[Az-Geocaching] newby

[Jim Scotti]

Welcome aboard Bill!  Sounds like you're in an area that doesn't have too
many geocaches yet down in Willcox.  I've put two down in that general area,
both are on land that is still open despite the fire closures.  Perhaps we'll
soon have more reasons for getting out into the Willcox area for geocaching!

I have a Garmin Legend and am very happy with it.  It's got mapping
capability though the screen is a little small.  It runs about $250 if you
find it at your local WalMart and closer to $200 if you can mailorder it.  
I've been contemplating getting a 2nd unit for backup, namely one of those
under $100 units.  Magellan has a number of nice units these days too.  The
330 was at the top of my list until I found the Legend when I bought it last
summer.  They have a new unit that is apparently essentially the 330
repackaged that looks nice.  They have an inexpensive version and one that is
around $250 that has an impressive amount of memory (at least as GPS units in
it's class go...).  I think it is called the SportTrak Pro.  Not sure which
unit I would buy today if I was making a fresh decision.  I liked the Garmin
partly because of the excellent support and first rate features, but also
because it had about the highest resolution screen despite it being a bit
small.  The extra memory would be usefull, but they still tend to limit
waypoints to about 500 despite the extra memory.  I can fit quite a lot of
the local area in my Legend's 8M of memory.  I think I've got most of the
Tucson area in both Roads & Rec and Topo and I think I'm using only about
4.5M of it.

For the most amount of information on GPS units, check out Joe Mehaffey's
website for reviews of the latest units and also lots of other GPS goodies
at:  http://joe.mehaffey.com/

Jim.

On Fri, 14 Jun 2002, Bill wrote:

> Well, I am new to the list and new to the whole geocaching thing.  Any
> recomendations on a GPS to get started?  I live in the country, and could
> plant some caches on land not closed for the fire season.  Are most of
> them in remote areas, or are some more accessable sites appreciated?
> 
> 
> Bill in the Willcox area

Jim Scotti                              
Lunar & Planetary Laboratory         jscotti@pirl.lpl.arizona.edu 
University of Arizona                
Tucson, AZ 85721 USA                 http://www.lpl.arizona.edu/~jscotti/