I bought myself a new handheld Oregon GPS 650T about 5 years back, to replace my aging / elderly 450T, however whilst I have used the 650T purely for Geocaching, I never used it to 'Find' Chirp Caches. I do own one myself, but as I know its location and the final hidden place, I have never really bothered to scan for my own chirp, retrieve details and view the info.
It was only last week, that I needed to go back to my own chirp to check and replace the battery, plus I needed to program a new chirp just in case the original was missing, to my annoyance, after i had programmed it, retrieved the information and displayed the details, I found the 650T powered down.
Initially I thought this was problem with the GPX's loaded or something else corrupted, and after several attempts, I contacted Garmin by phone, it turns out it is a known bug on the software, and even today its still not been patched or fixed in the updates. Garmin support, did make me an offer, and that was I had to return my 650T and for just over £100, I could upgrade to a refurbished 750T with 90 days warranty, to do this could take 10-15 days, since I had to pay the outward postage and be without my device for 2-3 weeks something I did consider, but declined as with a new 750/750T I get a new unit plus 2 years warranty (and no bug - tested and confirmed).
I didn't realise the bug existed which is a shame, as even though my unit is 5 years old, its in 100% mint condition, with no scratches or marks anywhere on it and at first glance most users would think it was still NIB, its probably not been used 3-4 years, since I took a break from Geocaching shortly after I bought it.
I realise chirp caches are not in abundance, but they do exist and are fun to set up and find, it is just a shame that the chirp part of the hobby never took off as much, I still miss Wherigo on the newer devices, and its really only my 450T that has the software built it, but even that needs a rebuild as the side switch / case is shot where the rubber on/off switch is and you have to power it up with a match stick in the hole in the switch - its also pretty beat up, but it works fine!
If the software developers for Garmin could just fix this bug on the Oregon 650T I would have a perfect working GPS backup, how about it? I can't believe its been 5 years and this bug has not been sorted!
