garmin etrex gps
Moderator: Excalibur Marketing Dude
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bait pile willie
- Posts: 657
- Joined: Wed Mar 22, 2006 7:56 pm
- Location: london ontario.
garmin etrex gps
on sale at can.tire for $74.99.have had one for 6-7 yrs, a no nonsense ,one handed simple operation gps great fo hikers,moose hunters that just want to get back to camp or their car. a great buy.
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BOB VANDRISH
- Posts: 510
- Joined: Wed May 05, 2004 3:51 pm
- Location: BRAMPTON,ONTARIO
If you are going to invest in one of these,make sure you get the HCx model.
These are designed to work in heavy cover.
I have a Legend,and wish I would have gone for the Vista,as the compass in that model works when you are standing still.
With the others,you have to be moving at a minimum speed for it to activate.
I think this model must be the regular base model,which is like the first one I bought,and it will not do the job under cover-you will lose your satellites.
You are talking a couple hundred bucks for the good ones.
These are designed to work in heavy cover.
I have a Legend,and wish I would have gone for the Vista,as the compass in that model works when you are standing still.
With the others,you have to be moving at a minimum speed for it to activate.
I think this model must be the regular base model,which is like the first one I bought,and it will not do the job under cover-you will lose your satellites.
You are talking a couple hundred bucks for the good ones.
Bob Vandrish.
I was given a Garmin Etrex a few years back when it was worth just under $400.00. It can do far more than I ever tried. It has taken us all the way out west and on all of my hunting and atv trips. I really can't see why I would need anything any better.That is my opinion.
Excalibur Exomax and Arctic Cat 400 auto. Life don't get much better than that.
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bait pile willie
- Posts: 657
- Joined: Wed Mar 22, 2006 7:56 pm
- Location: london ontario.
I agree. I have all my trail heads and stands mapped out. It always gets me in and out of wherever I go. It's all I need - the fish & hunt guide/calculator is interesting with the ideal hunt and fish times. It's been lucky in the past! A great buy. You'll never lose the yellow unit if you drop it, and it's got good water protection.
I paid about $125 for it over a year ago. Great price at $75!
I paid about $125 for it over a year ago. Great price at $75!
I didnt look but I take it thats the basic yellow 12 channel model
I get into gpsr's/mapping somewhat, and no offence to the gpsr anyone owns, but most of the non "H"(high sensitivity receiver) models are pretty obsolete now, they work alright if your in an area where you can keep a signal but get into some modest tree cover and/or hilly terrian and the units constant losing/trying to keep a signal lock(if it can even get one at all) gets irritating quick, unless you burrow to the center of the earth you'll be hard pressed to lose a signal lock with any of the "H" models...
right now I have a vista HCX(which is top of the line in the etrex series) which I paid around $240 for and a summit HC which was $155(found a deal), performance wise theres no difference between them, the only difference is that the HCX takes microSD cards(which you can load the world on...) and has all the auto routing/turn by turn street capabilities(if you have the auto routing maps for it...), the HC only has 24mb of memory(still quite a bit but no match for a 2gig or even 4gig memory card) and it doesnt have the fancy street capabilities, but if all you have is basic street maps(non auto routing) then theres no difference in street performance between them...
for anyone looking to buy a gpsr I'd suggest getting an "H" model if you live anywhere around any tree cover, garmin has a basic yellow H model etrex(non mapping) which runs about $80, but I dont see much sense in even buying one of those when a venture HC, which is WAY more capable of a gpsr, can be bought for $112...
the legend HCX is basically the vista HCX without the compass/ altimeter and the venture HC is basically the summit HC without the compass/altimeter, I bought the summit HC over the venture HC just because I wanted the electronic compass, but I also paid around $50 more for it, but other than a few "feature" differences the receiver performance is the same between them...
I cant think that I did here but I posted in a couple other hunting sites a while back that theres also some free maps around if anyone has a mapping gpsr and needs maps, for the sake of not retyping it all I'm going to just quote what I posted there...
