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Explorist 600 Problems


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I thought you guys might want to inform people about my experiences with my new Explorist 600. Feel free to post them wherever they is do the most good for users.

 

My story:

 

 

 

Hi. I just wanted to inform anyone who might be considering buying the new Explorist 600 by Magellan that the "bells and whistles" they advertise are useless.

1. The Thermometer. Upon starting the unit begins to climb beginning about 4 degrees off and rapidly climbing to about 15 degrees to high and stays there, apparently

Magellan put the temperature sensor right next to the backlight.....sigh.

 

2. The Barometer, The Barometer has a range or 16 - 31 inHg and in this small range it is consistently 4-8 inHg off. I have checked this against three reliable sources

And they are all in agreement with each other but not with the Explorist 600

The Barometer also reads (RISING, STEADY, FALLING,) and is all over the place, and usually wrong!

The amazing thing is when you get almost any kind of Barometer form other sources the first thing you do is calibrate it to your local pressure so you have a starting base point, but, the Explorist does not have a way to do this so I guess you are stuck with whatever base calibration Magellan uses in France...sigh

 

3. The Altimeter, seams to work if you calibrate it every 2-3 hours, but if you sit on a rock in the mountains for about 20 minutes you can gain or lose 10-20 feet

in altitude, but at least you can Re-calibrate it and move on.

 

These are all valid problems for a good tech support person but, upon contacting tech support via E-Mail four times and explaining in detail my problems some wonderful techie copied and pasted a page from the user manual that had nothing to do with my problem and mailed this to me..

Another E-Mail and I was told to turn my Magellan (on/off) for 24 hours to get a Barometer history started, I did this, it did not change one thing!!!

I e-mailed and explained this did not help.....

....after this they refuse to answer my requests for help so I called...

...I sat on HOLD for 48 minutes and listened to ENYA music and the always encouraging "Your call in important to us please stay on the line."

After finally giving up they offer a "Call Back" leave your number and we will call you back up to 6 times today....Well,...for two days I had someone sitting by the phone on the ready to answer and NO CALL BACK!!!!, so,, I E-Mailed tech support and asked them to- Call me back -and they now (not having any answers for me) refuse to answer my e-mails or call me back.

 

thebearguy@rmisp.com

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Hi,

I had problems with my Explorist 300 Weather Screen where the pressure was 36 and the gauge pointer was not showing. The Altimeter reading seem to change each time I went back to the Weather Scrren and showed -6544 most of the time.

 

When I called Magellan Service, they had me perform a couple resets and then said to send it back. I got a new Explorist 300 unit in about 10 days and it seems to work fine.

 

I compare with my Explorist 600 and there is always some differences.

I like the eXplorist 600 color screen, so do not used the explorist 300 much.

 

It sounds like you have a bad unit.

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I bought the eX600 to find caches, not be a weather station. :) The price difference between the 500 and 600 was small enough that I could justify it for the electronic compass, which I am happy with. No other hardware complaints, it performs great. All other complaints are in software, and I'm hoping that they will be remedied in future firmware upgrades.

 

--Marky

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My Meridian Platinum had a temperature sensor and barometer, too, and they were pretty worthless. The electronic compass was the only feature that was worth the premium cost relative to the gold.

 

I don't know what reasonable accuracy for an altimeter should be; for a GPS an elevation reading within 20 ft based on sattelite data would satisfy me. So for the poor performance of the cited features, I'd have to say that's about what I would expect and one shouldn't be too surprised. I've found few who thought the barometer was useful and no one who sees a hill of beans in the thermometer.

 

The customer service [non-]response sounds inexcusable and downright scarey. What's going on over there?

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My Meridian Platinum had a temperature sensor and barometer, too, and they were pretty worthless. The electronic compass was the only feature that was worth the premium cost relative to the gold.

 

I don't know what reasonable accuracy for an altimeter should be; for a GPS an elevation reading within 20 ft based on sattelite data would satisfy me. So for the poor performance of the cited features, I'd have to say that's about what I would expect and one shouldn't be too surprised. I've found few who thought the barometer was useful and no one who sees a hill of beans in the thermometer.

 

The customer service [non-]response sounds inexcusable and downright scarey. What's going on over there?

I agree with that, the compass is the only thing worth the extra money. the temperature gauge might work but I have never seen it go down only up when viewing it.

