New Garmins

[RonGerth]

Has anybody fooled around with the new HCx models from Garmin. I looked at one earlier and it seemed to be nice. Was wondering if anybody has used them for awhile to see if the bugs are shook out yet. I am thinking about begging for a combined birthday and christmas present to be one.

Ron Gerth
Douglas, WY

[Bumpgas]

I bought a Garmin Vista Hcx a couple of weeks ago. Haven't done alot caching withit yet. It seems to work great. I can get satelite reception in my house. I haven't figured out all the features yet but that is half the fun of having a new toy. If you get one be sure you buy a micro SD chip to more maps on the GPS other than the preloaded basemap. I couldn't figure out why I couldn't put maps from my Mapsource on my new GPS. Looked in the slot a no card. DUH. Found a great price on a 1 gig chip for 15.00 dollars with no shipping charge. Other than that haven't had any problems yet.

[Rubiconlwb]

I looked at some specs for the Vista HCX and it looks like the Vista C with an enhanced receiver which should be great. That was my biggest beef with my old Vista, the receiver was not that great and it bounced around terribly when you got to the point where you needed it the most. My 60csx has an excellent receiver, will receive inside the house and in dense foliage and does not bounce hardly at all, very dependable. I don't think you could go wrong with that GPS but I haven't had any direct experience with it. Let us know what you decide!

[mmgestes]

We just bought a 60CSx. It came with a 128 MB card an added bonus since we thought it would just be a 64 MB memory card. A big step up for us from our Garmin 72 which we just flat wore out after 600 plus caches. Will try our new toy out this weekend doing some Turkey caching! Gobble Gobble!

[Rubiconlwb]

I bought a 1gb micro SD card for our 60csx and you can load the maps for almost the entire US on it, no downloading new maps when you travel. It is great and the best thing is, that card for whatever reason is very inexpensive. I paid $16 for the 1GB and they now have 2GB for about $20. Amazing how technology has come along so much and the price has gone down. I hear the new 60csx has an even better receiver so it must be just phenomenal. Good choice Michelle and Mike!

[wyohunter]

I just bought the 60csx! There is so many things I need to learn about it but it will be fun learning! I am sure I will have lots of good hunting with it. I did debate this with the HCX, but decided to bypass those for now. There seems to be a lot of bugs Garmin is still working out. I will definetly have to get more memory chips though, I can see that already!

[Team Fireboy]

Yay Rex.... now you will be heck to catch in caching numbers. Breathing down yer back.

[Rubiconlwb]

Good for you, Rex! You will definitely like the 60csx, that is the same unit that we have and it has all the features we need and use. I hear the new units have an even better receiver and even the older ones like ours have excellent receivers. When your budget will allow, definitely buy the mapping software (Navigator North American I believe is what it is called). We are in Casper again (I have an appointment with a surgeon on Monday) so we are planning on doing some caching tomorrow and Sunday (trying to stay ahead of Rex, don't you know). Congrats, Rex.

[Wyo3838&Snoop46]

I got a Garmin Dakota 20 for Christmas. We have been playing with it for a few days and it seems to be very accurate and very user friendly. It aquires the satellites almost immediately and even aquires them in the house. I got the city navigator maps with it. I am so happy with it, I ordered Sylvia one. If I didn't I would never get to use mine.

[OldWyo]

Sounds like you decided to keep the Dakota (after our conversation) can't wait to get together and compare units.

[Rubiconlwb]

I hadn't even heard about the Dakota, the Oregon was the last model that I have heard about. So what are the features of the Dakota which are improvements over the Oregon or the Colorado. I know the Oregon has a touch screen whereas the Colorado has the wheel to navigate. A review would be enjoyable and informative and if you don't mind, how much do they want for this new unit and where did you get yours? Any info would be appreciated. Congrats on your new units. We are looking forward to seeing you again so we can check it out.

[Wyo3838&Snoop46]

The Dakota came out in July of this year. It has a touch screen and paperless caching. I don't really know too much about the Oregon. I talked to Ellis and it appears there is alot of the same features. We read some of the reviews on it and it is supposed to be one of the better GPS. It has an improved electronic compass which makes it very accurate. The few places I have tried it, it is right on. It picks up the satellites almost immediately. It will pick them up in the house. We had it in the truck today and it was on the seat upside down for over ten minutes and it still had the satellites up. It will also do the wireless transfer to other GPs's. There is the Dakota 10 and 20. The 10 doesn't do the wireless transfer, will not take a sd card, or have the electronis compass. Other than that, they are the same. Mine is the Dakota 20. Mine came from Mega GPS out of Utah. It was on sale for $319.99. The city navigator on the sd card was also on sale for $79.99. The only thing I don't really like is you have to be hooked up to the computer to delete the caches and if you put them in as a pocket quarry, you have to delet them all at the same time. It is very user friendly but I am still learning so if anyone knows anymore about it, please let me know. I am anxious to go caching now. Hopefully soon.

[THG]

I got a new Oregon & used it today to find-lead me to one of my caches in the snow up a mountain picking up a TB that had been there for 9 months. IT took right me right to it and was within 8-10 feet of the cache. I couldn't really get a new cache as there just aren't any around I haven't been to, so I hid three new ones on New Years Day. Two in the moonlit dark morning and another this afternoon. 1st WYOMING cache planted of the new DECADE

For now I will not rely on it as my only GPS. I will probably walk over to something with my 60Csx and just use this one for the paperless aspects. I never did do the PDA thing. That aspect should end up being really handy to have as it is so nice to look up almost every cache detail (description - all logs - hints- size - rating) that is on the web site cache page with just a touch (touchscreen) over cache info apps.

The difference with the Dakota is minimal other than $40-50 more and maybe some more durability for the Oregon. A bit more software extras, different backgrounds maybe.