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eXplorist GC
caryrae
92 Points
How are the Magellan handhelds? I like to go geocahcing and haven't in a while but just went yesterday used the geocaching app on my iPhone 3gs. Worked ok but not as accurate as handhelds. The new eXplorist GC coming soon sounds like a great handheld for me since I would only use it for geocaching.
Comments
The way I feel about my Meridian and SporTrak is, you will get them when you pry my cold dead fingers....
The Triton 1500 purchase, was to see how Maggie "did" the SiRF chip, and the touch screen. Mine won't do the Lambert con in the User Grid. I started on Feb 20th, trying to find out from Maggie, if it was just my unit, or had the feature just not been implemented, yet. 4 emails, 3 tickets, one request via the Triton forum help support method, and one last week direct to Maggie, has no response, as of today. My "anteek" ears really hate having to make those phone calls, but next week.....
Gotta hold out hope for the new series.
Magie sure sent the unit to you fast! I figured it would be a couple of weeks,at least.
One of the biggest problems that I read about, is with the compass. When I use the regular compass, it stays pointed in the direction that I'm moving, if/when I freeze in place as I stop. Now ,as one moves about , it can be fun. I tried the Electronic compass on a 60CSx, and yes, as one closes in on the waypoint, it will bounce around on you. I very seldom use the compass, as I get everything that I need from the Map Page, on a Garmin. The Map Page on my Meridian only goes down to 100 feet, making it harder to use. I read where the GC will zoom down to 10 feet, and I sure hope so. I also wonder if it has the waypoint projection feature, and will do averaging of a waypoint.
Regarding zoom settings - that is relative number which I doubt that you can compare between different brands. Just realize that all consumer GPS'es have a maximum accuracy of about 5 meters (16 feet). So if you zoom in to a 10-foot scale, you are probably going to see a lot of "noise".
Here are some screenshots of a map I made for the Garmin Oregon from source data where each pixel represents a rectangle 8 inches x 12 inches (this is really high resolution aerial photography). It gives you some idea of how large an area is shown at different zoom levels. I don't have my Oregon here and don't remember whether it has a 10-foot setting.
What is an Electronic Compass?
How about making a waypoint projection?
I wouldn't expect for it to have a User Grid, buy I just had to ask. I've been surprised before.
Thanks for the update, and the good news. Happiness is hard to beat!
I've just purchased a GC. It's a good device for affordable price - only $149. It runs Windows CE and has USB storage interface, which is convenient to manage files inside. The CPU is pretty powerful 400MHz ARM. The only problem I have at the moment is the lack of topo maps. The GC comes with world base map in a single file "map.dat" of 1GB in size. There is also .ini text file describing what and how to display (colors, zoom level etc.). I'm trying to understand what format is used for the map. Since there is "INTERMAP" word in the file header, I've downloaded Global Mapper 11.02 software from intermap.com, but it does not recognize that format. It would be great to understand it and to try to convert maps of different format in it. The "Summit series" maps sold by Magellan won't fit, since they require 4GB space, but GC has max 1.7GB (if I delete the basemap).
Any ideas/advices?
TIA