Garmin 60CS and EGNOS

From: Simon Long (simon_at_longnews.freeserve.co.uk)
Date: 07/29/04 

Date: 29 Jul 2004 01:38:32 -0700

Hi All,

Well, after weighing up the pros and cons, I weakened and ordered a
Garmin 60CS to replace my Vista. It arrived yesterday, and I updated
the firmware to the latest 3.43 beta, installed MapSource 6.3, and got
stuck in...

It's a nice unit. The only thing I miss from the Vista is the short
cut menu to jump between specific pages, but I may just not have found
that function yet. The screen is a big improvement, and (excluding the
antenna) it really isn't that much bigger than the Vista. The
sensitivity of the receiver does seem (on an non-empirical test) to be
much improved over the Vista. Pity about the dreadful carry case
though - after the choice of 2 custom cases for the eTrex, a baggy,
unattractive generic case just seems wrong!

Anyway, just out of curiosity, I turned on WAAS to see what would
happen, fully expecting nothing at all. To my great surprise, 5
minutes later it was showing "D" symbols on three of the signal
strength bars, having received corrections from satellite 35. It
didn't manage to get full GPS data from SV35, and lost the
differential corrections after a few minutes, but I was surprised that
a Garmin receiver was able to use the EGNOS test signal - is this a
change in recent firmware?

A couple of other points - I checked with Garmin on a couple of issues
before I bought the 60CS, and they misled me on both counts... So, for
the record:

1) If you have an eTrex series car mount, you can save a few quid by
buying the handlebar mount for the 60 series, as the cradle which
holds the 60 series fits perfectly into the eTrex car bracket. (Garmin
had advised me that this was not the case - I chose not to believe
them...)

2) As widely known, route download from MapSource to 60 series units
is broken - you just get the start and finish points and any
intermediate vias - no road-following invisible waypoints are sent.
This directly contradicts what I was explicitly told in an email by
Garmin European Tech Support, who assured me I would get the same
routes as on my Vista. I have therefore emailed to ask when they are
going to fix this...

And if I get ten minutes at some point, I'm going to see if there is
anything I can fiddle with in routes saved in MapSource .gdb format to
convert them into ones which send the road-following waypoints. A
first glance in the file shows that the invisible waypoints are all
stored as part of the route, but they presumably have a flag attached
which prevents them being shown as waypoints or downloaded - finding
this flag and fiddling with it will be a good start...

Cheers,

S.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: GPS Recommendations
    ... The Lithiums do extend battery life, are expensive, but are almost ... >> required item as the Vista eats alkalines. ... I guess all those routes I compiled for my tour down the west ... It is trivial in the Garmin software ...
    (rec.bicycles.tech)
  • Re: Garmin MapSource 6.6 Beta is available now
    ... your MG will work the same with the Vista C as with the ... follawable route with points located at every turn. ... It was not obvious or clear that Garmin would throw ... warning beep and the non-dynamic routing... ...
    (sci.geo.satellite-nav)
  • Re: GPS Recommendations
    ... >>> required item as the Vista eats alkalines. ... I guess all those routes I compiled for my tour down the west ... It is trivial in the Garmin software ... DeLorme takes its route and creates a series of waypoints ...
    (rec.bicycles.tech)
  • Re: Garmin tech support: "Your wait time will be over 30 minutes"
    ... individual requests, desires, or preferences. ... Simply that Garmin failed to include an option in the eTrex mapping range ... responded to my emails. ... reports of bugs and problems with my Vista and MapSource. ...
    (sci.geo.satellite-nav)
  • Re: GPS for Biking
    ... I have used the old Vista on my bike, ... If I had known Garmin was going to maket a color moldel of the Vista, ... the Garmin mounts and RAM mounts, and have been very happy with the RAM ...
    (sci.geo.satellite-nav)
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