Reviews > Navigation and Map Gear > GPS > Garmin Geko 301 > Owner Review by Ralph Ditton

I have evolved from being a heavyweight backpacker of approximately 28 kg (62 lb) including all my water and food to a mid- weight backpacker averaging 18 kg (40 lb). I am still trying to get lighter with better equipment. My trips range from overnighters to five days duration.

(Courtesy of Garmin International, Inc.)

Product Information
Name of Unit: Garmin Geko 301.
Manufacturer: Garmin International, Inc.
Manufacturer's URL: http://www.garmin.com
Year of manufacture: 2003
Made in: Taiwan.
Dimensions: L 100 mm x B 48 mm x D 24 mm (3.9 in x 1.9 in x 0.96 in).
Weight (incl. batteries): 96 g (3.4 oz).
Battery type: 2 1.5-volt AAA Alkaline or Nickel Metal Hydride. (NiHM)
Battery life: 9 hours with alkaline batteries.
External power: 12 volts.
Case: Fully gasketed, high-impact plastic alloy.
Waterproof to: 1 m (3.2 ft) for 30 minutes.
Operating temperature range: -15 to 70 C (5 to 158 F).
Receiver: 12 parallel channel.
Estimated position error: Yes, satellite display.
Acquisition time: Approx. 15 seconds (warm start).
                              Approx. 45 seconds (cold start).
North Reference: True, Magnetic, Grid.
Waypoints: 500, 6 characters.
Reversible routes: 20 with up to 125 waypoints each.
Track points: 10,000.
Saved tracks: 10 with up to 500 points each.
Update rate: 1 second continuous.
Accuracy (AMSA and USCG): <3 m (10 ft).
Interface: RS-232 for PC interface.
Antenna: Built in.
Colour: Dark Grey-Green (Pennsy Black)
MSRP: USD $246-41

My Measurements
Dimensions: L 100 mm x B 48 mm x D 24 mm (3.9 in x 1.9 in x 0.96 in).
Weight (incl. batteries): 95 g (3.4 oz).
Battery life: 4 to 9 hours depending where the batteries are made.

Introduction
I had been introduced to Geocaching early in 2005 and I did not own a GPS. I had to borrow other peoples units to participate in the hunts.
Of the various makes and models that I tried, I found that I was drawn to the Garmin Geko 301 model because I found it very easy to use and had the most important feature of an electronic compass that did not require forward movement to keep the compass working. I could stand still and rotate my body to get a bearing. The biggest problem with other models was that I had to keep moving to achieve a reading and sometimes it was a very painful exercise when surrounded by extremely prickly Dryandra sessilis. (Parrot Bush).
The leaves have many spikes crowning the head of the leaf.

Dryandra sessilis
(courtesy ANBG)
Unfortunately, a lot of my off track walking and geocaching is through copse of Dryandra sessilis.
The unit was of a similar size to my mobile phone and weighed much the same, so I made the decision to purchase the Garmin Geko 301.
Some time later I purchased the RS-232  for the PC interface as it took a long time to manually load the co-ordinates into the GPS.

Product Description
At first glance the unit can be mistaken for a mobile phone due to its size. I use this impression when walking on a "go to" to a cache. People look at me and the unit with a quick glance and just think that I am carrying a mobile phone without realising that I am actively reading the display and punching through the pages.
The unit operates on two AAA alkaline batteries which are placed in the back of the unit. Rechargeable Alkaline, NiHM, NiCad or Lithium batteries may be used, but can not be charged in the unit. I have only ever used alkaline batteries of various strengths. My biggest problem is that most of the batteries that we get are made in China and do not last very long, whereas the American made batteries are much better for a longer life.
To open the battery compartment, I have to use the edge of a coin and twist to shift the lock. It hurts my fingers if I try to do it with my fingers only. A tool of some description is needed.
The Geko 301 has five buttons that operate the unit.
There is a "Power" button which turns the unit on and off. It also turns the backlight on and off by pressing and releasing very quickly when the unit is on. The button is lower than the rest and has a red circle with a vertical dash at the 12 o clock position. To date, the red has not been rubbed off through use, although I have seen this happen to another Gecko 301 that I borrowed.
There is a "Page" button which when pressed switches between the" Main Pages". There are six "Main Pages". They are the Satellite, Map, Navigation, Elevation, Trip Computer and Menu.
The "Up/Down" buttons (two of them, one for each function) highlight options on pages and menus, adjust display on the Satellite Page, zoom in and out on the Map Page, troll through the data fields on the Navigation Page.
The master button is the "OK" button which confirms data entry or menu selection, marks my current position and access the "Mark Waypoint" page.
As I purchased my unit from America, I had to change the units to read in metric. It was a simple matter of going to the Menu Page and scroll down to "Units" and  instruct the unit to compute the distance, speed and elevation in metric.

