Garmin Quest

[andman]

I was wondering if anyone used a Garmin Quest for Geocaching? I am totally new to Geocaching, but I have been using GPS's for a while now. I used to have a GPSMap60CS but I sold it for the Quest since I felt is worked better for me in the car.

 

Now that I found interest in Geocaching, I was wondering if it would be wise to go back to the Garmin 60 (especially one with expandable memory)? I remember my 60 having a Geocaching feature, but I'm not sure exactly what features it gave me above what my Quest will, anyone know?

[+Renegade Knight]

Personally I think the quest is goofy for using as a hand held. However there are more than a few people who like it just fine and have no problems with it for caching.

 

Try it out, since you aready own it, you are out nothing and if it works well, you have a keeper. It's always easier to own and maintain one thing than two.

[appletree]

I have a Quest and it works fine as a hand-held and for caching. When used for caching, set it to off-road in the route preferences. Only then will you be able to acess a navigation page with an arrow pointing the way as long as you keep moving. There is no true compass, so if you stop moving, you will need a magnetic compass to point you toward the cache. The Quest will give you the bearing and distance, even if you are stationary. The built-in antenna works well, but I prefer to flip it down and use an external antenna with a short cable and attach it to my collar or hat using its magnet.

 

The Quest is light, small, easy to read, holds extensive maps, and has excellent battery life. I can think of no reason why it would not be an excellent caching GPSR, but I would love to hear of any problems anyone has encountered using it for that purpose.

[andman]

Is there any way to enter coordinates into the quest and have it route me there? How about the GPSMAP 60?

[peter]

Is there any way to enter coordinates into the quest and have it route me there? How about the GPSMAP 60?

Yes for both. You can enter coordinates manually by creating a waypoint at your current location and then editing the coordinates to whatever you want. For geocaching you can download a file of geocache locations in .loc or .gpx formats and then upload the file to the GPS.

 

Of course the auto-routing will just get you to the point on a road that's somewhere near the cache but may not be the best place from which to start walking.

[Mustcache]

My first GPSr was a Quest. I still have it, but only use it for driving now. When I first started caching, I used it with great success. Now I use it to get to the cache area, then use my GPSMAP60C on the trail.

 

The battery never gave me any problem whatsoever. You should do fine with it as long as you take the road lock off when you get to the trail head.

[+briansnat]

The Quest is more a GPS for driving that can be used as a handheld. The 60s are a designed chiefly as a handheld and can be used for driving.

 

The Quest has major drawbacks when used as a handheld. First a proprietary, rechargable battery instead of replacable AAs. If your batteries die while out on a cache hunt, you're SOL until you get back to your car.

 

Second, the screen doesn't orient for handheld use so you have to either look at it sideways or hold the unit at an odd angle.

[appletree]

The battery is built-in, small, and very light compared with those used in most if not all other GPSRs. The run time is very long, especially if you do not keep the back-light on continuously, and the battery gage is easy to access and read, so one need not be surprised by a sudden shut-down. It pops easily into and out of its charging cradle in the car, so it will usually be fully charged if you drive to the vacinity of a cache, then pop it out, turn off the road lock, and go. Again, the charge lasts a long time, and the Li ion battery doesn't discharge when not in use, unlike NiMH cells. As for viewing angle, I prefer portrait for hand-held use, But I do not have to turn my head to view a landscape oriented screen.

[andman]

Yes for both. You can enter coordinates manually by creating a waypoint at your current location and then editing the coordinates to whatever you want. For geocaching you can download a file of geocache locations in .loc or .gpx formats and then upload the file to the GPS.

That is really a great idea, I never would have thought of that. It's too bad that Garmin couldn't turn it into a specific feature, but fortunately there's a backdoor for us.

 

As for batteries, I certainly will never do a Geocache that takes more than 20+ hours on foot to complete.

[peter]

The Quest has major drawbacks when used as a handheld. First a proprietary, rechargable battery instead of replacable AAs. If your batteries die while out on a cache hunt, you're SOL until you get back to your car.

The internal Li+ cell isn't what I'd prefer, but there are quite easy workarounds for any issues with it. The Quest recharges on 5 VDC which is just what the little holders of 4 NiMH AA cells put out on a USB cable. Unfortunately the Quest doesn't use USB for its charger connection, but it's easy to modify the AA cell holders with the appropriate connector and that lets you recharge the Quest at least a couple times using a set of AAs. This is really only needed on multi-day backpacking trips since the internal cell lasts long enough for any single-day outings.

 

And although Garmin says the internal cell isn't user-replaceable it's actually very easy to open the Quest and pop in a replacement cell (I think the same cell is used in some cellphones). Elsinga's FAQ site used to have pictures showing the interior and including the part number on the Li+ cell but the link appears to be dead now.

[+happy2b]

My son gave me a Quest for mother's day. I have been using a magellen with the easy gps software to download, but this software does not have the Quest in the list of devices. Is there another software I can use which will download to the quest?

[SourceGPS]

The Quest is a pretty versatile unit. The Quest 2 is even better with the entire City Navigator preloaded on it, no more downloading maps. I own a GPS company that sells nationally on the web, and although we carry just about every brand on the market, we are biased to our Garmins.

 

If you want to take the Geocaching fun to another level, check out the Garmin Rinos. Navigation and FRS/GMRS in one unit. Our outsdoors customers LOVE them!

[andman]

The Quest 2 is even better with the entire City Navigator preloaded on it, no more downloading maps.

I can't agree with that. I don't mind downloading maps, I can fit enough on the Quest even living in NJ and NY.

 

The Quest 2 doesn't give you Mapsource, which is a big downfall in my opinion. For all that extra cost, it should give you the software.

[+Segerguy]

The Quest 2 is even better with the entire City Navigator preloaded on it, no more downloading maps.

I can't agree with that. I don't mind downloading maps, I can fit enough on the Quest even living in NJ and NY.

 

The Quest 2 doesn't give you Mapsource, which is a big downfall in my opinion. For all that extra cost, it should give you the software.

I have a Quest2 and I simply called Garmin Tech Support and they were more then willing to send me the Disk for Free! I use it to plan trips on my PC, then transfer them to the Quest2. If you want the disk, just call them, they'll send it to you. I know of other Quest2 owners that got theirs free to by calling Garmin.

[andman]

The Quest 2 is even better with the entire City Navigator preloaded on it, no more downloading maps.

I can't agree with that. I don't mind downloading maps, I can fit enough on the Quest even living in NJ and NY.

 

The Quest 2 doesn't give you Mapsource, which is a big downfall in my opinion. For all that extra cost, it should give you the software.

I have a Quest2 and I simply called Garmin Tech Support and they were more then willing to send me the Disk for Free! I use it to plan trips on my PC, then transfer them to the Quest2. If you want the disk, just call them, they'll send it to you. I know of other Quest2 owners that got theirs free to by calling Garmin.

Now that changes everything, I didn't know you could do that.

[appletree]

On the other hand, the Quest includes one extra unlock code for a second unit (e.g. 60CSX, Vista, 76 etc.) but the Quest 2 doesn't. Then there is the price difference, and the Quest does hold lots of coverage area, especially if you use the basemap to travel between destinations.