Messages

Well, I can update my original post with some more experience under my belt with my new 62s - I still love it! My old 60Csx is gathering dust.

I was skeptical how much good BirdsEye would do on the small, low resolution screen of the 62 series, but I was pleasantly surprised that it is quite helpful. Of course, I live and normally hike where there are few trees, making the BirdsEye more helpful than it would be in a heavily foliaged area. The BirdsEye imagery in my area is not as good as the Google Earth imagery, but it is still useful - the GE imagery is very good indeed around here.

I am still amazed at how quickly the 62s gets a lock on 4+ satellites. And, the best "GPS accuracy" figure I have noted on the 60CSX was 9 feet (WAAS enabled), whereas I have seen 7 ft once, and 8 ft numerous times on the 62s (WAAS enabled). Of course, they may have tweaked the algoritm from the 60 to the 62 to arrive at these figures, but still outstanding.

My 62s has still not powered down or locked up - another big plus in my book. No more piecing together fragments of tracks and filling in gaps between the tracks. Also, it doesn't default to 500 max points when you save it, which makes for a more accurate tracklog on longer hikes. And, the old 20 track limit on the 60 series was quite limiting. I like how you can archive tracks in the 62, to where they don't show, but if you want a particular track to show, just move it from archive to favorite on the unit, instead of wishing I had put that particular track on the unit back home at the PC.

Still wish the track management could all be done in one place, instead of having to go to the setup menu and then to tracks for some things, and then the track management menu for other things. Makes me wonder if the programmers ever get out of their cubicles and really use these devices...oh, well. Also, apparently nobody at Garmin has ever seen a well written owner's manual, or else they would be jealous and provide one for their devices. The learning curve for newbies to Garmin mapping handhelds is very steep, with near zero help from the "manual" they provide. You must educate yourself by trolling the Internet on sites like this, and others.

My 62s does not have the squeaking case, which was prevalent for awhile when the 62 first came out. Pays not to be a first adopter, at least sometimes.....

I bought the belt clip attachment for the 62s, since that is what I used on the 60Csx to clip it one of the shoulder straps on my pack. Works great; I also have a lanyard on it as a safety measure to make sure I don't lose it. I also put a screen protector on the 62, which I consider an essential extra. I bought an 8 Gb SD card, but have not needed it so far with the 1.7 Gb free memory that comes with the 62s.

Overall, I am very pleased with this unit, and highly recommend it.

Santa dropped off a new 62s for me. I have a 3 year old 60CSX, but I wanted a new Garmin with all the new stuff added in the recent past. I was relatively pleased with my 60CSX, except for its persistent and consistent habit of powering off at least once on every day hike; sometimes up to three times and even the occasional lockup requiring removing the batteries. I like to save a track of each hike in Basecamp, so the ever present power downs, besides being a hassle/frustration during the hike, required joining several fragments of tracks, as well as filling in gaps in the tracks as a result of the undiscovered power downs.

I have only taken one short six mile hike with the 62s, but it stayed powered up the whole hike! I was like a proud papa. Here are some other comments on the 62s vs. the 60csx after playing with it for a week:
The map screen looks better on the 62. I like the font used on the 60 better than the 62. Naturally, the redraws are much faster on the 62. The physical sizes appear to be identical. The button action is better on the 62. USB transfers are of course much faster on the 62 (USB 1.0 vs. 2.0). Once the almanac/ephemera data is downloaded, the 62s seems to get a fix quicker when first turned on. Sanyo Eneloop batteries are a tight fit in the 62s, have to pry them out with my knife....perfect fit in the 60. Some of the logic behind the track and waypoint management escapes me on Garmins - why can't I do everything to do with tracks under Track Management? You eventually figure out where everything is, but I never did like hide and seek...
Overall, I really like the 62s, especially if it continues to stay powered up, unlike the 60.

With the recent Nov. 1, 2011 change in the seamless.usgs.gov server, I am having trouble finding the equivalent USGS site to work with adjacent quadrangle TOPOs in order to  make a seamless raster map that covers part of two adjacent USGS quads. I have tried the suggested sites (nationalatlas.gov, earthexplorer.usgs.gov, and nationalmap.gov), but haven't had any luck. I can download a single quad, but haven't been able to specify adjacent quads to make a custom raster map using G-raster. I used USAPhotoMaps to download adjacent quads, but these are jpegs, and wanted to compare the same area using geotiff files, which supposedly might be a bit better, according to Leszick P. Any ideas??

Have you looked at "huntinggpsmaps.com"? Not free, but sounds like they have what you are wanting, unless you just want to do it yourself, which is perfectly fine.