>From: "Cordell Harris" >Magellan has better, more user friendly receivers that are more sensitive >and accurate. If >unconvinced, try caching with the owner of a Magellan >Sportrack Pro. Presently, we own two >Garmins a etrex legend and an etrex >legend vista cx. The etrex line uses a patch antenna, which IMHO, is crap. Upgrade to the new 60CSX and you will probably never see anything more accurate. I do not beleive that you can compare two GPS units for accuracy on a single geocache or any geocache for that matter. The cache owner's coordinates could be off for one. Also, both your GPS units will give slightly different readings on where the cache is supposed to be. To find true accuracy, take a waypoint and mark it with your GPS. Of course, with any GPS, you have to leave it there for a few minutes for a most accurate reading (too many inexperienced cachers hide a cache, hit mark on their GPS and leave and dont allow the GPS to average location). Now, walk away a few hundred feet or more and then come back to ground zero and see where your GPS takes you. Do this with two units that you want to compare and see which one is most accurate. Of course, as Loran said, all GPS's these days are decently accurate. They will all take you to a waypoint and get you within 30 feet or less. Do the example above once and you will find that both GPS's did their job well enough. If you want to find truly which unit is better, with there still being slight errors in GPS's, you will still need to do the example above several times to average your results out to truly see which unit is better. Seems nit picky. Well it is... as I just said, all GPS's are accurate enough. Still, if you want a GPS for just geocaching or marking waypoints, then a patch antenna Etrex or a Magellan GPS Blazer 12 (now that is ancient! and I have one too) is all you need. If you want to mark a little hole in the ground that an ant just went in to and then come back a week later to find it... then you need to spend the bigger dollars for a unit with a 12 channel SiRFstar III high-sensitivity (WAAS-enabled) chip and built-in quad helix antenna, with external antenna connection (like the Garmin 60csX). Either units will get you to a geocache or any point for that matter. But the latter technology will, on average, get you to a specific point more consistantly. >Garmins are overpriced/overrated and as industry leaders don't like the >strangle hold they maintain >on proprietary mapping software. We badly >need mapping software that will function universally in >handhelds. Correct me if I am wrong, but doesnt Magellan also use proprietary mapping software? (Mapsend). I could be wrong on this, but I beleive both Magellan and Garmin have their own specific mapping software that must be used for mapping. I think both brands will accept some other mapping software, but only for uploading and transfering of waypoints, tracks, etc and not maps. If you want maps in your unit, you have to use their own mapping software (Mapsend or Mapsource). Scott Team Ropingthewind _________________________________________________________________ Try the next generation of search with Windows Live Search today! http://imagine-windowslive.com/minisites/searchlaunch/?locale=en-us&source=hmtagline ____________________________________________________________ Az-Geocaching mailing list listserv@azgeocaching.com To edit your setting, subscribe or unsubscribe visit: http://listserv.azgeocaching.com/mailman/listinfo/az-geocaching Arizona's Geocaching Resource http://www.azgeocaching.com