[Plitch]

quote:

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Originally posted by smokey & the teacher:
FYI… For here is a link for the battery for the Explorist series.
http://www.tigergps.com/marebapafore.html

smokey

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By the way – for those who do get an Explorist 400,500,or 600 and look in vain for a description in the owner’s manual for attaching the data/recharge cable, the cable should be oriented DOWN the back, not up.

Thanks for the tip on a battery source!

[Plitch]

quote:

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Originally posted by smokey & the teacher:
FYI… For here is a link for the battery for the Explorist series.
http://www.tigergps.com/marebapafore.html

smokey

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[Plitch]

quote:

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Originally posted by smokey & the teacher:
Yes. The info was excellent. If I may. When the gps comes in, can I email you for further help on this item. This will be my first with a card. never used one before. I just ordered the 600 from thegpsstore.com

Email me if you have some further hints for this item
thanks again.
Smokey

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I’d be happy to help out or answer further questions (all the way from upstate NY – Adirondack Mountains). See my web site at http://www.plitch.com for more info on how I use GPS.

[Plitch]

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Originally posted by suemac:
(lurker from FL posting 🙂 )

A newbie in my office just got the eXplorist 500. I was very impressed. I started with a Magellan Sportrak Pro and graduated to a Garmin 60cs this Christmas. I love the auto-routing features of the Garmin, but the 500 has some features I really liked: the expansion card, the file system for organizing waypoints on the unit and I’m pretty sure it also gives you more waypoint info right on the unit, like cache size and even the hint. Not sure about the last, but I can check.

I can’t understand in a million years why they didn’t put usb ports on the lower level units – I mean, how dumb is that – but the 500 and 600 look pretty cool.

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I just bought a 600 and can offer the following:

1. It’s black

2. It didn’t come with a lanyard. I mean how expensive is a shoelace!

In response to some of the spectific criticms in other posts:

3. It gets more than the 12 hours per charge even with pretty constant use. However, you cannot substitute AAs. They won’t fit. I will buy another li-ion to carry as a spare – not on the market yet, but I’ll guess $40 – 50 like similar cell phone packs.

4. I installed a 256 mb sd card. Mind you my main use is not caching, it’s mapping trails. I can store a huge number of fully detailed trails (and detailed topo maps) on and SD card. I can swap cards, if necessary for different sets of topo maps and tracked, POI, etc. I find this a hugely important feature in my mapping efforts. Maybe not so in caching. I also carry topo & POI data for all of NY state, and still have %90+ of my card left.

5. Both the internal memory and SD card have a directory tree system that “looks” a bit like Windows. It is structured with an area specific to caching. It comes with a caching utility program to run on the PC that allows you to get cache coordinates from the web and transfer them to the appropriate area of either internal or SD card memory. There are easy options on the GPS menus to use those points, room for comments, hints, etc. I would think that might make it a desirable unit for caching.

6. I find the USB is fast. In addition, I can remove the SD card and transfer data directly using a cheap SD card reader/writer. Looks like just another removal drive to the PC.

7. The Magellan software seems to work ONLY with Windows XP, not 98SE, 98 or 95.

8. I can’t do NMEA position following on my laptop in the boat or car because none of my software (OziExplorer for example)looks for NMEA input from a USB port – they only see serial ports. Looks like I’ll have to install a software port kludge. Of course, data file (tracks, POI, etc) is no problem since it is just a file transfer. But real time position fixes for a “moving map” via NMEA can be a problem.

9. It’s small – probably 1/2 the size of my Meridan Color. Just a handful. So it has a small screen – some of us aren’t watching the superbowl on it and would prefer someting small and light.

10. I wanted the electronic compass. I could care less about the barometer and barometric altimeter. The compass can be handy though. It can also be turned off to minimize power drain.

11. You can turn off WAAS with a key sequence on power up, I believe. I just isn’t documented in the owners manual.

12. Speaking of which, the owners manual sucks! They don’t tell you which way the data cable attaches – yes you can do it two different ways with a good fit. One one, of course, will produce results.

13. It’s a good performer. I have a SporTrak Pro, a Garmin 12xl (with Garmin dgps receiver), and a Magellan Meridian Color. It is as good as any of them in terms of sensitivity, speed to first fix, and ability to maintain a fix under canopy.

All in all – its a neat toy. If you don’t need the thermometer, electronic compass or barometer, then I’d suggest you look at the 500. If you don’t care about color, how about the 400? AFAIK all the abilities other than these features remain the same on these models. The other Explorists are a bit different.

Hope this answers some questions.

[Author]

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