Hi mark,The only time I will use the gps on the AWW is on Plymlimon,last year I had the gps on follow me and half way up from hafren I met a chap who had done a recce the previous day from the boundary fence down to the forest track, as I met up with him half way up I have this on the gps so will try to find this route tomorrow,not an easy task as it was only sheep tracks joined up. lets see how good these gps units are.regardes Richard

Richard,

I'm on the AWW this weekend - so if you'd like any GPS discussions, please seek me out.

Mark

Hi Elton,Thanks for the info, since the games hundred i have used the gps on the Wenlock Olympian Walk and had a much better experience ,i used it on track up and left the screen in lock mode and found this worked well especially at night ,getting to know how to use track manager from the replies i had have sorted out my problems, the garmin instructions were far to basic and not very practical.I am doing the across wales next week and will try it out again on plynlimon,which has no path up from hafren forest,should be fun as the weather does not look great.I am also doing the White Cliffs 50 and am hoping the route description will come with a downloadable gps format. thankyou for your help,regardes Richard

Richard
Rereading your first post, it seems to me that you that you had your GPSr set to North Up at first, then inadvertently reset it to Track Up.

In Track Up, the ‘picture’ on the screen swivels so that the pointer (which indicates your position) always points to the top of the screen, no matter which direction you are walking. This means that every time you turn, the picture swivels. In Track Up, the little white arrowhead is the north pointer.

In North Up, north is always at the top of the screen, so the picture does not swivel around when you change direction, and the pointer points in the cardinal direction you are travelling, eg it would point at the left hand side of the screen if you are travelling west, the bottom if you are travelling south.

I find North Up setting is best, as the swivelling picture is annoying and harder to follow.

This is based on my GPSMap 60CSx, but as your Oregon is also a Garmin, I think they are function in a similar way.

Hi Mark,Elton,Bill, all noted good info should have a better experience next time I use it .thanks Richard

That's right Elton. I keep mine on 'Menu' as not even figures are re-drawn then.

On the subject of battery life, I have found on my Garmin GPSMap 60Cx that the life is considerably longer if I leave the screen on the Trip Computer page when I’m not using the map. This seems to draw less power than the continuous redrawing of the map which happens if you stay on the Map page.

Hi Richard,
When the screen is locked it still updates to show where you are on the map and in relation to any track you are following - locking the screen only makes it insensitive to screen touch commands (other than turning on the backlight - so I reduce the backlight intensity to zero in the daytime). So I can still glance at the screen to check that I am on course.

I used 4 sets of NiMh batteries in 34.5 hours on the Games 100, changing to the last set at Sunningdale, so that makes just over 30 miles / 10 hours per set. I keep the compass off to save power, but it is still continuously updating the OS 50000 map. I only turned the GPS off for the longer break at breakfast. I've recently done some research on Google into NiMh batteries (after buying a set of 3000mAh on e-bay which were very disappointing - do not get 'BTY' batteries!). This led to the conclusion that Maha Powerex 2700 or Sanyo Eneloops are the best; I bought the Powerex 2700s, which are fairly expensive but very good. I also bought an 'intelligent' battery charger, which allows you to test the capacity of individual cells (and thus identify any poor performers), and also to refresh tired older cells. This confirms that the Powerex really are 2700mAh, but my BTY 3000 are only about 800mAh.

My GPS only lost the signal in the tunnel, but must have struggled a bit in the high Canary Wharf buildings, judging by the wiggly track and velocity spikes it recorded there. I didn't notice any trouble in trees - the Oregon 450 has a high sensitivity receiver which certainly is much better than my previous Vista C.

Hope that is all helpful, Cheers, Mark

HI Mark, if the screen is locked will the route automatically update where you are ,also if you had it on continuous how many rechargable batterys did you use? I used 3 sets which were fully charged and this was only for the two nights [approx15 hours use] did you find that gps was not good in forests with tree canopy Iost the signal many times just when it was needed most? regardes richard

I have a Garmin Oregon 450 (on which I tracked the whole of the Games 100, other than losing the satellites in the Greenwich tunnel). Having had it do weird things (like resetting itself) previously, due to random touches on the screen, I now always lock the screen - you can do this by quickly pressing the on/off button and then touching the screen (do the same to unlock it). This should then keep the display how you want it.

Hi David,thankyou for your explanation it does make sence as I said my eye sight is not good so with out knowing that I had touched the wrong bit I had asked it to do something that I did not want it to do, as you said when I gave up with it and switched it off then later tried again it worked as I wanted it to until probably my dreaded finger did the same mistake again, so before I go walking again I will need 2 new feet and also 2 new eyes .will see you on the ravens dare, regardes richard ps knew you were the top gismo man.

Hi Richard,
I suspect that you might have clicked on the map which allows you to move the map to see wider than the actual location you are at. The resultant white arrow appears when you do this. All you needed to do was 'quit' that page and reload the page and it would have reverted back to 'live' location.
I use a Garmin GPS62 and recognise what you have described from the set up on my gps.

Hope this helps.

David

I have a garmin oregon 400t Gps which i used in ernest for the first time on the 100, i duly down loaded the track files ,all went well and at home i played with it to get the idea of how it was going to work out in the great outdoors.as my eye sight is not great and the oregon a tad small we actually got on fairly good at the start of the first night [did not use it during day light as screen not easy to see to see in daylight] I set the map to track up and also calibrated the compass at the start all looked good ,the track line was at the top of the screen and little arrow [where i was]towards the botton of the screen,after about an hour of automatically keeping the direction of travel at the top of the screen it suddenly produced a tiny white arrow which pointed north and the track went from different directions on the screen so was diffucult to follow [i looked at the settings in case it had gone back to north up but it was still set track up]has any techno wisard got the answer as to why this occoured ,all replies greatfully recieved