My measurements of the unit corresponded to the manufacturer's.

Features
The unit comes with an Owner's Manual and a Quick Start Guide.
The Quick Start Guide is in the form of a folded pamphlet and covers the following:

• Installing the Batteries.
• Start Up Sequence.
• Previewing the Main Pages.
• Calibrating the Compass.
• Setting the Time Zone.
• Using the Geko 301 Buttons.
• Starting to Navigate.
• Finishing the Goto Return.
• Playing the Geko 301 Games.

The Owner's Manual covers the above but in greater detail down to the nth degree.
It took me many readings of the manual to get my head around many of the topics as I have never had much to do with GPS's before and was very unfamiliar with the jargon.
In some ways, the manual is like a "Beginners Guide for Idiots". It basically leads the reader by the nose, with instructions like, "Press the Up or DOWN button to highlight MAP. Press the OK button to display the waypoint on a map with bearing and distance. I can use the UP or DOWN button to zoom in or out on the map."

Although the unit has five games with the user as the key participant, I have never bothered with them. I have left that to my son to play with. I am not into electronic games, so in my opinion it is a wasted feature.

Use of Unit in the Field
I primarily use the unit for geocaching purposes.
Prior to purchasing an interface cable, I manually entered to co-ordinates into the unit by hand. This took a little practice as I invariably made an error in entering the digits.
One of the big drawbacks is the restriction of being only able to use up to six characters to name a location. E.g. If I wanted to enter the name "Where the hell is it" all I could enter into the unit is "Wheret". It is an actual name and location of a cache.
Over the course of a year since I purchased the unit, I have located over fifty caches, some in the metropolitan area, some in the bush and others interstate.
When I have entered the caches that I want to go and look for, I scroll to the Menu page. At the top is the "Waypoints". I press the OK button and a panel pops up listing a selection of "Mark, List All, Nearest, Delete All". I usually scroll down to "List All" and make my selection. Having made my selection, I activate the "Go To" and then follow the compass pointer to the cache.

go to prompt

There are some variables that will make a search either very difficult or not when using the unit. The single most important feature of the unit is its ability to lock onto three or more satellites. If it only locks onto one or two, I will not get a pointer on the electronic compass to follow. It needs three at a minimum. Sometimes there are only a few satellites around for the unit to lock onto.
The other cause of losing satellite signals is when I am in under very dense tree cover. The leaves and branches can break up the signal.
I have had no trouble under light tree cover provided there are three or more satellites around.
Funnily enough, I have no luck at all in getting a signal when I am under a bridge due to the layer of earth, concrete and bitumen on top.
In other words, it does not work under bridges or in tunnels.

When I am going off track from one cache to another, I find using the GPS to confirm my position to my map very comforting. There is a page that shows the exact co-ordinates of where I am when other information on the page shows the direction of my goal and how far it is away.
On the approach to my target, the display will show "Arriving Destination".
The "Go To" compass pointer function gets confused within an average of 1.6 m (5.3 ft) away from the cache as the pointer swings around. What I do then is walk slowly, changing directions if necessary, reading off the last digit co-ordinates on the South and East, as I know what they should be. An example would be say S 32 32.798 E 116 00.926 and when the pointer swings all over the place, the co-ordinates will be something like S 32 32.793 E 116 00.924. It is just a matter of walking to line up the last two digits to match and bingo, I should be able to locate the cache.

homing in on a cache

The fundamental accuracy of the unit is well within 5 m (10 ft) 95% of the time. Why do I say within 5 m (10 ft)? When the unit is locking onto satellites it displays an accuracy status which I have noted can start out as far as 27 m (88.5 ft). The more satellites it locks onto, the accuracy gets better. The most common accuracy status I obtain is the 5 m (16.4 ft). The best to date has been 2 m (6.5 ft) and that was when I had strong locks on all 12 satellites.

How do I know what the signal strengths are? There is a bar display for each of the satellites the unit locks onto and the height of the bar lets me know if it is strong or weak.

satellite display

accuracy of signal

I always carry spare batteries with me as the unit can chew through the battery power especially when I am flipping through various functions. There is a battery meter at the foot of the satellite page. It has four small bars and when the batteries run down the bars show clear. When the batteries are very low, I get a display "Battery Low OK" which means that I have about 10 minutes power left using alkaline batteries.

