The WAAS does make it more acurate, not that you need that kind of acuracy on a trail. I know on satalites only, mine has been down in the teens before but it's usually between 20-40 feet acuracy. With WAAS enabled I've had it below 5. Also, when your in an "area of degradation" your elevation seems to jump back and forth. Like when your elevation changes 100 feet and you've only traveled 20 and didn't fall off a cliff. I live near one of the three Air Force tracking stations in the US (There's 3 back-ups too.) and I noticed the elevation changes when I'm in that area.

 

sparky....when KingsClear gets that topo map loaded, he'll be able to stay away from cliffs (plus or minus 30 or 40'....oh, oh, it's plus 30', oh nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo thunk!)

 

LMAO!!!!!!!!! Unless a guy is doing something that requires precise positioning, WAAS is not necessary, but if you are running off a 12V adaptor, who cares? Run it anyways. My Rino has a radio built in and if I run it without the radio, I can get around 20 hours continuous use out of a set of alkalines, and about 15 hours with the radio on. Good enough for me.

 

I lucked out on this one guys,one of my riding buddies informed me he has the topo maps for Canada. I'm getting the cd's tonight . I'm anxious to see how detailed they are. Is it a no brainer to down load?

 

I guess I should have mentioned that an "area of degradation" is an area where the military has purposely made the satelites give innaccurate readings so you can't rig your gps up to a guidance system and blow $hit up. It may be a pain in the a$$ if your in one of those areas but who cares I don't want some dirtbag terrorist blowing up any US "targets" If only the military could re-direct them back to where they came from. They could make it so if someone uses the satelites for weapons guidance system without a special encrypted rolling code it would turn it back to point of origin. Smarten them phuckers right up!!!

 

Yes, they're pretty easy to download to your gps. On this new etrex I got, there was a usb driver cd for trip and waypoint manager, don't know if you got that or not, but it was easy to install the drivers. Don't think I'll ever use it, but who knows, I sure don't cause I don't know what it's for.

The icons are self-explanatory, you just have to watch you don't go over your gps memory while you're clicking away in the topo grids.