IMHO, it is just different then the other ones. I hold it in the palm of my hand and have no problems navigating.

 

You have a number of good choices in a GPSr that will meet your needs. I happened to chose the Quest to meet my travel/driving needs and caching needs all in one unit. It has the basemap built in, comes with City Select to get the detailed area maps, and has enough internal storage to hold a lot of maps, and it does not give me grief when I miss a turn! Well, not too much! Good luck on your choice, I am sure whatever you decide on will be great.

 

On a side note, to Renegade Knight, I have actually dropped it while caching. It bounced off a couple of rocks and landed right in a big puddle of water, about had a heartattack. I pulled it out, cleaned it up, and kept on trucking. Don't want to make a habit of that though!

[HIPS-meister]

My Dad purchased a top-end Garmin, I think the StreetPilot 2620. It has a little hard-disk inside with all the US maps and room to spare. So every now and then I get a call from the RV and I ask 'em where they are today.

 

When you are doing street navigation, especially in LA what you want is a nice, bright display and a loud talker. You want a fast CPU that can keep up with you and pretend, at least, to think on its feet. (Radar would be nice. )

 

You might pay close to $1,000 for such a unit ... but if you drive for a living just write it off on your taxes.

[Stony2008]

I recomend the Etrx Legend GPS and get the roads and maps software.