Posted by BLUFFSPRING on December 11, 2008 at 5:15 PM
Greetings,
Hope you all are having a great holiday season.
I've been asked to advise Santa on two devices that I think this group might have a little experience with.
1-GPS for hiking and photography
2-GPS mainly for in car use but portable also.
My 8 year old Magellan Platnium is no longer supported by Magellan or I'd advise for it. It's been a great GPS for hiking.
As usual thanks for the advice.
Rod
Posted by John Moore on December 11, 2008 at 10:13 PM
Hi Rod
I never go to the woods without my Garmin GPSMAP 60Cx. I've had it over 2 years, and it's "high-sensitivity GPS receiver" has never failed to lock on to satellites, even in the deepest of Arkansas canyons or thickest of tree cover. It's very accurate too. That's not to say it's perfect... the built-in maps don''t show very many state highways.
Good luck.
I have a Garmin GPSMAP 60CSX. I love it. I have US topo maps and City Navigator. With expandable memory(I have a 2GB card in mine) you can load A LOT of maps and it is useful both on and off road. It doesn't have the slickest user interface, but I have gotten used to it. It's fairly compact, rugged, and as John said, accurate. Just my two cents.
Posted by Clayton Taylor on December 12, 2008 at 9:15 AM
Definitely get them from the same company so you can use one pc/mac interface instead of two.
I have the Garmin StreetPilot2610 in my Jeep. It is 2 years old and technology has changed a lot since then but this is a very good unit. You will be able to find better technology now from Garmin. The current version of the StreetPilot goes for $700.00 MSRP. You can get the nuvi from $200 to $700
When getting a handheld for hiking I stuck with Garmin so I could transfer maps and waypoints back and forth between them.
For a handheld I have the GPSmap 60CSx. It is a "good" unit, and serves its purpose almost flawlessly. The CSx goes for $400 MSRP with the Cx going for about $50 less.
The only negative I can find is with the Topo maps. I have tinkered with this many times and have spoken to Garmin on 3 occasions about it but there is not a fix. They say it is inherent to the Topo Map layout and not the unit.
When using the unit with a Topo Map my location is off by 1about 16 feet west of my actual location. When you import the waypoints into MapSource (Garmins software for your pc/mac) the location variance is obvious on the Topo Map but dead on in the Street Map.
This does not create an issue except if you try Geocaching. Although you can find the coordinates exactly as you enter them, when you transfer it to a map the map shows you are off by 16 feet.
Posted by John Carroll on December 15, 2008 at 1:30 PM
I also have the Garmin GPS 60CSX and find that it functions flawlessly while hiking in the Ouachitas and Ozarks in all seasons. I have yet to find a canyon or ravine where it didn't work well.
For downloading maps, I scraped the Garmin software immediately and use either ExpertGPS or Topofusion, both of which are great programs.
Discussion
4 repliesHope you all are having a great holiday season.
I've been asked to advise Santa on two devices that I think this group might have a little experience with.
1-GPS for hiking and photography
2-GPS mainly for in car use but portable also.
My 8 year old Magellan Platnium is no longer supported by Magellan or I'd advise for it. It's been a great GPS for hiking.
As usual thanks for the advice.
Rod
I never go to the woods without my Garmin GPSMAP 60Cx. I've had it over 2 years, and it's "high-sensitivity GPS receiver" has never failed to lock on to satellites, even in the deepest of Arkansas canyons or thickest of tree cover. It's very accurate too. That's not to say it's perfect... the built-in maps don''t show very many state highways.
Good luck.
I have a Garmin GPSMAP 60CSX. I love it. I have US topo maps and City Navigator. With expandable memory(I have a 2GB card in mine) you can load A LOT of maps and it is useful both on and off road. It doesn't have the slickest user interface, but I have gotten used to it. It's fairly compact, rugged, and as John said, accurate. Just my two cents.
I have the Garmin StreetPilot2610 in my Jeep. It is 2 years old and technology has changed a lot since then but this is a very good unit. You will be able to find better technology now from Garmin. The current version of the StreetPilot goes for $700.00 MSRP. You can get the nuvi from $200 to $700
When getting a handheld for hiking I stuck with Garmin so I could transfer maps and waypoints back and forth between them.
For a handheld I have the GPSmap 60CSx. It is a "good" unit, and serves its purpose almost flawlessly. The CSx goes for $400 MSRP with the Cx going for about $50 less.
The only negative I can find is with the Topo maps. I have tinkered with this many times and have spoken to Garmin on 3 occasions about it but there is not a fix. They say it is inherent to the Topo Map layout and not the unit.
When using the unit with a Topo Map my location is off by 1about 16 feet west of my actual location. When you import the waypoints into MapSource (Garmins software for your pc/mac) the location variance is obvious on the Topo Map but dead on in the Street Map.
This does not create an issue except if you try Geocaching. Although you can find the coordinates exactly as you enter them, when you transfer it to a map the map shows you are off by 16 feet.
For downloading maps, I scraped the Garmin software immediately and use either ExpertGPS or Topofusion, both of which are great programs.