"I know more than a few hunters use handheld gpsr's, and as anyone whos dealt with it knows maps for gpsr's arent cheap, I'm not much of a message board guy anymore but I figured I'd just put a heads up out for anyone with a map capable gpsr in need of maps, this guy has made up a very decent street mapset of the US and has them up for free, granted they arent auto-route capable(but then neither are most of the handheld gpsr's) but they work great and are a world better than the junk base maps most handheld gpsr's come with... the word is he's working on a set of topo maps for the US but IMO topo maps are a little on the cluttered side and fairly specific in their use and so arent the best for "in general" use anyway, these street maps work alot better for that
http://forums.groundspeak.com/GC/ind...owtopic=189762
theres also canadian topo maps http://forums.groundspeak.com/GC/ind...owtopic=174764 however the thread is 11 pages long and since I have no interest in canadian topos I havent read the thread to see what the deal is, but I've noticed there are a few canadian guys around on these crossbow sites so I thought I'd put the link up in case anyone wants to check it out
what this guys has done and the work he's put into it to do this for the general public is impressive, if you decide to use his maps I'd ask that you at least give him an open "thank you" for his work"
I get into gpsr's/mapping somewhat, and no offence to the gpsr anyone owns, but most of the non "H"(high sensitivity receiver) models are pretty obsolete now, they work alright if your in an area where you can keep a signal but get into some modest tree cover and/or hilly terrian and the units constant losing/trying to keep a signal lock(if it can even get one at all) gets irritating quick, unless you burrow to the center of the earth you'll be hard pressed to lose a signal lock with any of the "H" models...
right now I have a vista HCX(which is top of the line in the etrex series) which I paid around $240 for and a summit HC which was $155(found a deal), performance wise theres no difference between them, the only difference is that the HCX takes microSD cards(which you can load the world on...) and has all the auto routing/turn by turn street capabilities(if you have the auto routing maps for it...), the HC only has 24mb of memory(still quite a bit but no match for a 2gig or even 4gig memory card) and it doesnt have the fancy street capabilities, but if all you have is basic street maps(non auto routing) then theres no difference in street performance between them...
for anyone looking to buy a gpsr I'd suggest getting an "H" model if you live anywhere around any tree cover, garmin has a basic yellow H model etrex(non mapping) which runs about $80, but I dont see much sense in even buying one of those when a venture HC, which is WAY more capable of a gpsr, can be bought for $112...
the legend HCX is basically the vista HCX without the compass/ altimeter and the venture HC is basically the summit HC without the compass/altimeter, I bought the summit HC over the venture HC just because I wanted the electronic compass, but I also paid around $50 more for it, but other than a few "feature" differences the receiver performance is the same between them...
I cant think that I did here but I posted in a couple other hunting sites a while back that theres also some free maps around if anyone has a mapping gpsr and needs maps, for the sake of not retyping it all I'm going to just quote what I posted there...
"I know more than a few hunters use handheld gpsr's, and as anyone whos dealt with it knows maps for gpsr's arent cheap, I'm not much of a message board guy anymore but I figured I'd just put a heads up out for anyone with a map capable gpsr in need of maps, this guy has made up a very decent street mapset of the US and has them up for free, granted they arent auto-route capable(but then neither are most of the handheld gpsr's) but they work great and are a world better than the junk base maps most handheld gpsr's come with... the word is he's working on a set of topo maps for the US but IMO topo maps are a little on the cluttered side and fairly specific in their use and so arent the best for "in general" use anyway, these street maps work alot better for that
http://forums.groundspeak.com/GC/ind...owtopic=189762
theres also canadian topo maps http://forums.groundspeak.com/GC/ind...owtopic=174764 however the thread is 11 pages long and since I have no interest in canadian topos I havent read the thread to see what the deal is, but I've noticed there are a few canadian guys around on these crossbow sites so I thought I'd put the link up in case anyone wants to check it out
what this guys has done and the work he's put into it to do this for the general public is impressive, if you decide to use his maps I'd ask that you at least give him an open "thank you" for his work"