[aprssig] impressions of the Garmin 276c

[Wes Johnston]

I got it for $600 from getfeetwet.com (not that I push any particular
vendor.... after I bought it there, I found at a couple of other places for
$15 to $20 cheaper).....

The proprietary mem cards are expensive.  around $1/meg.

Also, another quirk... Yesterday, I told the GPS to plot a route
to kd4rdb-15 which was moving.  The wayponit kd4rdb-15 stayed put and when
another position came in from the kenwood, it created a 2nd icon called
"kd4rdb-1 1".  When I told it to go to that one, it stayed put and when a
new position came in from the kenwood, it became "kd4rdb-1 2".... and so
on.  So we have a GPS that makes it painful to assign icons to waypoints
that move around, and navigate to them.  And it does not auto-recalculate a
route to a waypoint that is moving around.... it renames the waypoint
instead.

I got a chance to listen to the voice prompts yesterday on my way home... It
has a limited vocabulary... words like "straight" "turn left", "keep right",
all the numbers, "miles", "feet", "arriving".  It does _not_ tell you the
name of the road you are approaching, just that you need to make a left turn
in 1 mile.  Clear and easy to understand.  Also, the voice prompts telling
you to turn only work when navigating a ROUTE that the GPS has created.  I
told the unit to navigate a bread crumb that I left on my way to and from
work, and it did not give any voice prompts for that route.  Also, in
automotive mode, when you tell it to go to a location, it gives the option
of fastest, shortest, and off road.  Off road is 'as the crow flies", the
other two generate a route.  One neat thing is that it will pop over from
showing you a moving map to showing you a diagram of the intersection you
are approaching with an arrow showing the path to take.  It will show that
about 60 seconds ahead of a turn, then flip back to the moving map.  About 5
seconds before a turn it will flip back to the diagram again, then back to
the moving map once you clear the intersection.  Just the info I need at
just the right time!


Overall, I still like it, but there are some caveats for aprs use.

Wes


On 2/17/06, Dave Baxter <dave at emv.co.uk> wrote:
>
> Nice review Wes, sounds like a great piece of kit...
>
> But...  A snip from Garmin's site...
>
> "Suggested Retail Price:
> $746.65 U.S.D. (for domestic US market only)"
>
> and typically over £400 GBP in the UK where listed, make it a bit on the
> pricy side to say the least, for just one type of use (APRS)  If I had a
> boat (I wish!) then maybe.  But then, there seem to be some issues with the
> size and type of memory card used for charts/maps etc, according to other
> reviews on the web.
>
> Oh well, I can dream...
>
> Dave G0WBX
>
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