Garmin Oregon 650 - HELP PLEASE

[+FireBoxRazor]

Tried an easy Geo today... but had utter utter frustration with the garmin 650 so much so not sure wether to take it back.

 

Satellites said 4 meters..

 

Followed the route with the gps and it took me to quite close so i switched to the compass .. 38 meters north... (only 1 way point by the way) i get there it says 4 meters.. so i turn it off as it said 4 meters accuracy. I look around for 2 mins thinking theres nothing here.. switch it on.. points now 15 meters another direction.. i end up climbing over a wall in a cemetery.. (clue was memorial stone) i give up thinking this is is so inaccurate no way to pin point a memorial stone in here there are hundreds..

 

Climb back over... switch it back on.. now says 38 meters to the bottom of the park... i get there... 18 meters back where i came from..

 

Can anybody tell me what is going on here.. My galaxy s5 is spot on for location, yet a £300 quid gps system has no idea.. really don't understand it. Map is fuzzy as chuff when you zoom in (discoverer package was £200) I feel like i may have jumped in before i can swim. The joy so far of geo hunting has left me frustrated and fed up.

 

Can anybody help me? tell me whats going on? is the gps set up wrong?

 

i have a message when booting it up "Too many JNX files they will not be displayed" >> ?

 

Satellite system is set to : GPS + GLONASS

 

WAAS/EGNOS is = ON

 

Position format = British Grid

 

Map Datum = Ord Srvy GB

 

Map Spheroid = Airy

 

help

[+on4bam]

i have a message when booting it up "Too many JNX files they will not be displayed" >> ?

 

I had to look this up.. JNX files...

 

Satellite system is set to : GPS + GLONASS

OK

 

WAAS/EGNOS is = ON

OK

 

Position format = British Grid

??? Any reason for this. For geocaching DD MM.mmm is "normal" format

 

Map Datum = Ord Srvy GB

WGS84 is standard datum for geocaching

 

Map Spheroid = Airy

WGS84 is standard.

 

Switching to your settings gives me a difference of about 20m on a close by WP.

[+FireBoxRazor]

Thank you for your responses I will try the settings you recommend and update you tommorow. Very helpful.

[+Red90]

You should not keep turning it on and off. Every time you do that, it need to find the satellites again and accuracy will be very poor. Leave it on. It should be turned on in a clear area and left on for the rest of the day.

 

- Make sure "lock on road" is off in the routing setup.

- Walk by the cache and note where the arrow is pointing to triangulate the best "zero" location. That is where you want to start looking.

- You want the GPS to go to zero as best as possible. This is best found by walking by at a distance to get the best average in the conditions. If you are in trees or near a hill or a building, this effects the signal. If you can triangulate from a clear area, that is best.

[+deepo]

Red90 mentions Lock on Road.

If you select the user profile Geocaching, then you get all the settings required for geocaching, provided you haven't changed the settings. Lock on Road is off by default for the Geocaching profile.

 

/Mogens

[+Red90]

Red90 mentions Lock on Road.

If you select the user profile Geocaching, then you get all the settings required for geocaching, provided you haven't changed the settings. Lock on Road is off by default for the Geocaching profile.

 

/Mogens

 

Yes.. Except it is clear he has already changed a lot of settings. Best to be safe.

[+on4bam]

Yes.. Except it is clear he has already changed a lot of settings. Best to be safe.

 

Looks like a reset to factory defaults may be the quickest way out just in case who knows what was changed.

 

BTW, when caching on our bicycles I sometimes (from GC profile with direct route) I change default routing to bicycle and every once in a while, when going back to direct routing, I'm "locked on road" too. I can't reproduce this every time but I'm trying to find out what cycle of actions triggers this. This is on an Oregon 600.

[+FireBoxRazor]

Thanks guys. Its the dam compass thats seems to do what it wants. Units screen goes off after 30 seconds.. then bam I'm walking in different direction. How can it be out by so much and yet my phone is steady as rock.. Shouldn't it be other way around?

[+geodarts]

Thanks guys. Its the dam compass thats seems to do what it wants. Units screen goes off after 30 seconds.. then bam I'm walking in different direction. How can it be out by so much and yet my phone is steady as rock.. Shouldn't it be other way around?

 

When I first got my Oregon 600 I almost returned it because the accuracy was questionable. I thought my iPhone did a better job. I experimented with GLONASS on and off, but a few firmware updates later and it now seems more trustworthy, I have done some side to side comparisons with the phone and other gpsr models and am satisfied.

 

Apart from what has been said, you can change the screen off settings though the setup display options - backlight time and battery save menus will affect that.

 

I would also make sure the firmware up is up to date. You could try calibrating the compass, but the advice to keep the unit on and let it settle in is also good. The Garmin 6xxx Wiki is a good source of information.

Edited September 1, 2015 by geodarts

[+New Jersey TJ]

Thanks guys. Its the dam compass thats seems to do what it wants. Units screen goes off after 30 seconds.. then bam I'm walking in different direction. How can it be out by so much and yet my phone is steady as rock.. Shouldn't it be other way around?

 

Try navigating using the map page instead of the compass. I know a lot of people use the compass page, but I NEVER have for my 2300 some caches.

 

As you get close, zoom in the display, ultimately all the way in. Watch your track and how it relates to the cache location. If the cache is particularly difficult and the tracks get cluttered, clear the track and start again.

[+FireBoxRazor]

As the maunal, is utter garbage (non existant basically) I found by messing around there is an inbuilt profiler and one fo the profiles is for geochaching, this put the compass AND the map on screen together. I will go out and try this and let you know how i get on, thanks for all the advice so far.

[+on4bam]

As the maunal, is utter garbage (non existant basically) I found by messing around there is an inbuilt profiler and one fo the profiles is for geochaching, this put the compass AND the map on screen together. I will go out and try this and let you know how i get on, thanks for all the advice so far.

 

That's where the wiki comes in

BTW, just an idea, connect the Oregon to your computer and BACKUP the profiles folder. If anything gets messed up you can always restore the files back to the GPS. What I have done is copy the geocachingprofile and renamed it to GC_backup. I then also put this "new" profile in the profiles folder on my 600.

In case your GPS crashes and corrupts the profile (I had this happen before) I just switch to the GC_backup profile and I'm back in business within seconds.

 

BTW, the times the profile got corrupted was when the GPS crashed while I switched to the "automotive" profile in order to quickly drive a short distance between caches without mounting the car GPS (I remove that one when parked).

The gc profile had part of the automotive settings after such a crash and the small datafield dashboard had all 4 fields reset.

[+FireBoxRazor]

Had a couple of crashes when zooming on moving the map around. Had to literally take batteries out

[+Atlas Cached]

Had a couple of crashes when zooming on moving the map around. Had to literally take batteries out

 

FAQ #1

 

Then Update Firmware.

Edited September 2, 2015 by Atlas Cached

[+FireBoxRazor]

it is latest.