GPS assistance requested for a newbie!

[Team O'Grady]

Greetings all,

as newbies who were muggles only last week, we have had a ball so far, with 4 finds and only 1 luckless search to date. A great way to spice up a family outing, get some exercise and even amuse the dog

My problem is that I am trying to find our way using a Tomtom One portable car GPS system which I bought for my wife last Christmas when we moved cities (and it paid for itself within days!). Excellent on the road, its rather useless once you get to the periphery of a carpark. Is there a better way to utilise this unit?

I would really like to get myself a proper handheld GPS unit but being relatively unfamiliar with anything below an inertial nav system (sadly impractical for geocaching!) am a bit baffled. So far, my considerations and research have shown me that

a) basic units arent anywhere near as useful or have much greater utility than A-B navigation with no consideration for the terrain. But a good low cost option.

b) GPS units with maps vastly increase their utility for other tasks (and therfore justifiability) but cost goes from interest level expenditure to moderately serious

c) Magellan units seem more basic than the Garmin. Ive also heard Garmin are a bit easier to operate.

Are these reasonable deductions or are they myths? Trying to work out what is good value for money without spending too much. Any help or comments would be most greatfully received.

thanks in advance!
Team O'Grady
PS Why arent my carriage returns showing up in this post???

[Swampy]

Are these reasonable deductions or are they myths? Trying to work out what is good value for money without spending too much.

PS Why arent my carriage returns showing up in this post???

Get a Garmin eTrex yellow or better still, a Garmin Vista or Legend. My thoughts.

As for carriage returns, put a tick in the box marked "Disable HTML in this post".

[Udderchaos]

the tomtoms are great used in conjunction with a cheap "etrex" type gps.

we have a garmin map60c, we used to use this for everything. Since we got the tomtom we rarely use anything but the arrow

if i had a tomtom already i would prob just buy a cheap etrex legend or a 60c (BW) the user interfaces on these are much better than the yellow etrex and they both come with data cables standard. if you decided its all good you can flog it off on ebay for nearly what you paid and buy a flash one.....

my 2c

if you dont want the cr's to be removed, tick disable html in this post when posting

[Team O'Grady]

thanks for the tip on formatting- even I didnt want to read a big block of text like that- yuk!

The Tomtom is fantastic for what its designed to do (plus avoid domestic road navigation disputes!) but it doesn't cut the mustard for caching

Your tips on the eTrex series are quite interesting. I shall investigate those models.

Cheers!

[Udderchaos]

actually they are great for caching.

Download GSAK, open your GPX and export to TOMTOM POI file.
grab them files and stick them in the australia directory on the tomtom.

whala, all you caches are now a POI in the tomtom. you will never go to the wrong side of the river again

[Bronze]

There is another brand of GPS but for two reason I can't mention them.

1) I can't remember what the brand is cause it's, well... second.

2) I don't want my mouth washed out with soap at the next event I attend.

Just poking fun. Keep your knickers unknotted you Magellan owners!

oppps

[Bronze]

Oh,

and Welcome.

[Team O'Grady]

and Welcome.

Thanks! Good to be here and un-muggleish!

actually they are great for caching.

Download GSAK, open your GPX and export to TOMTOM POI file.
grab them files and stick them in the australia directory on the tomtom.

whala, all you caches are now a POI in the tomtom. you will never go to the wrong side of the river again

I'm d/l GSAK now, but how is that going to help me finding caches that are offroad? i find that it gets quite unhappy once more than 10-20m off the footpath? Is there a better way to use it for off the track cashes?

I really appreciate the replies guys

[Udderchaos]

it wont help you off the road. but will get your fairly close normally

[Derringer]

Like others , I use a mapping PDA in the vehicle, but once out of the vehicle, I use a basic Etrex Summit with an arrow that points the way.

The Summit has a digital compass that will keep the arrow pointing at the cache even if you are stationary, a very useful feature if in difficult terrain.

Any of the non mapping GPS units are relatively cheap if purchased through Ebay.

2c worth.
Kevin

[Damo.]

c) Magellan units seem more basic than the Garmin. Ive also heard Garmin are a bit easier to operate.

I'd have to disagree with that. The mid range models of both brands give you a d-pad direction button which makes operation them easier.

The entry level units don't have this, however the Magellan units put the buttons on the front of the unit and label them.
The Garmins have them on the side and unlabelled or above the screen. (so half the screen is covered with your hand while pushing buttons! Any Geko users here want to tell me it's not annoying?)

I image it wouldn't take long to get used to, but I found trying to use a Garmin eTrek without instruction pretty frustrating whereas I never read the manual for my Magellan Meridian and could figure out how to use it straight away. They are not comparative models though. The eXplorist range would be comparable to the eTreks.

Have a look at the "Search" option at the top of the page. "Garmin Magellan" came up with quite a few previous threads on the same question. You might find some more helpful information there.

[Bronze]

It's not annoying.

[Grank]

it's, well... second.

to nothing

[Bronze]

it's, well... second.

to nothing

but Garmin

[Team O'Grady]

Gents, as per your sage guidance I have done some more surfing and checking through forums and have a few more questions:

I note that the Garmin eTrex Legend (which would seem to average about $260 - not the colour screen version) has 8megs of internal memory for maps etc - is this enough for your average map sizes etc? is this expandable with a slot?

The corresponding Magellan version is the Explorer 300? That seems a bit more expensive for the same capabilities?

WAAS is not relevant in Australia anyway - yes?

Had 1 cache find and 1 failure today with the Tomtom (well I failed, but Tom couldnt really get me to the right spot so I'll gow ith shared blame for that one...), so not bad but a little frustrating. Plus there is this brithday I have coming up in 2 weeks so I feel I owe it to myself....

thanks again for the advice!
Team O'Grady