Accuracy of 60CS

I just received my Garmin 60CS today and have been playing with it quite a
bit. One of the reasons I decided to go with the 60CS is for its claim of
accuracy (3 meters accurate). However, I'm starting to wonder about this.
I have the accuracy feature turned on the data fields, and I haven't seen
it lower than 25 feet (far greater than 3 meters). Also, I went on my
first geocache today in the Seattle area. I picked a 1/1 rated cache to
start out. Even the posts on the cache claimed it was a 'fun and easy
cache', however, I had absolutely no luck finding it. When I got within
about 30 feet of the cache, my GPS started to give inaccurate information
(the compass would flip all around, and the distance to target would range
from 8-30 feet while I was standing still). I checked my satellite
reception and was getting anywhere from 4-6. I have WAAS enabled.

Is this normal? Should I be getting better accuracy? Since I'm new at
this, maybe I'm naive to think that the 3 meter thing is a real claim? I
can't see the fun of geocaching if you have to search for a small cache in
a 30 foot radius area!!!

Thanks for any feedback.

-Butters

You need to turn WAAS on..

you didn't read his posting, did you? He said "I have WAAS enabled".

But I don't think that WAAS will help him. He says he got 4-6 satellites at
that time. This means he was not under clear sky. Maybe he was somewhere in
the woods. The WAAS satellites are harder to receive than the normal GPS
satellites.

--

Heinrich
http://www.gartrip.de

I asked this same question when I recieved mine. You need to wait 20-30
min. until you see 'S' listed in the satellite bar graphs, then you'll
be <10 ft.

Heinrich Pfeifer wrote:

I am in Colorado even on hikes in the mountains I get 8 satalites and about
12 to 7 foot accuracy. on my car if I hook up the externam antenna (just a
little mighty mouse II) then I get about 6 but have gotten as good as 4 ft
accuracy. I have some "jitter" but usually it is just a foot or 2 of jitter