Handheld GPS needs to be replaced

[MN Mike]

Fixed it. Crazy tech stuff. In the menu, under Marine, I set "fishing". Well for whatever reason, that took away all the details and contours. Set it to Nautical or Off and it works like a beauty.

Anyway, it looks like a beauty now!

Good to hear you got it fixed!

Cliff,

There are several maps you can download from the web for free and put in the Garmins, they range from Hiking, Biking, Snowmobile trails, Topo maps and many others that people find useful. If you do a search you will find these maps and you can use Garmins free Basecamp Software to install these maps to your Garmin GPS.

We were out west snowmobiling last week in Montana, I had downloaded the free Topo map from the web and installed it into a GPSMap 62s and it worked very well.

As far as the Lakemaster products, if you have the Garmin MicroSD Lakemaster card, that should work just fine in your 62s, if you have one from another brand ( ie. Lowrance or Humminbird ) that won't work at all. If you have a Garmin Lakemaster CD / DVD or download from the internet product, that will not work on the new 62s you have simply because of the way Garmin / Lakemaster licensed that product.

Best bang for the buck is to pickup the new Garmin Upper Midwest Fishing Guide lake mapping product ( $99 or less ). I've been running mine side by side with the Lakemaster data card I have and there is no difference in the data so far, they are identical.

Mike

[Cliff Wagenbach]

Thanks Mike!

Not sure which chip I have in my GPS anymore!

Cliff

[jtchev1978]

Boney,

Don't feel bad, I did the exact same thing with the exact same GPS this year! It only seemed logical to set it to "fishing" in my eyes. But then again, what do I know...this is my first GPS and I am still learning how to use it.

Glad to hear you are all squared away!

[superseal]

I have an older Garmin 60CS. It still works pretty good. It appears when the batteries get low the unit will shut off. Then I have to power it back up again. Not sure what that problem is.

My main question is...has the gps technology improved in the last 5-6 years that I should buy a new unit? My unit has trouble locating satellites in heavy snow or in the woods. Just wondering if there have been improvements. Thanks

[MN Mike]

The GPSMap 60's were pretty solid units, other than the addition to satellite imaging and a few other minor features, things are pretty much the same on the newer Garmin's. The new Etrex 20 and 30's will pickup the GLONAAS GPS signal which people claim is a stronger and more accurate signal.

I run Energizer Advanced Lithiums in my GPSMap60CSx and it runs very well. I'm not sure why you would have issues locking on the satellites in the woods or snow though, have you updated the firmware in your GPS? It looks like 4.20 was the last software update for the GPSMap60 CS.

Mike

[superseal]

I'm not exactly sure how to tell what version I have...but on the start up page I read "Americas Rec Basemap 4.00".

When I bought the unit I installed City Navigator North America V7. I used it in my truck occasionally. Then I added Inland Lakes. The unit only holds 56mb of map data. The Garmin tech thought the two types of data (highway info and lake info) may be conflicting....causing the power to shut down. He didn't sound to sure what was going on. Other than the power shutting down randomly, it has been a great unit.

Just located the software version...it is 4.20

[MN Mike]

I had added a map to my Colorado 300 a year or 2 ago and it locked up the unit pretty tight, ended up getting a hold of Garmin tech support and they had me do a complete reset on the unit, that fixed it and it hasn't missed a beat since, so that sounds like it's worth looking into with your GPS. If you do a reset, make sure you backup any waypoints you have.

Mike