Garmin Colorado New GPS

Dooghan · Post by **Dooghan** » 20 February 08 7:06 pm

Colorado firmware update:

Changes made from version 2.30 to 2.40:

Improved acquisition time in certain circumstances.
Improved power on time.
Improved backlight support.
Improved support for NiMH batteries.
Improved Wherigo player.
Added ability to show and review geocaches on the map.
Added ability to log geocaches as found.
Increased maximum geocache count to 2000.
Added support for BlueChart currents.
Added ability to view extended information for custom POI's.
Added ability for turn preview beep to reset the backlight timeout.
Corrected map to display road labels.
Corrected map to display small towns.

Tankengine · Post by **Tankengine** » 20 February 08 8:02 pm

Ah - just installed it! Very nice...
The geocaching improvements mean I don't need to load the aditional waypoint file any more! Also, being able to mark caches as found will obviously be great when one has a lot of caches installed!
Other improvements are good too. Now just add a little to the track functionality, and I'll be 100% happy!

Dooghan · Post by **Dooghan** » 20 February 08 8:54 pm

Keep us updated Tankengine. I looking hard at maybe getting one myself. I just want to wait bit longer and see what other problems they iron out.

Dooghan

The Explorer · Post by **The Explorer** » 01 March 08 9:22 am

Tankengine wrote:SNIP There are a couple of features "missing", but Garmin says that they will add them, and I can live without them for now. The key 'missing' features (for me) are: 1. You cannot rename or delete tracks in the bush - you can only do it whilst connected to a computer, and 2. You can only display 1 track at the time. (well, two if you include the tracklog)

Hello - I have obtained a 300 as well and yes one of the first things I noticed was you could no longer load a track file in background (you can load 20 tracks in other Garmins eg 60cx) I found this handy for butting in property boundaries and other "missing" features for areas Im working in. So my question is how sure are you that they are adding these features? How do you actually know in the first place - on another forum?

Cheers
Greg

Tankengine · Post by **Tankengine** » 01 March 08 2:58 pm

Well - I suppose I cannot be 100% sure, but seeing they had the feature before, and that in the past they have improved many features by firmware upgrades, and that the consensus in other forums is that they will, I am fairly confident that they will be added eventually.

The Explorer · Post by **The Explorer** » 03 March 08 10:52 am

Tankengine wrote:Well - I suppose I cannot be 100% sure, but seeing they had the feature before, and that in the past they have improved many features by firmware upgrades, and that the consensus in other forums is that they will, I am fairly confident that they will be added eventually.

Sorry, wasnt trying to make you say they would do it - thought, based on the comment, Garmin says, that it was a direct quote from somewhere. Sounds more like a premonition in actual fact.

Anyway, have figured out you can actually delete, save and load tracks in the field.

To save a track use Setup, Tracks, Options, Archive Current Track.

To delete a track Setup, Tracks, Options, Clear Current Track.

To load a track in background use Where To, Tracks. Not sure how this effects active track. Still messing around

aple · Post by **aple** » 15 March 08 9:25 pm

Tankengine wrote: The geocaching improvements mean I don't need to load the aditional waypoint file any more!

Does the Colorado recognize the Geocaching Australia format GPX files? Or only those with the Groundspeak extensions?

The Explorer · Post by **The Explorer** » 16 March 08 11:28 am

aple wrote:
Tankengine wrote: The geocaching improvements mean I don't need to load the aditional waypoint file any more!
Does the Colorado recognize the Geocaching Australia format GPX files? Or only those with the Groundspeak extensions?

Hello - Yes - the Colorado actually uses GPX format to store its own waypoints and tracks so issue is not whether it can read them or not - it can read most gpx files (I note it doesnt seem to like oziExplorer created gpx track files?) . While I have only had the Colorordo for a few weeks and not used it for GC I have had a bit of play and established that GA caches will be listed in a similar manner to GS caches but a bit of messing around is required. If you use the Garmin GPS plugin on the GS webpage to send caches to the GPS each cache is stored on the GPS as a separated file. The GA website does not provide this service so if you want caches with logs etc you need to split the GA gpx file into separate files for each cache. This is best achieved using GSAK. Place the files in the correct folder on the GPS (The Colorado acts as an external memory device unlike most other Garmins) and they will appear on the geocache page of the GPS with logs/description along with GS caches.

Cheers
Greg

aple · Post by **aple** » 16 March 08 7:10 pm

The Explorer wrote:Hello - Yes - the Colorado actually uses GPX format to store its own waypoints and tracks so issue is not whether it can read them or not - it can read most gpx files (I note it doesnt seem to like oziExplorer created gpx track files?) . While I have only had the Colorordo for a few weeks and not used it for GC I have had a bit of play and established that GA caches will be listed in a similar manner to GS caches but a bit of messing around is required. If you use the Garmin GPS plugin on the GS webpage to send caches to the GPS each cache is stored on the GPS as a separated file. The GA website does not provide this service so if you want caches with logs etc you need to split the GA gpx file into separate files for each cache. This is best achieved using GSAK. Place the files in the correct folder on the GPS (The Colorado acts as an external memory device unlike most other Garmins) and they will appear on the geocache page of the GPS with logs/description along with GS caches.

Thanks. I am talking about GPX files containing cache descriptions, not the generic GPX files. From your description above, it looks like you need to use GSAK to convert the GA format files. But in that case I guess GSAK converts them from GA format to GS format. So I guess the answer to my question is that the Colorado only recognizes the GS format, and not the GA format.

That means that in order to read your cache descriptions on the Colorado, you must either use gc.com or if you use GA GPX files then you must do some trickery with GSAK.

