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Tell us about your current/past GPSr.
Likes, dislikes, thoughts on averaging etc.
We have a Legend and are thinking about a Meriplat or Mericolor(just for something different)…
What about WAAS? Do you leave it on while caching? Is WAAS any real benefit in the woods while hunting? Maybe WAAS for placing (you feel you have more time then?) What would be the one you’d like next?
Don’t know abou the Meridians, do know a little about WAAS. The key to waypoint accuracy is time. Consider waypoint averaging as another method around using, WAAS, which still requires not moving the GPSR so that things can settle down. That being said, I have not found WAAS to be of much advantage and it does seem to drain more power from the batteries. If, when hiding a cache, you can get the 3D or 2D differntial mode with WAAS, then by all means use it. For hunting, I find that the motion and lossof signal in the trees doesn’t give an advantage. It won’t hurt, but it doesn’t help as much as you would think.
I like to recommend making a reference waypoint in your driveway. I left my Garmin average all night in the car once. Took a few thousand samples. Now I use that one spot, an intersection of slab lines, to see how much my property moves around from time to time. It still comes down to plus or minus thirty feet either way from ground zero. On a cache, that radius can be larger.
Maybe when the association gets lots of money we can get a surveyor’s GPS to loan out. Those get accuracy to an inch!
Steve Bukosky
WaukeshaDoes anyone want to comment on their meridians? How do you think they compare to a Legend from, either experience or, heresay… Like I stated before, this is just curiosity at this point… Just looking/thinking at this point…
All input welcome!Cheers
Team Flushingrouse
I switched from a Garmin eTrex (little Yellow Model) to a Magellan Meridian last summer.
First, let me say that I loved my little yellow eTrex, and enjoyed hunting many dozens of caches with it. The physical design, with the buttons on the sides and its basic shape and feel cannot be beat. Also, the user interface was very intuitive, and the unit seemed to have a sense of humor. Just look at the little guy walk out and plant that flag when you turn it on! The eTrex line’s major flaw is simply the patch antenna. They don’t hold a good lock on satelites like units equiped with Quad Helix. It’s accuracy was fine, it was just frustrating at times when signals were weak and I would only lock onto three satelites that formed a straight line. Some days this was a problem, other days it wasn’t.
On to my Meridian. I switched for three main reasons.
1) I wanted something with MAPS! The Magellan Meridians all have base maps of major highways, and you can install detailed road maps easily. This is nothing unusual… plenty of other models support this. But the Meridian has a nice large screen on which to display them.
2) It has a quad helix antenna. Like I mentioned earlier, this is a big deal. The Meridians lock onto satelites like they are hungry The more satelites, the better.
3) The Meridians accept SD cards to expand the memory. I love things that are expandable. I chose to buy the basic unit, and added a 32 meg card. To give you an idea of how much that can hold, I just downloaded detailed road maps for about 65% of wisconsin, and I think it was well under 7 megs.
4) It has that mysterious WAAS capability.
(Note: that was actually FOUR main reasons)
Now, about the WAAS. I need to read up on it some more. Sbukowski seems to know a little more about it than I do. But in general, units with WAAS capabilities are advertised to have accuracies of about 10 feet vs 40 feet without. If I stop moving, and give the chance for the unit to begin averaging, I can sit and watch as the distance to the waypoint starts to change. I have found this to be helpful in some situations. If my “needle” seems to be doing some weird things, and I have a lock on a WAAS satelite and several regular ones, I stop for a couple minutes and let the unit do its stuff. More often than not, this is somewhat helpful. But don’t expect miracles.
At the campout this weekend, I made a point to set my Meridian down about 2 feet from each cache I found. I was surprised that many times, after averaging for a couple minutes while I stamped my book, the distance to waypoint would read much less than 10 feet, even if it read 20 when I first found the cache. I remember 3 cases where it settled out at 3 feet or less. I am not sure what to make of that… were those caches placed with GPS units that were also WAAS enabled, and the user let it average for several minutes before marking the co-ordinates? I don’t really know.
The bottom line, however, is that no matter what unit you have, you must remember that the person that hid a cache probably did not get a perfect set of co-ordinates. Even if you assume the range of error on a WAAS unit is 10 feet, and the hider had a range of error of 10 feet, you must add the two errors together, so you have a twenty foot radius. And that would be under perfect conditions, hiding and hunting.
Bottom line– I am very happy with my Meridian. But I tend to think that most modern units are probably fine choices. WAAS is becoming a standard feature, as are Quad Helix antennas. Garmin, Magellan, and Lowrance all have gobs of happy customers.
UH-OH!!
This may not be true but….
I just read Magellans are made in France!
Strike One!!
my $.02
Billy
Team FlushingrouseYeah, ain’t that a bummer? I’m in the mode of not buying French products, but I bought my Meridian about a year ago, when it didn’t make as much difference to me. Oh well. I’m still happy with it.
Yeah, ain’t that a bummer? I’m in the mode of not buying French products, but I bought my Meridian about a year ago, when it didn’t make as much difference to me. Oh well. I’m still happy with it.
Please…
Do thorough research before you start boycotting companies based upon French ties. If you want to boycot French products as a political statement, that’s certainly your right. But considering that a boycot is intended by design to hurt a company, then make sure you are hurting your intended victim.
