The MNS is more accurate than advertised when finding positions. When entering a waypoint on the "way out" of a daylong hike, the MNS usually registered "found" within 5 feet of the landmark that I recrossed and recognised on the "way back." The MNS can acquire a signal in light forests near tree line, but not in the heavy forests of Ponderosa Pine at lower altitudes. The heavy smoke generated by the fire burning West of Colorado Springs this Summer killed satellite acquisition.

The altimeter is not accurate to within three feet, even given that the weather is clear and constant. It is of equivalent accuracy to my Sunto Vector altitude watch which is rated accurate to 10 feet; both must have the same internal mechanism. If I start climbing at 10,000 feet and climb to 14,000 feet, both devices will register about 13,900 feet. Interestingly enough, both devices always register low, which allows me to intuit the real altitude. On that closed loop between 10,000 and 14,000 feet, both mechanisms will register within 10 feet of 10,000 feet on return to the starting point.

The MNS mechanism is capable and has kept me from getting lost several times when weather on the return trip became bad.

The Tracklog function has little value because there is a very small limiting number of collected waypoints; a user is bound to miss that bend in the trail or special landmark that he would enter if he were setting waypoints manually.

The MNS is somewhat more accurate than the E-Trex Vista in finding positions. The E-Trex is far more user friendly in entering data. It might take twice as long to manually enter a route using the MNS vis-a-vis the E-trex.

I wear reading glasses. I cannot view the E-trex map or any of the displays without my glasses. I can view all the displays on the MNS without glasses. This was the ultimate reason I kept the MNS and returned the E-Trex Vista.

The Map on the Vista is so tiny as to be of little value. When I hike, I print a map of my route from my mapping software on plasticized paper; this printed map is far more convenient than the tiny map on the Vista.

Skiper Dan

I have been shopping for quite some time for a little handheld, but was kind of stubborn and too "old fashioned" to spend the big money on one of those new toys. I know that they eat batteries and are not very accurate, and I guess I was hoping that technology would bring the price down and accuracy up. I have owned one of your eclipse compasses (the big one) for awhile and have been pleased with its performance, and so naturally I wanted your MNS. I like the compass, altimeter and weather features found in your unit, as well as the GPS.

I am a registered land surveyor in the state of Kansas and Colorado, as well as an avid outdoorsman, so you can understand why I like things to be very very accurate as well as durable and most of all, reliable. My company owns the Trimble GPS surveying equipment, so I know what GPS is and basically how it works. I understand the coordinate systems and lat/longs for locations and navigation, barometer and altimeter measurements and of course, how to operate a compass. I have seen the need for GPS and understand its capabilities and most of all, its limitations, but I still wanted a receiver to "play with". So finally, I stumbled across one of your units in a store that was going out of business, and I just couldnt pass up the price.

The first thing I wanted to do with it is put it to the test. I know that they all say "plus or minus 15m accuracy", which to me is not very good. Yes I could find my car while out hiking with that kind of accuracy, but I want to be within a few meters. I recently staked a house for a friend of mine that sits in the middle of 45 acres of very hilly, heavily wooded land. I used the standard survey transit and tape to square up the house where he wanted it in a nice clearing. But then came the difficult part, which is locating the house within the property. The county needs approximate side yard ties and a drawing when he goes in to get his building permit. It would take over a day to traverse by conventional methods to obtain the side yard ties, so I thought I would try the MNS and see what it can do.

I obtained the county appraisers map from the clerks office in digital format, which just happened to be in NAD 83 datum. I then loaded it up into autocadd (computer aided drafting software) and clicked the latitude and longitude locations on the property corners. I plotted it out and went back to the field. Much to my amazement, I mean really to my amazement, every property corner on this 45 acre site hit to the tenth of a second of the lat/longs shown on my map, which is about plus/minus 10 feet (3m) accuracy! It is so much better than expected, that I couldnt believe it! It was cloudy with partial tree cover and the little MNS performed flawlessly and hardly touched the battery supply! I am not suggesting that I will use this receiver to survey with by any means, but I did want to let you know that I am very happy with its performance which exceeds its listed specifications. I just wish that soon I will get to use it for fun instead of work!

Scott Confer, RLS 08May01