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You people freak me out. Magellan advertises features on a device, such as direct routing, a pressure barometer, a barometer, none of which even come close to working and you say things like "nice compass". I paid for these features and I expect them to work. Tech support is made up of monkees, I have called and emailed them on several occassions and their response has always been "huh, I don't know" their software was written by monkees, the GPS take several minutes to track just a few a satellites, it will only give you direct routing with a start and end point beyond that you get a bunch of straight lines drawn off and on the map, if you introduce waypoints forget it as it only gives you a path to the end point and you can forget anything in the middle,,,,,.

 

If I sound upset it is because I just dropped over $700 on the Explorist 600, Mapsend Direct Route 2.0F, a bike mount, a car mount, a car charger and an SD card. If you want a GPS device that works like you want, heck like you need or a GPS device that offers you the features everyone else offers you better look elsewhere, or waste your money.

 

You would be better off going to Staples and buying some scotch tape, a marker and a map.

 

Tom Ballos

Hyde Park, NY

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:mad: Just a thought; the program written for the barometer reading might have been calibrated from where it was made;IE: Japan. So it might explain why they are so off, sea-level reading in your area would be way different. Also, baro readings change with altitude.

Magellan should make an upgrade patch that will allow for calibration in a certain area when initialized.......... :D

Just my thoughts.......

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My antique Magellan 4000xl was dying a slow death. I e-mailed Magellan and after only 5 short days I received a response. They explained the problem and told me about a trade-in program they have. I was going to trade my dying unit in for a refurbished Meridian Gold. I needed an RA number before I could send in my old unit.

 

I sent 3 more e-mails, and 3 phone calls (also with the call-back option) and never heard from them again.

 

I ordered an Etrex Vista from amazon.com yesterday. It will be here early next week.

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You people freak me out. Magellan advertises features on a device, such as direct routing, a pressure barometer, a barometer, none of which even come close to working and you say things like "nice compass".

Actually, all the features you mention work fine on my GPSr.

 

--Marky

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Magellan support is by far the worst I have seen. I got a defective cord and received e-mail saying to expect "something" in 5 to 7 business days and it has been 3 weeks. Wasn't sure if they were talking about new cord or support responce. If I know what I know now; Magellan would have never got any of my money.

Edited by Buckskins
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I agree I've emailed them at least 10 times and only once did they return a generic reply that they were forwarding my email to the proper department. Never heard of them again. I too am quite disappointed at the lack of customer support. I calibrated the electronic compass at least 10 times and it is still off by 10 to 20 degrees so I effectively have turned it off as for me its useless. temperature consistantly shows 5 to 8 degrees high. I havent checked my barometer against a known source but next time at near the local airport I'll call to see what it is.

 

Not to mention the major geocaching bugs that are well discussed in this forum and lack of screens and functions that other older GPSr had.

 

Magellan had better get their act together or this is my last GPSr I buy from them.

 

PS i wont even get into the ridiculous copy protection that requires you have the original CD in the drive (thers a way around that but you have to know how to hew edit) plus they only allow you to upload detailed maps to one GPSr

 

:P

Edited by D0T-C0M
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plus they only allow you to upload detailed maps to one GPSr

 

:P

Garmin is no different in this respect, in fact, I think Garmin's policy is stricter than Magellan's.

 

--Marky

Garmin's City Select allows two units. After that you have to pay for additional unlock codes. Their Metroguide, Topo and Roads and Recreation can be loaded onto as many units as you want.

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Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but I read somewhere that the temperature reading is for INSIDE the unit and is actually used to compensate for the effects of the temperature on the electronics. It is NOT the air temperature...it is usually higher.

Anyone know if this is true?

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I've never had any of these problems with my eX 600. I do know that the altimeter and barometer need to be calibrated. They calibrate together as a single function.

 

Altitude is determined by the eX 600 by combining a 4-satellite position with a relative barometric reading and producing an average. If the unit is not calibrated it will not give you a steady reading of either altitude or barometric pressure.

 

I noticed this on day 1, found an elevation marker and calibrated my elevation to that marker. It seems to give me correct elevation when I hold it to the ground and then over my head as well as on every journey I've taking it on.

 

But there is no excuse for the deplorable technical non-support.

Edited by MDAgent
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Magellan support is by far the worst I have seen. I got a defective cord and received e-mail saying to expect "something" in 5 to 7 business days and it has been 3 weeks. Wasn't sure if they were talking about new cord or support responce. If I know what I know now; Magellan would have never got any of my money.

Contacted Magallen again with no response - What terrible support!!!

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I bet we could teach Magellan a few things about how to take care of thier customers if we banded together and sent them a list.

 

If you've had problems getting technical support from Magellan in 2005, tell your story here.

 

We will direct the attention of thier bottom-line folks to this string.

