Anyone use the ETrex? I was in Hamilton Marine in Portland yesterday ....
where were you Roger?

The salesman said he has been selling a ton of these ETrex hand helds ..
they are small though.

What are your opinions?

Nice weather up thar in Maine ,, that is if you like rain, fog, and ick.

I've got an eTex venture. Nice device. Does everything you need. However, I
find it annoying that it looses connection when it's in th epocket of my
soaking wet sailings cloth. Don't know if it general for these devices
(etrex og portable in general).

Bjarke

"Thomas Wentworth" wrote in message
news:fXxng.2117$TC1.23@trndny08...
Anyone use the ETrex? I was in Hamilton Marine in Portland yesterday ....
where were you Roger?

The salesman said he has been selling a ton of these ETrex hand helds ..
they are small though.

What are your opinions?

Nice weather up thar in Maine ,, that is if you like rain, fog, and ick.

Thomas Wentworth wrote:
Anyone use the ETrex? I was in Hamilton Marine in Portland yesterday ....
where were you Roger?

The salesman said he has been selling a ton of these ETrex hand helds ..
they are small though.

What are your opinions?

I use the cheap one as a backup - its handy to take ashore with a
waypoint set back at the anchorage. You never know when it will get
too foggy to find your boat! I suppose the more featured one is
nicer, but the screen is a bit too small for me.



Nice weather up thar in Maine ,, that is if you like rain, fog, and ick.

You can find that in Boston - we just blew past the 2 month record for
rain, not including yesterday and today - and there's still a week to go!

I've had an eTrex Vista & Garmin's Mapsource Topo USA for five years and
found it worked very well, but the maps are very small. Still, it worked
great for river paddling, hiking, snomachining and guiding. I was once
asked by my employer to guide a group down a river I'd never floated in a
time limit far shorter than a relaxed trip should take. By plotting daily
mileage points at home and then having them on the river on the etrex made
it esy to budget time and distance. Little did the clients know how much I
relied on that little piece of electronics.

The vista downsides include:
- The joystick starts failing after three or four years; it just stops
making connections. After wiggling it vigorously and turning the unit on
and off I can usually get it to work again, but it becomes a real pain.
- The rubber around the case gets looser over time (over 3 years) and starts
to creep, with its glue seeping out and making a bit of a mess. It also
starts to rip; I've lost a button cover and part of the flap that protects
the output contacts. I'm inclined to believe that it is no longer
waterproof. For the first three years I had it I would clip it to my life
vest when I kayaked whitewater; it was fun to download the tracts and see
the elevation chart after a run, including the dips where I flipped and
rolled up, the water pressure making the graph look like I'd fallen into a
hole (usually exactly the case!)
- The serial interface is a PITA, and VERY slow. With the addition of a
Belkan serial/USB converter I had some crash problems, but generally did the
job. But loading 12K of maps took twenty minutes. Also I sometimes had
trouble finding the serial port #, unlike USB devices which are generally
plug-n-play.
- The positive battery spring on the right battery (facing the open battery
door w/ the door at the bottom of the unit) was a bad design; it would
ground itself out on some rechargables and start to melt the unit. The fix
was to ALWAYS put the positive end of the battery in first; a dicipline that
some acquire more quickly than others, and many forgot when hurrying a
battery change.

I liked my Vista well enough to buy a Vista Cx last month to get USB, color,
and a newer unit for backup if my 276C failed. I can upload Bluecharts to
it, but will wait; Bluecharts can only be put onto two GPS units; they must
be repurchased for more installations. This means that if your GPS s**ts
the bed . . . You get the idea.

Brad Snow
s/v Aldonza


"Thomas Wentworth" wrote in message
news:fXxng.2117$TC1.23@trndny08...
Anyone use the ETrex? I was in Hamilton Marine in Portland yesterday ....
where were you Roger?

The salesman said he has been selling a ton of these ETrex hand helds ..
they are small though.

What are your opinions?

Nice weather up thar in Maine ,, that is if you like rain, fog, and ick.

"Thomas Wentworth" wrote

I was in Hamilton Marine in Portland yesterday .... where were you
Roger?

Sailing past. It was actually quite pleasant. No squinting into the
sun or baking in the heat. We didn't get rained on once.

I was in Hamilton's yesterday and they were still talking about the
guy who came in looking for imaginary handrails.

--

Roger Long

Thomas Wentworth wrote:
Anyone use the ETrex? I was in Hamilton Marine in Portland yesterday ....
where were you Roger?

The salesman said he has been selling a ton of these ETrex hand helds ..
they are small though.

What are your opinions?

Nice weather up thar in Maine ,, that is if you like rain, fog, and ick.

it's good as a handheld, don't try to hook it to anything though
because the special cable you need is really expensive, doubly so if
you need a cable that let's you hook it to a computer AND a power
supply at the same time. that cable is a huge ripoff.

I bought a cable from this site and was pleased w/ the service, cost and
quality.

http://gpsinformation.net/main/josecabl.htm

Not sure that he's still doing it this way, but when I bought my cable he
didn't want $$ until you received the cable!

Brad Snow
s/v Aldonza




"purple_stars" wrote in message
oups.com...

Thomas Wentworth wrote:
Anyone use the ETrex? I was in Hamilton Marine in Portland yesterday
....
where were you Roger?

The salesman said he has been selling a ton of these ETrex hand helds ..
they are small though.

What are your opinions?

Nice weather up thar in Maine ,, that is if you like rain, fog, and ick.

it's good as a handheld, don't try to hook it to anything though
because the special cable you need is really expensive, doubly so if
you need a cable that let's you hook it to a computer AND a power
supply at the same time. that cable is a huge ripoff.

"padeen" wrote in message
...
I bought a cable from this site and was pleased w/ the service, cost and
quality.

http://gpsinformation.net/main/josecabl.htm

Not sure that he's still doing it this way, but when I bought my cable he
didn't want $$ until you received the cable!

Brad Snow
s/v Aldonza




"purple_stars" wrote in message
oups.com...

Thomas Wentworth wrote:
Anyone use the ETrex? I was in Hamilton Marine in Portland yesterday
....
where were you Roger?

The salesman said he has been selling a ton of these ETrex hand helds ..
they are small though.

What are your opinions?

Nice weather up thar in Maine ,, that is if you like rain, fog, and ick.

it's good as a handheld, don't try to hook it to anything though
because the special cable you need is really expensive, doubly so if
you need a cable that let's you hook it to a computer AND a power
supply at the same time. that cable is a huge ripoff.

Might also want to try ebay. I got a combo for my Garmin 12XL for much less.

--
"j" ganz @@
www.sailnow.com