Buying eTrex Vista ...

I've been reading about GPS units most of the day, and followed the earlier
thread r.e. cycling with GPS. I'm interested in having a GPS unit on my
bike, and it seems the Vista is a good machine. Unfortunately, the price is
ridicously high here in the UK.
My reasons for stating this is that I can get a US version for £187
($299.99) from Amazon.com, but am expected to pay £304.99 from Amazon.co.uk
or £272.99 from GPS4Less.

I may be able to get the Metroguide from ebay for a decent price, thus
saving the need to pay £337.90 for the deluxe Vista.

I'm sure someone will mention customs duty etc, but I'm ignoring that fact
for this question.

Anyone successfully imported one to the UK?

Yes I have inported from US to UK from www.gpsdiscount.com. Much cheaper
than the UK for sure. I have done this twice and got a bill for customs
duty / VAT on one of those occasions, but even after that it was cheaper!

Bear in mind that the base map is US so you would benefit from having
Worldmap unless you have a specific small area you plan to use it in then
Metroguide is good and you may not need Worldmap also.

I have both so that I can load low detail Worldmap data outside of Europe
and USA and high detail Metroguide data for Europe and USA when needed.

- Oliver.

"elyob" <newsprofile@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:1AdTa.223$4F7.2421968@news-text.cableinet.net...
> I've been reading about GPS units most of the day, and followed the
earlier
> thread r.e. cycling with GPS. I'm interested in having a GPS unit on my
> bike, and it seems the Vista is a good machine. Unfortunately, the price
is
> ridicously high here in the UK.
> My reasons for stating this is that I can get a US version for £187
> ($299.99) from Amazon.com, but am expected to pay £304.99 from
Amazon.co.uk
> or £272.99 from GPS4Less.
>
> I may be able to get the Metroguide from ebay for a decent price, thus
> saving the need to pay £337.90 for the deluxe Vista.
>
> I'm sure someone will mention customs duty etc, but I'm ignoring that fact
> for this question.
>
> Anyone successfully imported one to the UK?
>
>

Buying a US Vista is useless for use in Europe. You need the Atlantic
version which is eurocentric in its basemap..

--


Met vriendelijke groet / Mit freundlichen Grüßen / With kind regards
Christoph Bouthillier
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Please remove "no-no-spam" when e-mailing me directly - Thanks
------
"elyob" <newsprofile@hotmail.com> schreef in bericht
news:1AdTa.223$4F7.2421968@news-text.cableinet.net...
> I've been reading about GPS units most of the day, and followed the
earlier
> thread r.e. cycling with GPS. I'm interested in having a GPS unit on my
> bike, and it seems the Vista is a good machine. Unfortunately, the price
is
> ridicously high here in the UK.
> My reasons for stating this is that I can get a US version for £187
> ($299.99) from Amazon.com, but am expected to pay £304.99 from
Amazon.co.uk
> or £272.99 from GPS4Less.
>
> I may be able to get the Metroguide from ebay for a decent price, thus
> saving the need to pay £337.90 for the deluxe Vista.
>
> I'm sure someone will mention customs duty etc, but I'm ignoring that fact
> for this question.
>
> Anyone successfully imported one to the UK?
>
>

"Wayne R." <wruffner@KomKast.net> wrote in message
news:r1orhvolaf2c4rm6q2ao7iot48iqu3cdr7@4ax.com...
> This is incorrect. A Vista purchased anywhere can be used anywhere.
> The basemap may not be the one you want, but otherwise there's no
> difference.
>
> If you're buying a Vista (with its 24MB of map storage), you're most
> likely not too concerned with the basemap anyway.
>

A basewap of USA is cool with me, I would want a more definite map for
Europe anyway. Why is there such a huge price difference? Anyone got an old
Vista for sale?

In article <mGlTa.763$J74.7809040@news-text.cableinet.net>,
"elyob" <newsprofile@hotmail.com> wrote:

> Anyone got an old Vista for sale?

Well, I've got a new eTrex Vista used on one hiking trip, that's
probably going on sale after I've given it one more trip in a week or so.

I was very disappointed with it, compared with my old Garmin II+ that
I've used for years now. In the same conditions, same area, the
sensitivity was nowhere near as good under light/moderate tree cover. I
was getting flashbacks to the old days with the model 45; it literally
was not much better than that.

