Anyone thinking about purchasing the popular Garmin Vista HCx mapping GPS receiver should know about a serious defect that’s apparently existed for some time (according to numerous posts on popular online GPS forums) and for which a fix is evidently not available from Garmin.
From what I can determine, the problem may not affect all units, but it certainly did affect the one I recently purchased, and if you believe the writers on the groundspeak forums, those owned by many others as well.
The issue is that after the Vista HCx has been powered up for a while, its accuracy begins to drift, at least under some conditions. It appears to happen mostly at slow (walking) speeds, but the error can be quite significant. In my case, the reported position was sometimes off by 1,000 feet or more from my true position, as verified by my trusty Geko 301.
The tracks it recorded were all over the place. Not just one or two aberrant data points, but an entire, systematic shift in the track position from its actual location. The only workaround seems to be to cycle the unit off, then back on again, which causes it to snap back to an accurate fix. But then, the drift eventually begins again.
The image below illustrates the problem. On a recent 2-mile test near my home, I walked to and from a nearby destination using precisely the same route, even walking on the same side of the street. The red and yellow tracks should be exactly on top of one another, but as you can see, they vary widely.
Neither track is quite right, but the red track in particular drifts 900 feet or more from true position. I’ll add that the identical problem was observed on several other test hikes.
This image shows two tracks that should
precisely overlay one another (+)
I should further note that I installed the most recent receiver and chipset firmware (version 2.80/2.80) and also performed a “hard reset” as recommended by some groundspeak users, but with no luck. According to many users, Garmin has been largely unresponsive to the issue. It also appears that this same problem could affect some of their other “High-Sensitivity” products, including the Colorado series.
Anyway, I finally lost patience and returned the Vista HCx to Amazon. Too bad, because I otherwise liked the unit. I’d intentionally waited over a year since it began shipping to allow Garmin to work out the bugs (there have been numerous software updates since late 2007) and so was especially disappointed to discover that there were still serious problems.
After many years as a loyal Garmin customer (I’ve owned 4 of their products), I’m taking a hard new look at DeLorme.
Announcements | Jim Wood | 
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