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When hiking with my Vista HCx the Trip Odometer is inaccurate. It shows 4 miles for a 6 mile hike, 8 miles for a 13 mile hike. Just prior to each walk I reset the data fields to zero on the information page. When reviewing the data in mapsource the correct value is shown. Is there a setting somewhere that could affect the odometer reading?

Do these hikes involve severe elevation changes? The GPSr will only track the actual horizontal distance covered not the actual distance traveled.

For example if you hiked a mile up a steep hill/mountain but only actually moved 100 feet horizontally, the GPSr would record 100 feet not a mile.

The setting that could affect the accuracy of the tracklog distance on the main menu page > track > setup. Each of the options is a compromise, cutting corners off to reduce the number of points in the track, but you can change things to make a difference. If you choose Auto choose most often. If you choose Time or Distance choose a small enough interval to fill the tracklog during your hike.
If the trip computer on your handheld is giving you a different result than what MapSource says after you download the track then thats a different problem which you probably need to take up with Garmin tech support.

Thanks for the info., yes all hikes have had significant altitude change but it seem like the data record as seen in Mapsource should be the same as shown on the screen. I've been using the auto record with the minimum setting but I'll try the time as well as distance with the minimium settings. I guess I'll also try tech support. thanks again.

the odometer of the HCX has a bug (altitude change is not the reason)
i already informed garmin that they also have problems with the new firmware.
It would be nice if also other people inform garmin about that problem.

Garmin claims to have fixed this bug in its latest software update, available from the WebUpdater on garmin.com for the VistaHCx.
You can also update the GPS chip software as well now.

I installed Ver. 2.40 for my Vista Hcx and the Trip Computer Page still has a number of problems.

On a recent two mile walk, the odometer was about 20% too short. The Max Speed was about 50% too high, the Moving and Stop Times were wrong, although the Total Time was correct.

I did notice one thing that might give a hint to the problem. I was carrying the unit in my shirt pocket and as I was walking, I pulled the unit out of my pocket to look at it and initially the Moving Speed was 0.0, even though I was walking about 3 mile per hours. A moment later, the Moving Speed again displayed the speed of my movement. I suspect that the unit was periodically thinking that my motion had stopped. This would account for most of the errors I was seeing on the Trip Computer Page.

Why this was happening, I'm not sure. The signal strength in my pocket was somewhat lower, but I was receiving 8 to 10 satellites many of them WAAS connected. Shouldn't that be adequate?

I also don't think the track points particularly accurate, sometimes 20 to 40 feet off of where they should be. I wonder if the two problems are related?

Don

I just ordered this model for my wife for Christmas. She is very interested in both distance traveled and speed of travel. In fact, these are the MAIN reasons she wants a GPS. She is training a horse for competitive trail rides and it is quite important to know your speed so you can judge conditioning as well as how fast you'll get from one point to the next.

Now, I am worried that I perhaps got the wrong model! If the Vista HCx gives inaccurate speed and distance this gift will not be well received!

NoBite,

This anomaly has been observed at slow (human) walking speeds under 2 MPH, and is likely to be negated with future firmware updates.

No worries! It is an excellent choice.

Thanks, CBX. My wife isn't all that tech-savvy. She will undoubtedly have me set up the GPS and then simply expect it to work without a hitch. If I can get the firmware updated, she will never know of the issue!

In your opinion, is it advisable to learn the nuances of the unit before purchasing a topo map card? I imagine I will eventually want to load a topo map for the areas we trail ride. But, I wonder if that will simply complicate and extend the learning curve at first.

Having the maps is worthwhile at any point along the learning curve. I would recommend getting the MapSource Topo disk, however, rather than buying it on a card. That way you can see your tracks and waypoints and maps on the computer screen in addition to the gps.

Okay, I'll consider the MapSource Topo disc. But, I have to ask if the topo disc will be as detailed as a card of one region of the USA?

If you buy the TOPO by Dec 1, you can still get the $30 rebate.

I looked for that rebate and did not find it on the Garmin site. I did see a $30 offer to upgrade to the new topo map from a previous version. Is that what you referred to?

I have also looked at the micro-SD cards with topo maps. They seem very easy to use, but are considerably more expensive than buying the entire USA on a DVD. So, what's the catch? Why would anyone buy the micro-SD cards when they could have it all on one DVD? Is it going to be difficult to get the maps from the DVD into the GPS unit? Are the micro cards going to have more detailed maps?

Yeah, sorry. That's the deal. You have to have the previous version to get the rebate on the new version. Sorry about that. Still not a bad price, though.

The SD cards are useful for people who don't want to be bothered loading maps onto a card. However, they are risky and limited. You can't use the maps with MapSource on your computer. You can't copy or backup the card. If you accidentally erase the card or otherwise damage the data, that is specifically NOT covered by warranty. You can't put anything else on the disk, so your SD slot can't be used for anything else while you have the map card in there.

Loading maps from MapSource to a blank SD card is simple. The data is the same.