Even in what I would call "deep woods" I could get a reading on the II+
80-90% of the time (with maybe waving it around a little to find a good
spot). In the same deep woods the Vista was a no-show. Virtually never
gave me anything. Happened to meet another hiker with a Vista on the
ridgeline. He was a newbie and had never had anything else so he figured
it was just normal that he was off-the-air more than half the time (he
had been trying to do tracks and couldn't keep the thing going for any
length of time until he broke out above treeline).

Lots of cool new features, and smaller/lighter, but first things first:
I'd like to get a reading.

Sell it to you? Hell, I nearly threw the thing away. If you're still
looking in a couple of weeks, and shipping to the Isle isn't
prohibitive, maybe we can talk.

If WAAS is "on" while you're in the woods, the woods will disrupt
reception of WAAS/EGNOS signals; that'll prevent a decent position
from being calculated. Because: If any "D"'s are present, they'll
become the only satellites used, even if others are received.

Might that be the problem? There are lots of people who get good
results out of their Vistas (keeping mind that satellites & trees are
natural enemies).

Make sure WAAS is off if you're in the woods.

Heynony <nospam@noway.com> wrote in news:nospam-
B53AEC.00230323072003@east.giganews.com:

> In article <mGlTa.763$J74.7809040@news-text.cableinet.net>,
> "elyob" <newsprofile@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Anyone got an old Vista for sale?
>
> Well, I've got a new eTrex Vista used on one hiking trip, that's
> probably going on sale after I've given it one more trip in a week or so.
>
> I was very disappointed with it, compared with my old Garmin II+ that
> I've used for years now. In the same conditions, same area, the
> sensitivity was nowhere near as good under light/moderate tree cover. I
> was getting flashbacks to the old days with the model 45; it literally
> was not much better than that.

Given the similar design amonst the Venture/Legend/Vista, and the
number of people that use them successfully, and the fact that
you are both new to the Vista, I suspect that there may be some
issues with how you are using it.

You should take a look at Dale's manual:
http://www.gpsinformation.org/dale/wgarmin.htm
and I'd suggest you read the article(s) in the "Some Good Advice"
section of the GPS page on my website for some perspective
about GPS reception in tree cover.

After that, I'd suggest you make a posting, cross-posted(not
multi-posted) to this group and sci.geo.satellite-nav, and
outline your problems, and provide some details such as
whether you were using WAAS, batery save mode, how you were
holding and carrying the GPS, etc.

--
Dave Patton
Canadian Coordinator, the Degree Confluence Project
http://www.confluence.org dpatton at confluence dot org
My website: http://members.shaw.ca/davepatton/
Vancouver/Whistler - host of the 2010 Winter Olympics

Wayne R. <wruffner@KomKast.net> wrote:

> If WAAS is "on" while you're in the woods

No; off. Battery saver not on. I'm not exactly a babe in the woods and
have used GPS's for about 12 years (and in that overall perspective the
Vista was not _that_ bad). I read/studied/memorized parts of the Vista
user and advanced manual and I also found some material on how the patch
is oriented so I would know the optimal angles.

Nobody promised me anything better under tree cover, I just hadn't
expected that much fall-off from the performance of the Garmin II+.

On Wed, 23 Jul 2003 19:25:53 -0400, Heynony <nospam@noway.com> wrote:

>Vista was not _that_ bad). I read/studied/memorized parts of the Vista
>user and advanced manual and I also found some material on how the patch

Vista's advanced manual?
What is it?

Max <max@nospam.org> wrote in
news04vhv0k6pqgsv8r1d1lam579ijrlkh75g@4ax.com:

> On Wed, 23 Jul 2003 19:25:53 -0400, Heynony <nospam@noway.com> wrote:
>
>>Vista was not _that_ bad). I read/studied/memorized parts of the Vista
>>user and advanced manual and I also found some material on how the patch
>
> Vista's advanced manual?
> What is it?

I'm not sure what they are referring to, but you can download
Garmin manuals from this page:
http://www.garmin.com/support/userManual.jsp
This page has a couple of 'general' manuals:
http://www.garmin.com/aboutGPS/manual.html

And of course Dale's "GPS User Manual: Working with Garmin Receivers"
http://www.gpsinformation.org/dale/wgarmin.htm

--
Dave Patton
Canadian Coordinator, the Degree Confluence Project
http://www.confluence.org dpatton at confluence dot org
My website: http://members.shaw.ca/davepatton/
Vancouver/Whistler - host of the 2010 Winter Olympics