At 01:47 PM 7/14/02 -0400, you wrote:

I doubt it.
All this stuff, is a source of income to them, which is true of the whole
high tech field.
Remember what Bill Gates said about complaints, "but look at all the neat
toys we have".

That's just exactly the problem. This stuff is just neat toys and a way to
make a living.
It's the users who are being lulled into a false sense of security and the
junk data is being replicated at an astounding rate.

If you use the Garmin utility PCX5 to upload and download data to your GPS,
it can under some circumstances round your waypoint locations off, a
little, every time it manipulates the data.

I have not run a serious test of this, say for 1000 times or so, but I have
noticed the effect from just a few cycles.

Remember, that most high tech stuff comes with the warning that it can't be
relied upon or used for any important use and that there are no warranties,
expressed or implied....
Which won't hold up in court, but will still take a lot of effort and
expense to overcome.

My major complaint here is that if the GPS manufacturers are going to make
us more rather than less dependent on their internal data, which you can
see is becoming the norm rather than the exception, that the whole ball
game is changing. Yet again.

Capt. Mike Maurice
Near Portland Oregon.

all

completely

and

with

At 01:47 PM 7/14/02 -0400, you wrote:

<<<Contrary to Jack Yeazel, there is NO comment field in the 76 series
machines, associated with a Waypoint.
This statement above which I was about to include is in ERROR.

To set the record straight. The Name field in the 76 models is 10
characters long.
The manual which comes with the machines does not SHOW a comment field.
Somewhere between ver 2.0 of the software and ver 2.08 the comment field is
displayed on the screen. But not in the manual.
All this documentation problem has created mass confusion in the community
as there are places scattered all over the internet which document the lack
of a comment field. INCLUDING Garmin's site which specs a name and symbol
field, but not comment field. The comment field defaults on creation to a
time and date.

It is the prime reason why I have not been buying 76's but have been using
48's. That is about to change.

In Garmin's defense let me point out some useful features of the machine
which I had not noticed and since none of my friends will loan me theirs,
knowing that there is a slim chance of their every seeing it again, I have
not been able to actually examine one for any length of time.

Your ability to use the 76 with ver 2.08 software or later, is enhanced
over the 48 with the following features.

User fields
Garmin GPS      48          76
Name Field          6          10  chars
Comment Field  16        16  - maybe 17. chars
Depth                None        6 digits
Altitude              None        6 digits

The user information that you can create for a waypoint is much improved in
the 76 series over the 48.
Now all you have to do is stomach the increase in price.

Capt. Mike Maurice
Near Portland Oregon.

The changes that brought about comments occurred with version 2.07.

BTW the GPS 76 has a new update ver 2.09 dated July 12, 2002. The changes
are EXTENSIVE and documented below.

Changes made from version 2.06 to 2.07:

                Eliminated lockups at certain locations.
                Added waypoint comments. (When creating new waypoints, 

the comment will initially contain the date and time
the waypoint was created.)

HERE ARE THE CHANGES 2.08 to 2.09 July 12, 2002

Capt. Mike Maurice
Near Portland Oregon.

At 05:20 PM 7/14/02 -0400, I wrote:

THEN FORGOT TO PASTE THE REST OF THE TEXT. Here it is.
BTW notice that the 2.09 version supports collecting depth information from
the NMEA input.
For those of who are too sleepy on a Sunday afternoon to get the implication.
If this depth info is inserted in the track log, it would allow for crude
survey work, where you can do your own depth survey work. What a
breakthrough. Somebody should try this out.

Changes made from versions 2.08 to 2.09:

                Eliminated possible shutoffs when repeatedly finding 

Cities or Points of Interest.
Eliminated possibly storing bad data when starting a
Goto, which would cause the unit to shut off and would
prevent the unit from turning on again.
Eliminated possible lockups when deleting all user
waypoints.
Added a Setup Routes item to the Routes main menu page
which allows setting the route waypoint transitions to
Manual. When set to Manual, routes will transition to
the next waypoint only when instructed to do so by the user.
Added a Setup NMEA output item to the Interface setup
page menu when the Serial Data Format is set to NMEA.
This allows setting the following for the NMEA output:
the precision of the minutes field for lat/lon, the waypoint
identifier format, and which groups of sentences to
transmit. These settings allow compatibility with a wider range
of NMEA-driven products including some older marine
autopilots.
Added receiving water depth through DBT NMEA input
sentence.
Added Location (both chosen & default formats) as
choices for Medium and Large configurable fields.
Added geocaching user waypoint symbols.
Added more marine user waypoint symbols.
Added new Point of Interest types when supported by the
map data.
Allowed finding duplicately-named cities by name across
multiple maps of the same type if supported by the map
data.
Used depth (if it is being received through NMEA) when
marking a waypoint.
Used depth (if it is being received through NMEA) and
altitude when creating the MOB waypoint.
Display approaching waypoint messages longer when based
on distance.
Reset the Arrival alarm when the Arrival alarm distance
is changed.
Prevented possible corruption of time in GARMIN output
format.
Output correct week number in NMEA output format when
operating through the end of a week.
Added Croatian map datum.
Changed Taiwan grid title from T67 to TM2.
Removed displaying the hotel & motel reservation number
when reviewing exit services.
Changed threshold so that values greater than 9999
meters are displayed as kilometers. Previously this threshold
was 999 meters.
Improved the accuracy of the estimated accuracy value.
Correctly turn Anchor Drag and Off Course alarms on and
off on Alarms setup page.
Correctly display the Mode after restoring defaults on
the General setup page.
Correctly display the map page when rapidly changing
pages.
Allowed the backlight to be turned on while a
confirmation page is being displayed.

            Changes made from version 2.07 to 2.08:

                Retain waypoint comments between power cycles.
                Changed the anchor drag alarm to sound every time the 

boat moves outside the anchor area.
Changed the anchor drag alarm setting distance units
from miles to feet.
Display approaching waypoint messages longer when based
on distance.
Eliminated possible lockups when saving a track back
through midnight or noon.
Improved WAAS performance after long periods of shading
for both WAAS and GPS satellites.
Improved WAAS performance when GEO ephemeris is
available but almanac has not yet been collected.

Capt. Mike Maurice
Near Portland Oregon.