I have never had or used a GPS and I have a few questions for you guys -
How accurate is this"polling" feature to locate a buddy? Does it give a general direction and accurate to within 10/20/50/100 ft of their location?
Polling will show your buddies current location on your gps map. You can then select Go-To and it will show you the direction you need to travel as you ride. If they are moving, you would need to continue polling to determine the direction they are moving. Accuracy will depend on current satellite reception and if you have WAS enabled. WAS increases the accuracy but I read that there are times/conditions when you don't want WAS enabled. I have to look that one up again.
Base maps - so those are simply road maps without any terrain to them, and you would have to buy a card for your specific area (Washington in my case) to see every ridge, valley, or creek when in the woods? Do they show Forest Service roads (groomed trails in the winter) after you are off the main highway?
The topo maps show the topography for the area, creeks, rivers, forestry roads and some misc features. The topo maps I have do not show groomed trails. I have created custom maps from previous rides but they are useless to others since the maps have to be loaded in the registry on your pc for Garmin's Mapsource software to see it. The last area I rode in my 530 showed a cabin not far from us at one point. In Canada the topo maps I bought cover all of canada but with the 530 I am limited to how many sections/areas the unit can hold, however these sections cover a lot more than the typical riding area. I load the areas I know I will be riding the night before.
Do they automatically record every turn you make on the trail, distance from your start point, etc? I have heard that you can add specific "Waypoints" to them, like to put a random name to a place such as "Awesome Hill" or other?
Just about all GPS's these days leave a breadcrumb trail of the route you travelled. Most have a track back capability to take you back on the route you travelled. Yes, you can add your own waypoints at any time and name them whatever you like. Press and hold the joystick button on a Rhino or Etrex unit and the waypoint manager appears on your screen. It defaults to a numbered sequence ie. 012 but you can edit this to what you want ie. awesome climb.
I've been thinking about one for a while as I can get easily turned around when in unfamiliar territory, and would like to know the little details of how they really work and how user friendly they are.
I would say they are fairly user friendly. When I'm really bored I'll read thru the manual again to see what I may have forgot or missed. I think you learn a lot quicker if you can find someone with a similar unit to show you the basics. I've had gps units for a few years and I have helped my brother-inlaw and brother with their Rhinos. I always put a screen protector on mine. They sell them for Palm Pilots, cameras and stuff. The last thing you want is a bunch of scratches on your screen. Harder to look at when the sun hits them.
THANKS!!!
