>From: "Cordell Harris" <cordh5@gmail.com>
>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
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