I Just Bought A Garmin Etrex Vista Cx…now What?
I’ve just started screwing around with this thing, and I am now realizing that I am confused. Anyone have any good tips for where I can figure out how best to use this? Books, websites, etc? Also, which maps would be best for me to download? I am wanting to use this for navigation in my day to day life, and to explore the mountains in my Jeep and go camping, hiking, etc. Thanks!
one tip is to check out the groups at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/etrex_lege…
and http://groups.yahoo.com/group/etrex
Ignore the “legend” in the title, that group is very willing to talk about any of the Etrex series.
I got my Vista HCx (higher sensitivity receiver, about 3/4 of the battery life of the Cx) a couple months ago but have had an old Vista for a number of years.
The best way to learn is just what you have been trying to do, play with it. Either bring your manual with you or just explore the menus while trying to figgure it out. It actually is a good way to learn.
For navigating, look at the settings. You have to decide on fastest or shortest routes. I find that setting computers to find shortest routes can give you some very weird routes.
You have the option of blocking some types of roads and manuevers. Blocking U turns sounds reasonable, until you find that it will give you some weird routes to some locations with large parking lots because it thinks the entrance is at a point (not at the actual entrance) where it would take a U turn to get there from your travel direction.
Start by punching in the destinations for driving while you are going to places that you know. This will give you a feel for some of the directional messages it gives you. “Stay right” can mean “don’t take the left exit” or “there is a right exit lane on a city street that you should be in”.
You might even find a new route that is good and it seems to be likely that once in a while you will ask yourself “how the heck did it come up with that route”. The “how the heck” routes will get you there, but are deffinately not what a local person would use.
I would also suggest that you go geocacheing a few times. That is a good way to get a feel for the controls.
Same with hiking a trail then downloading the track at home.
It will let you look at how the gps records your location and how accurate it is in your normal surroundings.
I generally keep mine set to record at 3 second intervals because my primary reason to look at tracks is when inline skating. The even spacing lets me visually see when the GPS gets a location hiccough from the satelites and means that it typicaly marks a point every 30-70 feet which makes for good detail on the trail maps I want to create.