What GPS do you reckon will do the best job finding a cache?

[Camstal]

What is it??? Maybe you'd like to name your GPS??

We all love to here people and their stories!!

[Map Monkey]

I find that the user does a better job finding the cache than the GPSr. .... similiar to "what is the best golf club to buy?"

mm

[mtrax]

but thats not the only question.. which is best for hiding ...?

eg I found my GPS was about 10m off compared to someone else particular if poor reception.. eg urban or forest etc..
so if we are comparing apples with apples people would have to use the same chipset and then compare..
or compare against a standard like a known Coord eg trig station or survey mark.

[Gunn Parker]

The best gps is the one you can afford that will get you within five metres, then it's all up to you to find the container.
If you have the most expensive, the one with the most fruit and the person who hid the cache does not then you will have a margin of error. So then you start looking in ever widening circles.

Buy what you can afford and get out and have fun. It's all about the fun

[Richary]

DGPS would be ideal, except it is of no use if the hider doesn't have it as well.

Could go for one of my ex girlfriend's theories, and use psychic ability to sense the energy levels around GZ. I pointed her within 20m of one and she found the spot (not that it was a tricky one).

[If]

The GPSr is a wonder of modern technology that any navigator from days of yore would be astounded by
Unfortunately it only becomes a super accurate device (within mere cm's sometimes) in the hands of someone who actually understands the science and workings behind the box
Standing at GZ for your cache and pressing the 'new waypoint' button will give you a location that depending on how many birds are within sight at that exact moment could vary by many, many metres
All modern handheld GPSr's have an averaging function. The only way to get an accruate position with out fancy DGPS systems, is to use the averaging function over a period of time to let the GPSr settle. The longer you leave it, the more accurate your coordinate will be
When hiding a cache it can take me upto an hour to get an accurate enough (to my mind) location
Patience is the key
As for the cost. Uncle Sam spent billions on the system, as have the Russians and Europeans. I think a few hundred dollars is small change. The in vehicle units provide the best value for money due to mass production and demand, but are almost useless for geocaching. The next most cost effective way seems to be the GPS receiver units that plug into a laptop/PALM unit that can decode the positional info. But if you want a rugged, portable unit that you can strap to the kayak, bike handlebars or drop off a cliff then the handheld units rule, but of course your going to pay the price
Well that's my rant out of the way

[Map Monkey]

All modern handheld GPSr's have an averaging function.

Except for those new Garmin Colorados

mm

[rogainer]

All modern handheld GPSr's have an averaging function.

Except for those new Garmin Colorados

mm

and my Explorist XL...

Why would the manufacturers leave such a usefull feature out?

This surprised me when I changed over from my ancient Garmin 12 to the Explorist a couple of years ago.

[caughtatwork]

All modern handheld GPSr's have an averaging function.

Except for those new Garmin Colorados

mm

and my Explorist XL...

Why would the manufacturers leave such a usefull feature out?

This surprised me when I changed over from my ancient Garmin 12 to the Explorist a couple of years ago.

and my yellow etrex

[Bronze]

I wish I still had my Yellow.

Reliable and lasted for years before I changed to a Green.

[Crisp image]

Buy what you can afford and get out and have fun. It's all about the fun

No! is it not about the numbers!!!!!
Any way its a holden and ford thing
Crisp image

[pirate 63]

aaarrgh!
nowt' wrong with me trusty sextant
not to good on cloudy days though,same as some gps's

[Papa Bear_Left]

As with many other modern marvels of technology that we take for granted, it's good to occasionally take a mental step back and really think about what we have here.

For a few days worth of labour, you have a device that'll fit in your pocket and tell you where you are, anywhere on the planet, to an accuracy that's better than many of the surveyors who put out reference markers in the past could aspire to.

Plus, it may well have a database of every road in the whole country in it, and the smarts to plot you a course from any one place to any other place in a matter of seconds, then give you turn-by-turn directions to get there.

Pretty incredible, and it all happened in the lifetime of most of us here.

I used DGPS in NZ, and it's amazing for placing caches, especially in places under cover where the accuracy is normally >15-20m, but a bit cumbersome at the time for finding caches.
However, that involved hooking up the GPSr to a laptop, which was plugged into a mobile phone to get an Internet connection. A modern, GPSr-equipped smartphone could do it all in one package.
Given that the technology existed several years ago, I'm surprised that it's not more readily available now...

[Damo.]

I used DGPS in NZ, and it's amazing for placing caches, especially in places under cover where the accuracy is normally >15-20m, but a bit cumbersome at the time for finding caches.
However, that involved hooking up the GPSr to a laptop, which was plugged into a mobile phone to get an Internet connection. A modern, GPSr-equipped smartphone could do it all in one package.
Given that the technology existed several years ago, I'm surprised that it's not more readily available now...

My Nokia 6110 Navigator gets a position lock from cold start in 15 seconds (including application load time) while travelling at 110km/hour using a-GPS.
Not sure how accurate it is locationwise but I have had a lot more luck with it finding inner city micro caches than with the previous GPSr.