A couple of weeks ago I started having problems with my GPS. It would turn itself off whenever it got jostled around too much, sometimes doing so whenever I would clip it into the belt clip or the windshield mount. It was getting to be a hassle, so I broke down and ordered a Garmin GPSmap 60CSx. It got here late last week, and on Saturday’s ATV ride I got a chance to try it out for the first time. It wasn’t terribly different from my GPS 60, except that it has a built-in basemap, barometric altimeter, and an electronic compass. The basemap only has major highways, which are useless to me where I tend to recreate. The altimeter and compass proved to be useless on my first ATV ride–I had to turn the compass off altogether because it kept pointing the wrong direction and I didn’t want to stop my ATV to recalibrate it.
I had planned on “acquiring” some topo and street maps for the new GPS to make it worth the additional cost, but today I remembered some free maps that I’d seen mentioned before, though I’d dismissed them at the time because my GPS 60 didn’t accept maps. I downloaded and installed the free maps for the 60CSx today, and I’m frankly shocked at their usefulness. Not only are they vector maps that look great at any scale, but they have great detail (1:24,000) and show a lot of roads and trails that don’t show up on any other mapping products. Did I mention that they’re free, and I didn’t have to, *ahem*, borrow them from a friend? 😉
Now, I’m just waiting to scratch the screen up so I don’t have to worry about it anymore. 😀 I first scratched the screen on my older GPS within a few months of owning it while hiking through Moonshine Wash and squeezing through a narrow part of the canyon. After that, keeping it in like-new condition wasn’t a concern. Perhaps that’s why I just had to replace it…