Magellan, who makes the Meridian line of GPSRs, is owned by Thales Navigation. The Corporate headquarters, in other words its corporate head, is in Santa Clara California. Their consumer products division, which is what we are talking about here, is in San Dimas, California. Their manufacturing plant is in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
They only have one facility for Thales Navigation in France, which is their European headquarters. Thier Consumer Sales division for Europe however is in our allie’s country, Britian.
This only took me one mouse click off of the Magellan website to discover… so please, research before you boycot.
Good point Alan.
I have my Meridian right in front of me. I have examined it completely, even removed the batteries and looked in the battery compartment, and I cannot find a “Made In” statement of any sort, which seems odd. It may have said something on the box, but that is buried in a closet that I will not even attempt to open until I finish at LEAST my first cup of coffee.
Given a choice, I generally try to purchase items that are made in the USA or Canada by American or Canadian companies. This is not always (or even frequently) possible. Also, this USUALLY is not a major political statement against other countries…it is simply that I like to reward companies for keeping factories over here, and paying tax dollars here. In reality, I know it is not as simple as this. The economy is so global now that I assume “Made in USA” means “Yup, we mounted the circuit board in the case and screwed it shut here, but everything else was done in Malaysia”. Which is fine… I’ve been to Malaysia, and the people were great.
Yo T-man,
I had my box sitting here, and I could find no discernable note stating the loaction of manufacturing. The only thing that comes close is…
“Copyright 2001 Thales Navigation. All rights reserved. Magellan, Meridian, and MapSend are trademarks of Thales Navigation.”I’ll take Alan’s word for it, this unit is built in the USA. He may not be Malaysian, but I can vouge for his greatness.
Snoshu:
I’ve had my MeriGold since last August and I have been very satisfied with it’s performance in both caching situations and other wayfinding needs.I had done a lot of research before I purchased my MeriGold. I looked at the eTrex Vista, iFinder, and the Meridian line. Printed off all the manuals online, weighed apples to oranges, and then went to Gander Mtn. and held all of them in my hand to see what felt the best. The Meridian came out ahead with the most to offer/best feel in my hand. I liked the Vista: nice and small, powerful, good features,but it lacked upgradability. The iFinder, not waterproof enough for the kayak. The Meridian… she had it all, and was intuitive enough to get the hang of it there in the store.
I’ve used an eTrex before for a few caches, and wasn’t entirely satisfied with both the interface, or the ergonomics of the buttons. Overall it seemed clunky on the inputting end, and it is “warm-and-fuzzied” up on the interface end. I personally don’t need my GPS resources used to animate satellites in the air, or a cartoon placing a flag. If others like that, that’s fine. I like all the system resources going to the processing needed for a location accurately.
The Meridian series seemed to fit in my hand better, access to the buttons was easy and natural; it never blocked the screen. The screen size is very much a plus, nice and big. The screens were customizable like my old Lowrance Eagle; which gives you the option of tailoring caching screens to driving screens. The upgradable memory and the waterproofness is what tipped the scales for me.
There are some things with the Meridian I would like different: It takes a lot (4-5) different menu clicks to get to the WAYPOINT EDIT spot. I’ve gotten used to it, like we do with all of our stuff.
Overall, I’d say go with the Meridian, it’s powerful, accurate, and an overall good unit.quote:
Originally posted by Snoshu:
UH-OH!!This may not be true but….
I just read Magellans are made in France!
Strike One!!
my $.02
Billy
Team FlushingrouseLike I said….”this may not be true but”…
I seem to have ruffled some feathers unintentionally. Again it’s just my $.02.. Never did I say to boycott the product! Looking at an earlier post of mine I even showed some interest in purchasing one…Still do!
I hereby apologize for any harm I may have done Thales Navigation. And in the process I learn that maybe I shoud have looked into it a bit further before posting a comment that at the time, for me, was really just for fun…
Sorry,
Team FlushingrouseI guess I haven’t really tried other receivers, but I am very happy with my Garmin V. I use it a lot for auto navigation on trips and vacations. I was amazed to find that not only could it get me to a city or specific address, I can also do searches to locate the closest gas station, food, attraction, etc. For example while in Minnesota, to see Wis + Marq in the NCAA tourney, my brother said, “ask it for the nearest pizza place”. (As if the gps was human). Anyway I went to find mode, points of interest, food, pizza. It quickly spit out a bunch of choices (nearest to farthest)with addresses and phone numbers included! My brother called for the pie without the need of a phone book or operator.
Anyway it gets me to geocache hunts just fine. After it navigates the best route to drive and gets me parked I tell it to find the cache and go to off road mode and it usually gets me within 20 feet or less. I like it.Just for comparison to Rangerboy’s Garmin V… I can key in specific addresses and it will get me there. I have used this feature many times when traveling out of town and it works quite well. I do not think, however, that it contains a database of pizze places. I can search for cities, highways, airports, waterways, and parks, but as far as I can tell, it is not loaded with commercial businesses. Of course, there MAY be a download for this, but not that I know of.
quote:
Originally posted by Snoshu:
Never did I say to boycott the product!Didn’t mean to imply that you were telling others to boycott Magellan, just that you yourself were planning on boycotting them, based on your comment Strike One!!
I hereby apologize for any harm I may have done Thales Navigation. And in the process I learn that maybe I shoud have looked into it a bit further before posting a comment that at the time, for me, was really just for fun…
There was no harm done Snoshu, the whole purpose of my post was just to get you and others to do some due diligence in research before exercising your right to boycott a company, that’s all
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