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Dakota 20 & Caching accuracy


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Hi,

 

I just bought a new Dakota 20. Yesterday I tried to find my first cache with it.

In most case I use the compass to find the cache, so there's no issue with incorrect map positions.

 

The widgets on the compass screen are:

* distance to target

* GPS accuracy

* direction

* target coordinates

 

So when I reached the cache, the Dakota still told me I had to walk 8-10 meters with an accuracy of 8 meters. There were no trees above and the sky was clear, only 1 or 2 level houses around. The satelite signal was fully green.

It feels like the GPS inside my smartphone is much more accurate.

 

Do you have the same issues with your Dakota or should I send it back to get a new one?

 

Thx for your replies!

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Nope, not at all. I just had to fall back to using my D20 when my Oregon back latch snapped off. Used it on a 2400 mile road trip, and was consistently getting within a couple of feet, sometimes even 0'. Might have something to do with your settings--for routing, I'm set up with "off road", lock on road set to "off", off road transitions set to "auto". There may be others that could impact the unit, but I'm far from being an expert.

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So when I reached the cache, the Dakota still told me I had to walk 8-10 meters with an accuracy of 8 meters.

 

So maybe the published co-ords for that cache were 8-10 metres out and your GPS was spot on; or maybe the co-ords for the cace are 4-5m off and your GPS is 4-5m off, sometimes they'll cancel each other out and it looks like you're at the cache showing 0m on the GPS, sometimes they'll add together and show you're 8-10m away.

 

The only way you can truly measure the accuracy of the GPS is to go to a static point with known co-ords, some sort of survey marker.

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the Dakota still told me I had to walk 8-10 meters with an accuracy of 8 meters.

You are confusing true "accuracy" with EPE (Estimated Positional Error). It has little, if anything, to do with true "accuracy".

EPE is a complicated set of formulae used to estimate how far off the unit COULD be at any given point in time. It does not mean that it is off.

 

By nature of the system (or "beast", if you will), all GPSr units have an EPE factor -- whether they display it on-screen or not.

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