digital compasses

I have just received my new GPS 76C. It is a great unit. There is however a major downside. If you intend to use this for marine navigation and are looking at buying a BlueChart CD to download Charts, you only get one unlock code with your CD. This means that you can only use one of the region charts. Ie. if you are in the Eastern part of the Med, you can use your one free download to get the chart for this area. If you move to the West of the Med, you now need to buy another unlock code. These are far from cheap and will start costing you a fortune. Buy a Magellan GPS as the Marine CD is cheaper and you get all the charts for the region you purchased included and not have to buy each areas chart. I am now stuck with a GPS that I don't really want.

I bought this unit for GPS data collection. I choose it because of the 115mb internal memory and the 10,000 track points storage, WAAS capability, external antenna jack, USB port, ability to load maps, and color screen.

The screen is very readable in full sunlight, better than any I have seen. The rocker switch makes text entry for track and waypoint descriptions easy.

Managing Waypoints is a bit cryptic. This is because there is no function to bring up the waypoint list except the "Find" key.

At first I did not realize I could search by name, there are many submenus whith additioanl functions. I think it would work better if there was simply a WayPoints menu (there is one for Tracks, and one for Routes, why leave waypoints out?) rather than having to "Find" your waypoints.

The MapSource program allows for a DXF export, all I could get was 5 points and a single line. I had collected 7 tracks and 30 waypoints.

O.K., why is Garmin putting games on the GPS units? I would rather have the ability to easily manage waypoints or more tracks than 5 stupid games.

Without WAAS I was getting +/- 21 feet (7 meters) on top of a levee, and +/- 49 feet under canopy, at least thats what the screen said. I was able to collect track and waypoints under different levels of canopy, but I did notice I lost track points while circling a large riparian area with 40-50 foot trees.

Track points can be set to collect once per second, or by distance. The smallest distance is .1 mile, it would be better if it could go down to meters. Track display is very good.

Summary:

I like the unit, but Waypoint Management could be easier.

What would make it better?

1) Waypoint Management Menu screen
2) Allow more than 20 tracks

3) Pulldown box descriptions for Waypoints, Tracks, with user item entrys, like "tree", "River", so I don't have to enter every letter every time.

4) Remove corny games, why would you be playing these games at sea? This is a MARINE unit...

I bought this unit for GPS data collection. I choose it because of the 115mb internal memory and the 10,000 track points storage, WAAS capability, external antenna jack, USB port, and color screen.

The screen is very readable in full sunlight, better than any I have seen. The rocker switch makes text entry for track and waypoint descriptions easy.

However, once you have waypoints marked it is extremely difficult to delete them. This is because there is no function to bring up the waypoint list except the "Find" key. If you have waypoints far-away from you, you cannot delete them because you can only "find" waypoints near your current position.

Well, mine came with 2 waypoints outside of the United States, one was Garmin Europe, the other Garmin Taiwan. These points do not show up if I use the find function as they are too far away.

I see no way to delete these waypoints. Also, since there is no Waypoint management screen, you have to delete the waypoints you can find one at a time.

The MapSource program does not allow you to delete the waypoints, so how do you get rid of Garmin's headquarters?

This seems like a very ridiculous limitation for a NEW GPS unit in this price range.

The MapSource program allows for a DXF export, all I could get was 5 points and a single line. I had collected 7 tracks and 30 waypoints.

O.K., why is Garmin putting games on the GPS units? I would rather have the ability to manage waypoints than 5 stupid games.

Without WAAS I was getting +/- 18 feet (at least thats what the screen said). I was able to collect track and waypoints under canopy, but I did notice I lost track points while circling a large riparian area.

Track points can be set to collect once per second.

Summary:

I like the unit, but not being able to easily manage waypoints is a major limitation.

What would make it better?

1) Ability to Delete all waypoints
2) Waypoint Management Menu screen
3) Allow more than 20 tracks
4) Remove corny games, why would you be playing these games at sea? This is a MARINE unit...

Suggestion:

If you are looking for a GPS unit for Data Collection, this ain't it. Unit has the potential to be a great tool, but un-professional limitations restrict its use to a fancy toy.