Megellan Explorist 600 HELP!!

[MIMatt]

New here,,,,,,,,,and this place is GREAT!  I'm not to technological but I built 2 houses in the country from top to bottom, hunt, fish, woodwork, can survive in the woods alone forever by myself,,,,,,,,(or with a woman if I have to)...........but I just can't seem to get my GPS to calibrate the compass.  Additionally the weather and altimeter never worked.  L read where you get to the compass menu and do the right/left/right/left thing and enter 22 but all that gets me to is a screen that states I need extended calibration and "Sensor Degauss".  It sits in the Degauss screen for 30 minutes,,,,that's when I get fed up and shut it down.  Any advise?  My next idea is to put it in the crotch of a tree at 100 yards and pull out the 22-250..............Thank you for all the help 

[Glanceblamm]

Ok guy's, you got me involved here but mainly because I saw zero replys to this post and the New GPS post also. I knew that it was not true (specially with the latter post) but this problem corrected itself upon a refresh.

Now where were we?...OH, electronic Compass calibration!

I have owned one such devise (non gps) and I could get it to calibrate N-S or E-W accurately but not all four points at the same time with the offending leg being off 12 degrees or better. This did not concern me because it was just a wrist watch!

I was recruited to try to Calibrate another (non gps) Compass that my Brother had recieved as a gift. This was strictly a Compass being the size of a pocket watch but also had the ability to store some waypoints based on where one was standing. Long to Short, I had the very same problem with it on the Calibration. The Brother did a little research on that model and it turned out that others were having the same problem.

I did not know that the newer gps units now had an electronic compass build in as I use the satellite compass like Siskiyou was recommending. None the less, I was forced to go get my old Garmin GPS 12 dinosaur out, fire it up, but then go immediately to Simulator mode. Sure enough, the compass screen was locked on dead north while the heading screen was locked on dead east. PLEASE NOTE THAT THIS IS WHAT I EXPECTED MY PARTICULAR UNIT TO DO.

HOWEVER...If I am at a known waypoint with the gps calibrated to the same, I get dead accurate headings to other waypoints while in Simulator mode using the "go to" feature. This can be valuble in real life because if I would lose all reception in the field, chances are very good that I would know where at least one waypoint is and could walk to it. The gps is not going to know that so I have to switch to simulator mode then use the "Pan" feature to move my cursor to my location before using the "Go To".

Siskiyou, Your thoughts on my "However" paragraph would be greatly appreciated.

I do not have a built in electronic compass as you know but yet it will work in simulator mode. Where is my dinosaur getting its information from?...There is obviously some memory here but it has to be based on the distance between the coordinates?....It could also be that the chip in my 12 uses the same technology as a common mapping software program for a PC?

I am switching back to the subject at hand "the elect compass" before I blow this post. Why cant they get this right?...Do you figure that it is somewhat of a gimmick since we are armed with our Silva Ranger anyway?...Actually, my Sons I-Phone has a compass page with the compass being very sensitive and accurate. I do not know if this works without tower reception though.