Multi Purpose GPS

[calamaridog]

Anybody have one. Any comments would be appreciated. I like the concept of being able to take the unit out of the car to hike or bike also.

I'm looking at these units so far:

Magellan Explorist 600
Garmin GPSmap 60Cx
Garmin eTrex Vista Cx

 

[jim65wagon]

It's not quite the same but I have the Magellan Meridian Gold. Handheld, lightweight, easy to use. Sucks regular AA's like crazy (2 every 4 hours); but if you buy those new Lithium AA's it'll run for about 12 hours.
The basemap it comes with is very limited, I bought Magellan's Topo map (very nice) excellent for hiking/geocaching/canoeing. I also (later) bought Direct Route which provides turn-by-turn directions (and beeps mightily when those turns come up), but it doesn't have the trails or some of the lesser "backroads" that Topo has.
I also found a way to install both maps on one SD card so I can switch between the two.

 

[GeoRoss]

Take a look at the Garmin GPS76Map (?). I have the more basic GPS76. This one has good battery life, 12 Channle receiver, B/W display for viewing in sunlight, WAAS enabled, DGPS capable and a quadrapole antenna which provides more stable reception.

I use it for field work and it has been in conditions over 17,000ft and temps from 0F to 115F. It has never missed a beat, very rugged and dependable. For in vehicle use, I hook it up to a laptop and just jam it between the windshield and dashboard. My GPS76 doesn't really provide much in the way for 'in-unit' mapping because of its memory (lack of). I don't use it for real time mapping unless I am in the vehicle (have the laptop). I haven't explored any software for 'city-navigation' though I am tempted.

I don't have any experience with the units you mentioned. I will offer the warning that color screens are hard to see in direct daylight and suck up batteries.

Ross

 

[justfred]

Hi, I'm justfred and I'm a mapping addict. ("Hi, justfred!")

I have the Garmin GPSMap 96c - the aviation version of the 76c.

-I have it loaded with maps from the Garmin MapSource CitySelect (as well as the latest Jeppesen data).

-Nice big color screen, multi-mode so it's either in car/walk or plane mode (or boat mode which I don't use). Large enough to see well but small enough to still be handheld.

-Plenty of storage space for waypoints (geocaching) tho those get in the way of info on flight maps - I usually just delete all geocaches before flying.

-The car mount is designed for the dash, not the windshield.

-It's expensive but absolutely worth it for flying.

-I also have an eTrex Vista, that I sometimes use for geocaching instead; but I'm spoiled by the big screen in the 96c.

-My wife has a small driving-only StreetPilot i5 that I use more than she does; for the size it's got a pretty great database, tho it's useless for geocaching or off-roading.

-I've also use the eTrex connected to the Mac (iBook) running National Geographic Topo. Required a serial to USB converter, but otherwise worked quite well. But the Topo street maps are outdated, in some cases being over 10 years old (I15 through Escondido missing?).

-None of them "plays well" with Macintosh or Linux, yet, in that there's no Garmin software for loading maps, etc. Garmin has promised better Mac support, but I haven't seen it yet. But other manufacturers (Topo, for example) can read the output data. Wish these manufacturers would just default to open standard rather than trying to stay proprietary.

 

[GeoRoss]

-None of them "plays well" with Macintosh or Linux, yet, in that there's no Garmin software for loading maps, etc. Garmin has promised better Mac support, but I haven't seen it yet. But other manufacturers (Topo, for example) can read the output data. Wish these manufacturers would just default to open standard rather than trying to stay proprietary.

Try MacGPS Pro, it works great.