Okay, thanks for the clarification. It really does seem like their Topo USA map on DVD is the best way to go. Now, one more question.

To your knowledge, will that DVD work in my Mac as well as it would in a PC? I take it the Garmin is going to come with some sort of software, too, right? Is this designed for PC only? Just wondering. I have a Mac running Boot Camp, so I can operate in either environment, but prefer the Mac OS.

You mentioned the ability to plot your waypoints on the map stored on your computer. Is this a two-way street? Can you design waypoints on the computer and then transfer them to the Garmin? If so, this could really get interesting!

Hi there people!

First day with Vista HCx (my first GPS device) and I have run into some problems already.

I reset the "trip computer" and the odometer managed to run up several hundred metres while it was just sitting on my desk. Is it possible for my computer to intefere with or mask the satelite signals?

The sort of thing I want to be able to do is go for a walk around the nighbourhood and on returning home be able to log my total time, total distance and average speed (and be able to examine on a map where I have been). This sounds like it should be simple enough.

After closing my front door, I go to the Tracks page and turn "Track Log" to "On". I then go to the Trip computer page, call up the menu and do a reset.

On returning home, I would like to be able to stop the trip computer so that the trip odometer, total time and average speed all hold there values for me to record at some later time.

Is it possible to "freeze" the counters so that I do not have to write down their values immediately?

On my first attempt at this exercise, after saving the track, I found that the length of the track did not agree with the trip odometer.

I also had trouble getting rid of my latest track from the display. Even though the "Show on Map" box was definitely not checked, the dotted line on the displayed map would not go away. Am I missing something here?

Just for the record, I checked my software version and it said:
Software Version 2.40
GPS SW version 2.30

Any advice/assistance will be gratefully received.

As well as displaying extra "phantom metres" (see my previous post), it seems that the Vista HCx odometer can also under-read.

As a further experiment, I tried walking around my garden very slowly. As long as I stay below 1.8 km/h, the odometer does not update at all, even if I cover over 50 metres. If I gradually increase speed, the indicated speed remains on zero until it suddenly switches to 1.8 km/h and the odometer starts updating.

During this experiment, the GPS accuracy was showing as 3 or 4m so I presume there is no problem with lack of satelites or signal strength.

Do all GPS units behave like this? Or is it a quirk of the Vista HCx?

Either way, it is a very severe limitation for me as I would like to be able to record valid distance and speed data when walking my rather elderly dog who often walks quite slowly.

This is a known issue with the Vista HCx. You can find some long threads about it in the Groundspeak (geocaching) forums. It apparently doesn't start reading until you are moving 2mph or so.

Here are a couple of them.

http://forums.groundspeak.com/GC/index. ... pic=178214

http://forums.groundspeak.com/GC/index. ... pic=170878

Thanks MM for your reply and the link to those threads.

I will certainly be taking the unit back to the shop tomorrow (monday) and if they cannot come up with a solution I will be demanding my money back.

I can understand that a GPS unit may have trouble coming up with a direct speed reading at low speeds, but since accurate position information should be available at low speeds I cannot see why the odometer should not (typo edited) give correct readings.

Apart from walking geriatric dogs, I would have thought there would be many situations where the fault would be an unacceptable - for example making one's way through very thick bush.

Could I also please seek more advice about the compass and the comments about needing to hold the unit level? I assumed that it was only necessary to hold the unit level while actually observing the compass. I would consider it another fatal flaw if the unit cannot correctly record data while in one's pocket or hanging around one's neck on the lanyard or even stashed at some random orientation in a backpack.

Thanks again for the reply and I would be very grateful to anyone who can come up with a recommendation for a unit which would better suit my needs by resolving the issues of

(1) Low speed odometer
(2) Inability to "freeze" the trip computer counters.

EDIT

and

(3) the trip computer recording non-zero speeds and accumulating false metres even while stationary. Just now it was sitting on my desk and for several seconds showing a speeds of 3 to 4 km/h and the odometer was incrementing (by maybe 50 metres or so before it stopped)

I am having the same problems with the most current software updates. Also when sitting still, the tracklog will draw lines in zig-zags all over the place like some of my older gps units used to do till those problems were fixed via updates.

My last gps (60c) didn't have that problem.

HAVE SAME SPEED/ODO PROBLEMS AS MANY OTHERS WITH NEW VISTA HCX. OLD VISTA CX WAS VERY GOOD IN THIS AREA. TECH SUPPORT OFFERS NO HELP????

I'm looking into buying my first GPSr, and was considering the Vista HCx or the Legend HCx. My primary use will be hiking and backpacking (meaning low speeds, climbing mountains) and am concerned about the problems mentioned on the Vista HCx. Does anyone have experience with the Legend HCx, and does it experience the same odometer errors? Thanks

it appears that Garmin has finally released a firmware update for the GPS chip set which will solve this problem. Before I would have to move more than 2.0 mph to register, it now seems to work at low as .7 mph. You can only do this update through Garmin's WebUpdater available at garmin.com