If anybody is looking to upgrade there GPS, take a look at this.

Well Doug will be proud of me, I bought a hand held GPS yesterday. I was looking for a good handheld that met the requirements I was looking for. Finally someone is starting to get an idea, so I went with a Garmin eTrex Vista HCx. It just came out and Bass Pro shop had several in. They've been selling like hot cakes all over the net. It acquires a signal extremely fast and I can use it indoors as well as just about everywhere I need to go. It picks up in real hard areas with no problems. A very excellent product.

The reason why I picked this model was:

1. 25 hour run time on the batteries
2. 2 AA batteries to power it
3. Small to where you can put it in your pocket and take it anywhere.
4. Has the capability of Topo maps as well as Full street level navigation of the entire US and Europe.
5. Be able to pick up signal in heavy foliage as well as indoors and have a quick acquisition time.
6.Waterproof to at least 4 or 5 feet

It can use a 2 gig SD card that can hold all of US and give street level routing as well as topos for the entire US. Right now it has just the base map on it, but I ordered the street Nav NT CD and plan on topo next but it has allot of capabilities. I tested it with 4 (5 watt) solar panels (20 watts) that I use for charging my Steripen Adventure and flashlights and it will run 100% on a cloudy day with back lighting on with no batteries. So if your lost out in the woods and your out of batteries or you lose all your batteries (and the sun is out) you can see where you are, what you need to do to get out and find that lake to get some drinking water if you can. I found that 20 watts is the optimal power for most of your essentials (Cell phone,GPS,Steripen,battery recharging,small radio, etc..) If I could do it over again, I would get one of the military style 20 or 25 watt one folding panel. There still too expensive though.


https://buy.garmin.com/shop/shop.do?cID=145&pID=8703

The pictures below are powered up with the cells (no batteries in the unit whatsoever), I put the cable between the fingers to support the unit, I found that 15 watts on a cloudy day will sustain the power but will not boot but with 20 watts it works like a charm.

The new Garmins are nice. My latest is a 60CSx and it is by far the nicest GPS I've had. Previously I had a eTrex Vista (the old model) and it was nice, but the new SiRF based units are heads and shoulders above the old ones.

Some gotchas (at least they were the case last time I updated my 60CSx) -- even if you use a large memory card, there is a limit in the firmware to how many map segments you can have. So if you want to do something silly like upload all the road maps and topos in the country you can't, even if you have the memory (silly me to want to do this!). Also, I don't think it had a battery option for lithium batteries like the old units (grr!).

One other thing I don't like about the Garmin units (long standing issue) is there is no easy way to switch between *sets* of map segments. For example, it would be nice to switch between using the base map, the set of topo maps and the set of road maps. Right now, you have to toggle it segment by segment which is painful.

That said, my 60CSx rocks. Nice screen, outstanding reception.

That said, I'm very distracted with the Bushnell ONIX400 right now because it can download sat photos and has XM Weather capabilities. Way cool. Too bad it doesn't appear to have XM Traffic too.

The downsides are it appears to use a lithium-ion battery (dudes, you may not be able to recharge in the woods!) and I don't know why they didn't include XM Traffic. Maybe a later unit.

Regardless, hopefully the Bushnell will reset the bar for GPS mfgrs in general.

These critters have come a long way!

-john

Well that suxs about the maps, I guess I'll find out in a week when the CD comes in. I know they have a mini SD card that has everything preloaded but I opted for the disk to put the topos on top instead of buying two SD cards. Oh well maybe I should have gotten the SD card instead that was preloaded. I'll update and let you know if they changed anything when the CD arives.

Well you can still get a LOT of maps on there. It's over a thousand segments (can't remember exact number right now). The top maps cover less area per segment, so they are the "segment hogs".

They may also have updated the firmware and removed this restriction. I haven't checked lately.

Note also be careful with the little button on the unit. I used to just throw mine in my pack and bash it around. At some point the little rubber coating ripped on the button. It still works, but I assume that hoses the water resistance. It isn't really a fault, I was pretty rough on it, but no sense making my mistake.

-john

Thanks John, I just got off the phone with Garmin, they said it had a 2056 map limit, which means I could put all of the us street maps on one card or europe but topo has over 5000 maps so I would have to split it between cards. So I guess the up side is you can have US or Europe maps which are under 2056 on one card but Topo would take 2 discs for the whole country. AT newEgg the prices for micro SD's are cheap thank goodness. Well it's still not too bad to work with I guess. I see some things of garmin never change.

Just picked up a 25W SunLinq foldable solar panel. Nice, lots of 12v output options. What connectors do you use to go directly into the eTrex?

I bought a vector power converter at target (best buys has them as well) and soldered in a cigarette lighter receptacle as well into it and use a standard Garmin 12 volt car charger that plugs into it. This way I can recharge it in the car or by the cells. The Vector is nothing more than a regulator which you can dial in what voltage you want, in the case of the Garmin I hold it at 12 volts which works great and also when charging the batteries. I use to have to drop to 6 volts for the steripen but I had bought a 1 hour charger that runs off of 12 volts now as well and charges really fast now as well. I envy you with the cell you bought, when mine ever go out, I'll probably have to get one of those instead of carrying 4 cells around. They were $40 a piece when I had bought them from Northern tool awhile back , but they stopped carrying them.

With your's I would solder a cigarette lighter in yours coming off the cell (unless it has one) and plug the vector into that and solder another cigarette lighter (in parallel with the vector lead)coming off the Vector. The vector comes with adapter tips that plug into most chargers and electronic gear. The garmin, I had to use there car adapter because I could't find the mini connector.

The reason I use 2 cigarette lighters is I use the one off the cells for heavy duty drawing devices (like a fan) then I plug the vector into it (which has 2 plugs on the output (cigarette lighter and multi tip)) then I plug the electronics into the end of the vector so it's regulated.
Examples:

Great looking unit. What kind of street prices are you guys seeing on this on the 'net?

Mine came with a cigarette lighter socket adaptor (female) so it would be an easy fit. Just need to buy the lighter adaptor (male) for the GPS. Thanks.

Not to get off topic, but I recently bought a 20w 12v rolling solar panel with 12v "cigarette" jack. Battery chargers are an option which I plan to pick up later, but using the gps car charger allows for easy direct connection. Anyone know how folding panels compare to rolling type? Mine says it is marine grade.