Anyhow, I will continue to research before making a purchase. I know that the unit will most likely work on O’ahu but I would want to know its “Hawaiian limitations” before I buy anything. Mahalo again for your response and if you discover anything else while using your GPS in the islands please keep me posted. Take care.

Good explaination on the accuracy. Not what I hoped for but to be expected.

GPS accuracy is generally 10 meters, 95% of the time. You can improve that to about 5 meters with WAAS. But no– don’t expect consistency. I took waypoints at each corner of my house (which is indeed a rectangle) but one side was shown as about 15 feet longer than the opposite, parallel side.

As for Delorme’s Maplibrary will the included subscription be enough to load a decent portion of a state or will I have to get the yearly subscription right off the bat? And will the 1G card hold all the information? I’m only concerned with the areial and maybe sat images at this time?

Second question is related to GPS in general. Say I want to measure straight line distances between 100 and 300 yards. how accurate will the GPS be? I know there is some inherent accuracy in the system itself but is this inaccuracy consistant from point A to point B?

Thanks again

After reading many blogs here, I created an account on Delorme’s website to view the map availability. I found the area I was interested in but when I zoomed in, a grey screen layered over the map with the words “image not available.” I could still see the magnified topo map underneath even though it said the image wasn’t available.

Therefore my question, is that an indication that Hawai’i maps aren’t available? Or am I just not able to view it because I have not subscribed to the service or something like that?

Thank you in advance.

In early September my PN40 that I purchased last Thanksgiving would not power up. DeLorme tech support had me send it in. It was returned in late September and I was told that the “back was replaced”. When I sent the unit in, I also said it was hard on batteries and asked that to be corrected if possible. After its return, Tech told me that the replaced back should also fix the battery eating problem.

Since getting the unit back I have not used it. This week, I have been conducting battery life tests with it. Turning it on and setting the battery types appropriately in the PN40 menu, then letting it sit with a 3-D fix inside the house at a window (ambient temp around 60-70F), doing nothing with controls, the results have been:

Kirkland alkaline batteries: 7 ¼ hours. Eneloop NIMH batteries previously used and double charged prior to trial: 9 hours. Panasonic NIMH recharged batteries: 7 hours. Energizer Lithium (non-rechargeable) batteries: 12.5 hours.

I am considering purchase of Li-Ion rechargeable CR-V3 batteries and charger. I have some new Energizer Lithium (not rechargeable) batteries, so I decided to see how long they would last, following same protocol described above. Using a multi-tester, I checked voltage before installation – 1.65 V each battery. Now begins the weird part…
1. Installed Lithiums. Turned on. Screen came up and light on briefly, then light off but screen still showing. Wanted to set Lithium type battery through “Menu” but press would not change screen. No changes or light on with press of any button. Would not power off.
2. Removed Lithiums. Inserted Eneloop NIMH. Powered up, changed battery type to Lithium. Pressed Quit and screen switched correctly but battery indicator showed 2 bars (probably because mis-match between menu setting and actual batteries in unit?) But now the unit would not power down! Removed NIMH batteries.
3. Re-installed Lithiums. Would not power on.
4. Put Eneloops back in. Changed setting to NIMH. Would not power down. Would sound the appropriate tone but would never give “Press enter to power down” message. Instead, it repeatedly gave the screen light level bar. Finally, I changed the slider on the light bar and then on second press of off-on button, I got “Press enter to power down”. However, pressing enter at that point did not power it down. Repeated attempts, including sliding the light bar and finally it did power down.
5. No change of batteries, NIMH still installed. Turned back on. Through Menu, changed battery type to Lithium. “Warning battery life low” came on. Powered down OK.
6. Installed the Lithium batteries again. Briefly turned on screen and then went blank. No power.
7. Removed Lithiums and tested with Multi-tester. One tested .82 volts, the other 1.28 volts. (Later I re-tested these 2 batteries several times: after 4-plus hrs from removal, 1.12 & 1.46 V. After 7 hours, 1.2 & 1.48 V. After 15 hrs, 1.35 V & 1.52 V. However, using a ZTS Pulse Load tester on the Lithium setting, it shows 0 percentage of capacity for either battery 15 hrs after removal.)
8. I installed different new Lithium batteries right after removing the first set of Lithiums. Remember, battery type setting in the PN40 remains at Lithium. Each of the new batteries tested 1.79V before installation. Powered up. Normal responses to button presses. Set the PN40 near the window to test battery life. Result 12 ½ hours. However, I tested the batteries 3 hours after removal from the PN40 and they both showed 1.54 volts on the Multi-meter but 0 capacity on the pulse-load tester.
9. 12 hours after removing the depleted Lithiums they tested 1.58 V, and 0 on the pulse-load. I re-installed them in the PN40 and they powered it for twenty minutes before again showing power low warning. I tried powering down several times unsuccessfully. Then I pressed enter while screen showed the light bar, then the off button and only then did it offer the shut down option.

I am left with the following questions:
A. Why all the weird behavior encountered in steps 1 – 7?
B. Why drastic, almost immediate depletion of the first Lithiums?
C. Must PN40 battery type be PRE-set to Lithium or LiOn Rechargeable BEFORE installing those types of batteries – rather than after their installation?
D. If first Lithiums were faulty before-hand and not depleted by malfunction of the PN40, why did they recover voltage level over time, just sitting? Why did they recover it at all?? It appears that is “normal” for the Lithiums and that their volt readings are “empty ghost” volts.
E. How to account for good voltage readings on the used Lithiums but zero load capacity readings?
F. Can I trust my PN40 to perform correctly in the future?
G. Do others encounter reluctant power down behaviors with their PN units?

Another question for those who have used Lithium CR-V3 rechargeables. How do the CR-V3s do in comparison with the battery life I found with the non-rechargeable Lithiums? Better yet, how do the CR-V3s compare with other battery types that you have used?

I am posting this on the DeLorme users’ forum also.