One of the drawbacks of the unit is that I have to recalibrate the compass every time I replace the batteries. To do this, I have to lay the unit on a flat surface and rotate it at a certain speed two full circles in the same direction watching the display showing "Just Right" Too fast or slow I will get that message also, but if I do not act quickly enough I have to start all over again. Sometime even when I have the speed right it takes three or three and a half turns to have the "Just Right" bar fill up similar to a download bar on a computer. When the bar fills up I get a "Calibration Completed Successfully".

The unit is operated one handed with my thumb doing all of the work. For finesse when entering co-ordinates manually, I tend to either lay it flat on a table or hold it in my left hand and use my index finger on my right hand.

When I am camping out I always make a pen and paper note of the elevation of the location as I use this information for my reports. As far as I am aware I am not able to store this information.

There is a Sight 'N Go option when using the compass. I have to make sure that the compass ring with the pointer is in-line with the two sighting marks on the case. See the above photo showing a white arrow head and underneath the "R' a white vertical stroke.
I do not use it a great deal as I usually just follow the pointer as I have the co-ordinates already entered.

I obtain the co-ordinates from two sources, the Geocaching web site and Google Earth. I use Google Earth for interesting locations, zoom in on the spot and input the co-ordinates. I used this facility when I travelled interstate and wanted to look at some tourist spots. The GPS was very helpful in finding the location in a strange area. Why? Because the free tourist maps tend to be a bit skimpy on detail of interesting things that I want to visit and are not mainstream such as fishing spots, low density picnic areas and off track attractions that the general public does not know about.
In addition I use Google Earth to see where the co-ordinates will take me and that way I can better plan a route to the target in conjunction with my paper maps, especially in the metropolitan area.

One feature that I use regularly is the Map Page which shows where I have been. I use this in difficult terrain to retrace my steps back to my starting point. On occasions I mark the start point and use this as a "Go To" to retrace also, but I do not always do it.
One thing I noticed very early that retracing my tracks did not correspond exactly with my original trail. It is usually about 1-2 mm (0.04- 0.08 in) out. The reason for this is that the satellites move and the earth rotates in the time span between going and coming. The longer the time span the greater the distance. From memory, the biggest gap between the trails is about 3 mm (0.1 in). The jargon is to call it a breadcrumb trail.

breadcrumb trail
In the photo above it will be noted that to the right where I returned on the same track it runs besides the original, making it much thicker. The time interval was about forty minutes when I was looking for a cache, found it and returned back along the animal track. The display moves as I progress, so the "Home" will disappear the further out I went to the cache. Upon my return, the picture display changes until I see the "Home" location again. "Home" in this case was Ball Creek Hut on the Bibbulmun Track.

When I am travelling in my vehicle, I set the unit up on my dashboard and have the compass page up that shows the speed of the vehicle. I use this facility to check it against my speedometer. Both tend to agree with each other which is good.
Using this same feature, I check to see how fast I am walking on designated tracks. This gives me an indication of approximate arrival time. The unit will give an approximate time based on the speed also, but the GPS measures distance in a straight line, whereas the track always bends and turns adding distance to the walk. I find that I am comfortable ambling along at 5.1 km (3.2 mi). This seems to be the most consistent figure the GPS gives me for slightly undulating terrain.

Summary
I have had the unit since September 2005 and I have used it nearly every week, usually on weekends when bushwalking and geocaching.
The unit has other features that I have not touched on as I very rarely use them and some not at all such as the games, plot over time/distance and zoom ranges. Why? Because in my type of walking I do not need them. They are surplus to my requirements, but it nice to know that they are there if I should ever find myself in a different walking environment.
To date I am very happy with the unit as it does what I want and I am still learning things about it.
I found that I had and still do, read the owner's manual many many many (yes, a lot) times to get my head around things and understand what the manual is trying to impart. Yes, I have made mistakes inputting data but by doing that I learnt the hard way how not to do it.
The GPS is not the be all and end all for navigation. I still carry paper maps of the relevant area that I am walking in and a manual compass in case all of my batteries fail. It has been known for my son to swap his flat batteries for my fresh ones and leave me the flat ones without telling me.
The Garmin Geko 301 is an excellent unit for me  to learn on because down the track I will be looking to upgrade to a unit that has topographical ability whereby maps can be downloaded into the unit and the display is very busy with information.

Things I like

• small and lightweight.
• accuracy within 1.6 m (63 in).
• locks onto satellites quickly.
• pages contain easy to understand information.
• minimal buttons to operate.

• can only use six characters to name a waypoint.
• battery case very hard to open.
• having to recalibrate the compass every time I change the batteries.
  

Reviews > Navigation and Map Gear > GPS > Garmin Geko 301 > Owner Review by Ralph Ditton