It would be nice to convince Garmin that the device should support GA format GPX files as well. Or don't they consider Australia as a market?

The Explorer · Post by **The Explorer** » 17 March 08 10:22 pm

Hello - I dont think GSAK "converts" the files. I was just using it to split the GA gpx file into separated files for each cache ie instead of having a gpx file with 5 caches you need 5 gpx files , one for each cache. The issue is that the GPS does not utilse all the information in a GPX file if it is loaded as a waypoint (or a GPX file containing more than one cache file). For the GPS to use the information it must be placed in the correct folder on the GPS as a separate file for each cache. This is the case with GS files as well - there is no way to download multiple caches as one file in GPX format that the GPS will recognise as geocaches - you have to split them up or download them individually - well this is my understanding of situation, but as mentioned limited use so not fully up to speed and I could be wrong.

Cheers
Greg

aple · Post by **aple** » 17 March 08 11:24 pm

The Explorer wrote:Hello - I dont think GSAK "converts" the files. I was just using it to split the GA gpx file into separated files for each cache ie instead of having a gpx file with 5 caches you need 5 gpx files , one for each cache. The issue is that the GPS does not utilse all the information in a GPX file if it is loaded as a waypoint (or a GPX file containing more than one cache file). For the GPS to use the information it must be placed in the correct folder on the GPS as a separate file for each cache. This is the case with GS files as well - there is no way to download multiple caches as one file in GPX format that the GPS will recognise as geocaches - you have to split them up or download them individually - well this is my understanding of situation, but as mentioned limited use so not fully up to speed and I could be wrong.

Well I haven't tried it but people in the GS forums report no problems with GPX files containing hundreds of caches.

Besides, I believe whenever GSAK saves a GPX file, it always saves it in GS format. I don't think it can write GA format GPX files.

So I still believe that the Colorado doesn't support the GA GPX format, only the GS one. Could anyone confirm this?

Basically Garmin and Groundspeak support each other. Garmin supports the GS GPX files, thereby making more people to become premium members at gc.com, and GS generates new sales for the Colorado unit. There are mutual advantages.

Damo. · Post by **Damo.** » 18 March 08 7:03 pm

I was of the understanding that the Groundspeak GPX files were not "proper" GPX files in that they didn't adhere to the specification of the format. More like a proprietory file.

aple · Post by **aple** » 18 March 08 7:10 pm

Damo. wrote:I was of the understanding that the Groundspeak GPX files were not "proper" GPX files in that they didn't adhere to the specification of the format. More like a proprietory file.

They are absolutely proper GPX files, fully adhering to the specifications. They just contain proprietary extensions, but that just means that there is extra information contained in them. This information is the description and the attributes of caches.
The same is true for the GA GPX files, they just contain different extensions, incompatible with the GS extensions. That's why I think they cannot be used directly in the Colorado.

The Explorer · Post by **The Explorer** » 16 April 08 4:49 pm

If wrote:I've looked at the video again. I'm still not convinced by the user friendliness of the wheel. The reality for most of us is that the wheel will scroll through the menus faster than we can read them. Thus starting the dreaded 'DUTCH ROLL'
Dutch Roll is the problem of scrolling too far then having to scroll back and forth in ever decreasing wheel movements till the menu you wanted actually appears on the screen. Thus wasting many precious seconds in finding the menu you actually want and causing frustration
This system works on an IPod where there are dozens of alphabetically sorted options to choose from, but probably not on a GPS. Gimme Buttons

One benefit of the wheel is sorting through large number of (geocache) waypoints - so same as "This system works on an IPod where there are dozens of alphabetically sorted options to choose from". Just a matter of a bit of practice to become relatively good at it. It doesnt go at lightspeed like the ipod so the "Dutch Roll" is probably not as much a potential issue as you imagine.
Cheers
Greg

caffiend42 · Post by **caffiend42** » 22 April 08 8:55 pm

I've got a couple of gumby Colorado questions/issues that I couldn't find answers to after a few hours searching the forums. Ex Magellan Map60 (I think that's what it was, it's so long ago!) and Navman PiN owner, current Magellan Crossover, and now brand spankin' new Colorado owner with loaded ShonkyMaps, as of yesterday

Having a bit of trouble in figuring out the best way to download caches for the Colorado. Reasonably familiar with the general concepts - specifics are rusty!

1) Tried pocket queries - I'm obviously not being specific enough as I'm coming back with no results. As an example, I would have thought a marquee select on the map for a given area would grab all caches in that selction, but no.

2) Tried Garmin's Communicator. That doesn't seem too bad, but it's loading the caches in the waypoints "directory" rather than the Geocache one.

It only does 15 at a time, but I can live with that, and only does the coords, not the whole cache description for true paperless caching.

3) This also loads the caches in by their unique ID, rather than the cache name - any way to change that?

4) The most successful way so far, that puts it in the geocache part of the GPSr and the whole description, is downloading them one by one from the cache description page.

I'm obviously screwing it up - anyone able to give a better blow by blow description of what I should be doing? Feel free to slap me upside the head!

I've not found a really descriptive way of doing it yet either on the Garmin website (their "support" page is, well, wanting

), and the main gc.com site has some rather large gaps in it's descriptive process. I'm sure it's been described in one of the umpteen large threads, but a specific "how to" hasn't jumped out at me!

There are shloads more ways to do it I know, but which ones work best - that I don't. I haven't tried a download from the Aussie site yet, how's that compare?

Many thanks, in anticipation

Damn, can't figure out why I can't write in paragraphs either

edit: click the "Disable HTML in this post" button

Garmin Colorado New GPS

Re: still not convinced