Gps

[bobracing]

After last weekend I've decided that GPS would be good to know and have. Not knowing much about it any suggestions on what to looking for in a unit?. Want something for the trail, large screen, and finding my way in a different city would be nice too.

 

[84Toyota4x4]

Knowing what you want from the unit would be a good way to start. Size, weather resistance, water proof, floating, illuminated screen, maping capability, internal storage size, external storage option (mincro SD card), included maps/software, linkability with a PC, type of satellite tracking, compass, altimeter, of course accuracy, etc

Just go from there. Once you know what you want it to include or be able to do, selecting and finding a unit that would work for you should be fairly easy.

~T.J.

 

[Poohbair]

I have an Eagle Explorer and it is a pile of ****... I would recomment getting anything but one of those...

 

[JOOP]

Get a Garmin. I have an old GPSIII by garmin and its been flawless for 5 years.

 

[Rich1]

i have a - MAGELLAN MERIDIAN GOLD - hand held unit.

works great and has many features and is easy to figure out / etc.

was using it for Geocaching, and travel around California. not using anymore, do some research on this unit - as it's for sale - $100.

i like the portable units, due to thefts, you can take this one or hide it ina safe spot or use it for geocaching, or walk out of trails if your rig breaks down.

 

[Glenn]

X2 on Garmin. I have an old eTrex that works pretty good. My brother has a Map76CSX that is very nice. Color screen and tons of memory for maps.

 

[wcjp]

Don't forget Points of Interest (poi). More poi's is always better. I have a Garmin Zumo 550. The Zumo 550 has 6million poi's, water resistant and expandable memory. On the SD memory I have the Western US Topo maps and US Lights and Waterways. I also have 1gig of MP3's on the same SD memory.

 

[84Toyota4x4]

I was looking at the Garmin 60CSX myself.

~T.J.

 

[Dieselbreath]

I have a GARMIN Zumi 360!! I rocks. Can link up with blue tooth to your cell phone to make and recieve phones while acting as a hands free. Also allows you to call the POI's in the system without dialing. Very small check out the spec's at WWW.GARMIN.COM.

 

[GRNTACO]

Garmin Vista.:awesomework:

 

[craig1]

If you want a handheld GPS get one with the SIRF III (not SIRF II) chipset and get one with an external helical antenna instead of a patch antenna. The 60CSx has both, but has poor maps (Based on 1:100k data). The SIRF III chipset is significantly more sensitive which is necessary with all the tree cover we have in the NW. It is also very fast to acquire a sattelite lock.

I personally prefer to use a laptop, especially if they have a touchscreen and a RAM mount. E.g. tablets, convertibles, or UMPCs all work well. If you get one of these, you can hook up a USB or Bluetooth GPS. Again, look for the SIRF III chipset when buying a GPS to hook up to a computer.

For software you have a few options. National Geographic Topo, Delorme Topo, Ozi Explorer, and Overland Navigator (full disclosure: it is my software). I covered the differences in map quality between the different mapping software packages in another post. Let me see if I can find it and copy/paste it into this thread too.

 

[cornfed]

I have the Magellen crossover. I love it, Streets, Marine navigation, and topo's. It has like a 3.5 inch screen, and still small enough to be portable. This is the one that get's my vote.

 

[craig1]

Found the other post. Here is the info I posted last year. I believe it is all still accurate.

- DeLorme Topo maps are mapped to an accuracy resolution appropriate for 1:100k maps.

- Garmin MapSource Topo uses DeLorme data and is also appropriate for 1:100k maps.

- National Geographic Topo uses the USGS 1:24k maps which have a lot of detail, but are fairly outdated in the mountains. Combine this with the GPS tracks from nwjeepn.com and you have a pretty good setup for finding the trails.

- Ozi Explorer is awesome. Especially since you can scan and register your green trails maps. Green trails maps are 1:15k but that is only because they felt that a map that covered more area would be more useful to hikers. The actual data on the map comes from a combination of sources and is similar in accuracy to the 1:24k USGS topo maps, only they have updated roads, trails, etc. It takes a lot of work, but Ozi-Explorer and Green Trails maps are probably as good as it gets for Cascade Wheelin'.