I just had an interesting scouting adventure. I have been using my GPS (Etrex Legend) on my boat this summer, and kept the unit in a bag in my truck. I don't know if the heat had anything to do with it,but yesterday I went to scout a piece of property that I had hunted this past spring for turkey. Only having been there a few times, I switched my GPS on when I was approaching my turn off to get to the property. I usually put waypoints at places like this so I don't miss turns, especially in the dark. I hit the find button, selected waypoints, then selected "nearest". I was surprised that the waypoint I was coming up on did not show. I reached the turn and made it anyway without help from the GPS. When coming up on the property, I selected a different waypoint, this time by name. I hit navigate, and boy was I surprised to have my GPS tell me that the waypoint I selected was over 300 miles away! I live and hunt in RI, and according to the GPS, the waypoints I had entered for this property were near Pittsburgh! Today I downloaded the waypoints from my GPS to my computer, and printed out an old waypoint backup list and the new list I just downloaded. Somehow, the longitudes got corrupted and -71.XXXX became -77.XXXX! all other waypoints appeared unaffected. Other than this, the GPS appears to work okay. Although I couldn't check out waypoints that I had marked this spring as potential stand locations for this fall, I did find the property and was able to mark some promising locations. If I didn't back up my waypoints, there would be a bunch of spots I'd probably have trouble getting back to. Now, I'm just going to add my few new points to my old list, delete all waypoints from the GPS, and upload myupdated list to the GPS. It just goes to show you that you can't totally depend on these electronic gadgets. Keep a map and compass with you just in case things go south when they should be going north!

every time i download my routes or waypoints i save them with the yyyymmdd (20050906) format so I create a new file on the pc every time. I got burned one time where I lost my waypoints by clearing the waypoints on my gps and then saving (my blank list of waypoints) over my good list on the pc. argh!

oh, and make sure you bring spare batteries. always have spare batteries. Don't EVER forget spare batteries. EVER!