TAG :: Toronto Area Geocachers » tutorial

Starting with Colorado Firmware 3.52 beta, the device can listen for Garmin chirp devices. I loaded up that firmware and found very quickly it isn’t entirely intuitive to figure this out – it’s certainly not in the Garmin Colorado manual, having been added several years after the product line launched.

To use the feature, you have to enable it. As listening for chirp devices can potentially eat more battery on an already power hungry device like the Colorado, it is disabled by default. To enable it, go to your Geocaching menu, then select Options (top left button) and finally Start chirp(tm) searching.

When you encounter a chirp device, it will pop up automatically and grab the information from the chirp. Since the ANT hardware is not as efficient as it is in the newer Garmin devices you will have to be closer to the chirp. Once the chirp has finished communicating, you’ll have the option to display it’s details, or dismiss it.

To go back and see the chirp again after dismissing it, simply go back to Geocaches, then Options and select chirp(tm) Details.

To disable chirp, it’s the same procedure. Go back to Geocaches, then Options and select Stop chirp(tm) Searching.

The chirp details will be remembered until you encounter another chirp, you reboot the device or you disable chirp searching. That’s right, shutting off the device or disabling chirp erases the chirp details from the unit.

You’ll want to save any waypoint details you want to keep before shutting off. I have not found a way to save the information on the device itself, I’ll update this article if I find a way (there HAS to be a way).