It appears that the current date display on my PN-40 continues to advance, albeit in 1999. Finding the old Delorme Docs folder may require unhiding some Windows folders. A computer that was upgraded to Win10 may have different issues from a new Win10 computer installation. As to purchasing handheld devices from other well known manufacturers, by the time I got around to doing that I found that I was too old to care much about the track thinning algorithm details. I was however under the impression that the 64s would give more reliable tracking in heavy forest and canyons than the PN-40/60 devices under extreme situations. You can plug in an external antenna on the 64s and use a mast on the kayak if better reception is required. Good luck.
Just to clarify... I have no problem with the reception or the location accuracy with other well known units. I like some of the features. My sole complaint is that the distance traveled that is reported is too high. If I stop moving the GPS will continue to add distance as it records all the pings around the general vicinity. A birdsnest then results on the track. It's a lot of work to edit all the birdnests out at home. The old PN-60 did a good job of filtering the extra pings out of the calculations.
Nice to here from some of the former gps folks. Also... Thanks for confirming the 1999 change on old units.
Although I had purchased an Oregon 600, a 64S, and an updated Nuvi/Drive51, I didn't really use any but the Drive to warn of School Zones just by being plugged in. In addition to Cowboy Slim's comments above on track point errors, the Drive Automotive unit can give a ding ding dong alert and show 73mph if passing an 18 wheeler at constant 70mph. Seems that the gps errors make the track look longer to the device on a straight road. As to the handheld units, the Oregon 600 touchscreen model has a switchable option to automatically pause track recording when stopped buried in it's user friendly design. The 64S has no such option that I found, and the push button menu system is not something I can commit to memory. It does have a large antenna for stronger, if not better filtered, signal reception.
Add Update as of 02Nov2018: Garmin has announced a new woodsy GPS 66s pushbutton model to be released shortly. The manual states that among new features Auto Pause of track recording will be included. FWIW to Delorme users et al.
I prefer pushbuttons outdoors, as I have vision contrast issues, but if I were doing it over I would just purchase one of the Nuvi like touch screen handheld models. A small "fitness" device would be of little use to this oldster due to visibility issues. The PN-40 still works, but I let the wife hang the PN-60 too loosely on her pack and I could not find it although I had tracking activated on the PN-40 because she will neither lead nor follow my path. That's usually a desirable trait.
I noticed earlier this week that the date was wrong on my PN-60. It displays a date in March 1999 as others have described (20 March 1999 as of this post). I went so far as to reinstall the firmware, but to no avail. I suppose this is the final result - date will always be almost 20 years ago!
I also noticed that the Trip: Moving, Trip: Stopped and Trip: Total fields do not work, i.e. stay at 00:00. Changing the date on the Tides, Hunt/Fish and Sun/Moon pages at least changes the times displayed and they appear reasonable at least on the Sun/Moon page.
On the plus side, the location, altitude and distance measurements seem to be working as is the integration (Syncing, at least) with TOPO10. Date stamp is not correct though the time portion is correct. Reluctantly, I'll be picking the brains of my Garmin toting friends.
I am glad to have found this forum since I can now stop looking for a solution to my problem.
The time (clock) is still correct but, as noted, any track statistics that use elapsed time have stopped working. However...
If you save a track when finished recording you can then OPEN that track and look at the DETAILS which will give you some of the statistics like ELAPSED TIME.
Thanks for the mention about the new Garmin 66s. I will have to study up on that unit. I wonder if the new AUTO PAUSE feature which stops recording a track when motion is stopped will avoid the "birdnest" and make the reported track distance more accurate?
We have 4 PN-60 devices; my friend Steve called me one day looking for the latest updater. He described the issue, and so I fired up my unit, - same issue. Then my wife's unit - before it got a good signal, it still had the date earlier in the month, then... March ?? 1999. Oh... I've yet to ask my son on his unit, but it's always running, so I suspect the same.
I have the answer to the frozen date on my PN-40 and PN-60 for recording tracks.
I just recorded one and downloaded it to my Windows PC. I opened it up with Wordpad Notepad should also work. I went to edit and selected Find (1999-03-26) and Replace (All) with (2018-11-09).
I expect that MS Word and LibreOffice would also suffice.
I am glad I found this thread, explaining the March 1999 date issue. I tried the hard boot without success. I wonder if Garmin caused this issue? I can understand a century issue, like going from 1999 to 2000, but there should not be anything special about October 19, 2018. There was a firmware update on October 18, and I am suspicious. It is interesting that the DeLorme Explorer inReach (now Garmin -- with the same programing code) don't have this problem. Garmin stopped "supporting" the Earthmate line with that last bad firmware update . . . . . . . As it is, I use my PN-60 for trail finding and track recording. I hope I downloaded maps for I will need them . . . . Perfectly fine tool for what I need. I like devices that have batteries that can be swapped out in a minute.
