Garmin Oregon 550 Series

Posted: Thu Aug 27, 2009 10:13 am

sweetlife wrote:

step away from the dark side, and get the Garmin (the force will be strong with you)

The dark side has found me over 1250 caches! And it only cost me $115 for my eXplorist 210. Yeah, I'm proud of it! Black and white screen, no maps. But I still "OUT CACHED" 95% of the teams at the cache ba$h Very Happy

You can have your color screens and tide information. HaHa

That being said I will still take any donations of an Oregon Smile

WGA Member Joined: 2007-11-26 Posts: 3258

Can someone tell me how to search for POIs by a different location than where we currently are using the unit? In other words, I want to find hotels, restaurant, whatever, in a specific city. I just can't figure out how to do this. Embarassed

Posted: Thu Aug 27, 2009 9:02 pm

Here's one way:
BOLD are screen selections.
WHERE TO?>then select the target on the bottom of the screen>A MAP POINT>then pick a spot on the map>USE> You will now be selecting POIs near the map pin.

WGA Member Joined: 2007-11-26 Posts: 3258

Excellent! Thanks!

WGA Member Joined: 2007-11-26 Posts: 3258

I have the 550 on in the BASEMENT at the moment doing some file maintenance.

It just beeped at me...signal acquired!

This thing is awesome...

Posted: Fri Sep 11, 2009 4:41 am

gotta run wrote:

I have the 550 on in the BASEMENT at the moment doing some file maintenance.

It just beeped at me...signal acquired!

This thing is awesome...

Ah the sweet sweet sound of signal lock.

Posted: Sun Oct 18, 2009 6:24 pm

:-/

I can't believe that on the maps the 550t does not show the big 8-10 foot wide river or stream just south of Sparta but north of the freeway. I also have city Navigator loaded as well.

Out caching and bang... I find myself at the edge of this water waterway that does not even show on the GPS. I get home and check the GPS and software and nothing. Google maps shows it...

Keeps good lock on in the woods but you might drown if only looking at the GPS.

WGA Member Joined: 2007-11-26 Posts: 3258

PCFrog wrote:

:-/

I can't believe that on the maps the 550t does not show the big 8-10 foot wide river or stream just south of Sparta but north of the freeway. I also have city Navigator loaded as well.

Out caching and bang... I find myself at the edge of this water waterway that does not even show on the GPS. I get home and check the GPS and software and nothing. Google maps shows it.

It should show it. Make sure you have the topo map enabled thru the setup menu and "show shaded relief" selected.

WGA Member Joined: 2007-04-27 Posts: 331 Location: Muskego

PCFrog wrote:

:-/

I can't believe that on the maps the 550t does not show the big 8-10 foot wide river or stream just south of Sparta but north of the freeway. I also have city Navigator loaded as well.

Out caching and bang... I find myself at the edge of this water waterway that does not even show on the GPS. I get home and check the GPS and software and nothing. Google maps shows it...

Keeps good lock on in the woods but you might drown if only looking at the GPS.

Speaking of Google, the latest beta release for the Garmin Oregon's allow for rasterized maps to be loaded. From what I can figure out, that means we will be able to load portions of Google aerials onto the Oregon as a map. I have not been able to figure out all the details yet, but it shows the direction Garmin is taking the unit.

Posted: Wed Oct 21, 2009 10:54 pm

SammyClaws wrote:

The latest beta release for the Garmin Oregon's allow for rasterized maps to be loaded. From what I can figure out, that means we will be able to load portions of Google aerials onto the Oregon as a map. I have not been able to figure out all the details yet, but it shows the direction Garmin is taking the unit.

You might find this info interesting.
http://forums.gpsfiledepot.com/index.php/topic,630.msg4150.html#msg4150

Map of Kauai, Hawaii:
http://www.gpsfiledepot.com/maps/view/239

Posted: Sun Nov 01, 2009 4:39 pm

I identified the issue with why the river in question would not show on the 550t.

Wanting to be able to uses the 550t for road navigation as well I bought CN North America NT 2010.10. With this installed and active the river does not show.

To get the river to show I had to disable the map (one mentioned above) and work off the base map in the unit.

While the issue is identified it is really annoying that the CN is not an overly of the base map but a replacement.

WGA Member Joined: 2007-11-26 Posts: 3258

Yes the camera works underwater...does a very credible job. Biggest problem is the delay between pressing the camera button and the time it actually takes the picture, which means you are bobbing around in the water and can miss your desired shot. But otherwise it did great! Here are jules80 and Obi-Will Kenobi off the coast of Roatan. Very Happy

No problems shooting to 5' under water:

Posted: Mon Nov 30, 2009 9:40 am

Wow, you are braver than me to take your Oregon into the water! I'm impressed.

I do have a question about your pics. Whenever I save screen shots, I've got the + and - signs and the back arrow in the pic. Do you have to crop your photos or is there a way to save the pic without those sympols?

Posted: Mon Nov 30, 2009 9:50 am

Frizz wrote:

Wow, you are braver than me to take your Oregon into the water! I'm impressed.

Ditto.

WGA Member Joined: 2007-11-26 Posts: 3258

Frizz wrote:

Do you have to crop your photos or is there a way to save the pic without those sympols?

These aren't screen shots, although that is another option. All the photos save in the "DCIM" folder of the Garmin itself, similar to a regular digital camera.

I had test-dunked the Garmin in the pool this summer with no problems, but I will admit to a little trepediation taking it under water and in salt water. However, I trusted the product literature and it worked just great! Again the hardest part is since the camera "button" is on screen rather than physical, and since there is a slight delay, it's difficult to get a great shot. In other words I have lots of pictures of water with no fish in them, and more than a few closeups of my finger covering the camera lens Embarassed

.