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On our geocaching podcast today, we share more information about the new Garmin Colorado GPS and its connection to geocaching and Groundspeak's Wherigo site. We also have some great resources for creative cache hides as well as FTF hunt audio, our 800th cache adventure and a flying saucer travel bug.
Hop on over to the PodCacher Forums to discuss the show!
Images mentioned in the show: Go to the Flickr set
We Recommend...
CoinsAndPins.com - a great resource for high-quality geocoins
Links mentioned in the show
PodCacher Photos Flickr pool - add your winter photos
Watch The Skies! travel bug
Sonny's Utterz
Garmin Blogs - check out the Jan 6th entry
The Garmin Colorado, Geocaching and Wherigo
GCJG08 - Snakes and Ladders - our 800th find attempt
Creative Cache Containers Photo Pool - started by Mister B.
Great Hides website - by Mickey and Goofy
Podcacher Treasure Cache
PTC Coffee Table Art Book volume 1 is NOW AVAILABLE!
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The Colorado unit looks great and I like the idea to share data between other Colorado units. It sounds great to see cache details on your GPSr. The price is very high and not many people can afford the unit.
mda_taz
Here are some great facts and comments about the Colorado unit from our geocachers users group.
====================================================
The more I read about the Colorado the more I think it’s completely
unsuitable for Geocaching and the 60CSx is significantly better.
Here’s the list of just some of the things which make it a complete
non-starter so far…
– No display of Geocaches on the map
– No waypoint averaging
– Search and delete by waypoint type/symbols is missing.
– Can’t disable the compass
– 10-15 seconds to open a cache page and 5 seconds to start to scroll
a page(I could have the Palm out of my pocket way quicker)
– No way to mark a Geocache as found
– Geocaches don’t display coordinates
– Can’t offset from a Geocache
– Can’t use a Geocache as a marker to create further points for a Multi
– Geocaches don’t show up in “Recent Finds”
– No diary of finds
The interaction between the Geocache information and the GPS are
pretty non-existent. The brave early adopters are still having to
upload their caches as Waypoints or POIs to make it usable and then
use the Geocaches purely as a text reference for hints etc. $600 is a
lot of money for a slow buggy Palm.
I’m sure some of these things will get fixed with firmware upgrades
but the speed of viewing cache information sounds like it might be a
hardware limitation.
Shame – I would definitely have purchased one for the screen and maps
but these negatives mean that sticking to the 60CSx is a much better
option for caching.
Oh – and it doesn’t fully support Wherigo either (which is one of the
main advertised new features) as it doesn’t have sound capability.
Can you tell I’m really disappointed in all this! 🙁
These errors are so fundamental that I don’t think Garmin could have
talked to or showed this device to a single Geocacher before they
launched it.
=======================================================================
Hey cachers,
I have been forwarding mikes critiques of the colorado for geocachers
to my groundspeak contact, she responded with this…
————————————————————
“Thank you for sharing the outside perspectives on the new Garmin
Colorado. We are creating a list of recommendations to provide to
Garmin and I am certain that some of these issues will be changed.”
—————————————————————
So I hope that Garmin listens. I also have a Garmin Marketing/Sales
contact and I will forward it to him as well.
I think we should voice our opinions ASAP to Garmin from as many
angles as we can.
=========================================================
Re: More Colorado issues
Here is the change list for the first firmware updates for the
Colorado 300 and 400t. Unfortunately most of the fixes are not
geocaching related.
Change History
Changes made from version 2.20 to 2.30:
* Added setting to turn off the compass.
* Alarm clock will not change your backlight if it is already on.
* Low battery warning shows on powerup when appropriate.
* Improved DEM shading with supplemental maps.
* Fixed marine colors for depth soundings and active track.
* Added ability to view extended chart information and chart notes.
* Improve share wirelessly connection.
Changes made from version 2.10 to 2.20:
* Fixed potential shutdown when using partially discharged
alkaline batteries and significant amounts of backlight.
* Improved backlight usability.
* Corrected potential memory leak on altimeter page.
* Corrected issue that changed map setting to north up if
reviewing a point on the map.
* Changed the automotive view angle to match automotive products.
* Added ability to exit compass calibration if calibration fails.
* Improved performance and error handling of Share Wirelessly
application.
* Corrected tone of route turn warnings.
* Added height and depth information on review pages if the
information is available (related to marine maps).
* Corrected drawing of spot soundings.
* Improved drawing of satellite imagery in 400i and 400c.