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You mean they aren't already listening?? You should start a new thread and encourage everyone to list there problems.

 

thiss thread already has many of the problems already listed.

 

http://forums.Groundspeak.com/GC/index.php...44&hl=explorist

I think we often forget that a corportation is nothing more than a bunch of "people" who have jobs. It is not a matter of whether or not "they" are listening. The question is whether "he" or "she" is listening; that person who has the influence and awareness necessary to organize responsibilies and resources to most effectively serve the customer. I believe I can find that person.

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Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but I read somewhere that the temperature reading is for INSIDE the unit and is actually used to compensate for the effects of the temperature on the electronics. It is NOT the air temperature...it is usually higher.

Anyone know if this is true?

It is true for Garmin units.

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You mean they aren't already listening?? You should start a new thread and encourage everyone to list there problems.

 

thiss thread already has many of the problems already listed.

 

http://forums.Groundspeak.com/GC/index.php...44&hl=explorist

I think we often forget that a corportation is nothing more than a bunch of "people" who have jobs. It is not a matter of whether or not "they" are listening. The question is whether "he" or "she" is listening; that person who has the influence and awareness necessary to organize responsibilies and resources to most effectively serve the customer. I believe I can find that person.

Well if I was at the helm of magellan I would dedicate someone to follow these thread to gather useful feedback. They must have consulted this forum when they implemented the geocache option in the explorist and they really dropped the ball in my opinion.

 

1st you should be able to load more than 200 geocaches

2nd we should have the ability to edit/delete them from within the gps

3rd we should have the ability to select if we want geocache text to display on the map screen. i.e look at this thread

http://forums.Groundspeak.com/GC/index.php...464&hl=geocache

I'm sure there's more to add to this list but these are me major beefs.

 

now as far as the weather screen goes,

 

First I live in canada and I wish I could decide which unit of measurement I can use for the barometric pressure. All the radio stations announce the barometric pressure in kPa not in bars. The range of the barometric gauge is too big , meaning that the graduations are so small that the needle hardly ever changes spot on the gauge. It should use a smaller scale so that we can see the pressure changes from high to low. As it is now since I have had the unit the needle is pinned at the 3/4 mark and hasn't moved much. Second the temperature is always abnormally high, I know it reads internal temperature but it never seems accurate. Third the electronic compass is off by 15 to 20 degrees. While driving on a straight road When I turn it off and on you can really see an error. Is it so hard for it to fine tune its calibration when you on the move. Seems to me it can't be so hard as the GPS can accurately pinpoint your direction when your in motion via the sattelites, why not zero the electronic compass using sattelite data???

 

MEGALLAN needs to update or post patches that will integrate the explorist into the mapsend products thats adds USB support. All these conversion softwares are added steps that should be encorporated directly into the mapsend software. They also need to enable the tracklog editor screen that is already in the mapsend programs but are hidden by default, instead of us having to run external hack programs to make the tracklog editor appear in the program. Why is it hidden??? Get rid of the cd check too.

 

Magellan needs to add the screens that all of the older products have and are missing in the explorists. I don't routing as I don;t own direct route, but I guess from reading on this forum it is lacking the ability that thegarmins have. maybe someone can elorate on this.

 

I'll stop now but I've put down most points that I've emailed them on so many occasions without reply.

 

MDAgent if you have contacts with magellan would you tell them to acknowledge that they listening and encourage them to forward us some feedback, most time if people know that the problem is being looked into and that changes are forthcoming it makes it less frustrating than thinking we are being ignored as is the case. At the very least they could post a bug list on their site.

 

thankyou

Edited by D0T-C0M
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I hear that people who call the toll free support number get decent support.

 

--Marky

That has been me experiance, as a matter of fact I have never gotten good support from any company by using e-mail. Just use the 800 number and try talking to a real live person. Sure you might have to hold the line for a while, but when you talk to a real live person you have someone to call back if you have another question or problem.

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Magellan phone support had been pretty good in the past, but I am wondering if I am seeing a trend towards the worst of late. The OP reported that when he finally tried calling, he was on hold for 48 minutes before his number was taken with the promise of a callback that never came.

 

Is that an exception or the rule for anyone who has called in, oh, the last month or so? Eh, don't answer that here. This seems worth starting another topic.

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Unfortunately D0T-C0M, I'm somewhat new at this and I don't understand most of the things you're talking about, but I'll endeavor to get the message to the appropriate people.

 

Frankly, I don't know if anyone from Magellan or Garmin monitor these posts, but I'd imagine it would be quite difficult to keep track of all the comments here.

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