GPS

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bruce

Joined
Dec 4, 1998
Messages
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My wife gave me a Garmin Etrex Summit for Christmas. I've been playing with it for a while. It doesn't have a map database. I plan to use it mostly on off-road motorcycle rides, hiking, fishing, hunting. Is there any reason why I should upgrade to one that has a map base in it.

It has an electronic compass and an altimeter (works on air pressure, not satellite signals).

Bruce Woodbury
 
If you mean that you should get one with digital maps,I'm not sure it could outperform the one you've got combined with a real accurate paper-map. And an LCD display showing a map requires more power than you'd want to carry in batteries. I've used one with digital nautical charts, and it wasn't accurate enough to not put our boat on shore.Some vital information was missing so we had to combine it with a paper nautical chart. My opinion is that a standard GPS combined with a real good map is the best option.

Daniel
 
Hi Bruce,

I have a Garmin GPS 12MAP which I bought about a year ago in the US (and got a $50 rebate cheque which my US friend cashed in for me
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I used it as a navigation system while travelling 4 weeks through the West of the US from San Diego up to North of Yellowstone National Park in July 2000.

I had the simple US&recreational Roads CD-ROM from Garmin loaded on an old small laptop that we took with us on holidays and
each evening we loaded the maps onto the Garmin that we were driving through and preplanned routes and each evening downloaded the actual track (route that we had driven) onto the laptop.
This baby was so accurate that I could see which side of the road I was driving on!

There are topografical maps that really are into detail that you could also download onto the GPS 12Map and they seem to be very accurate.
The only major drawback of the GPS 12Map is that it's download memory is only 1 Mb so you can't download a lot of detailed maps into it.
The rule of the thum is the more detailed the less "region" you can download into it.

I would try using both, so fill the memory with a topographical map and also take maps with you + a decent compass in case you run out of batteries ( the GPS 12Map runs a complete 24 hours on normal alkaline batteries and on 4 Lithium AA cells it ran well over 36 hours on my GPS 12Map.
Off course this is with none to minimal use of backlighting.

Bruce, enjoy your Etrex-plus I just wished Garmin would have added the Compass & altimeter function to the GPS 12Map.

Best scouting wishes from Holland,

Bagheera
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Thanks all! Hey Jebediah, where do you attach the lanyard that was included in the package? I can't find reference to it in the instructions.

Bruce
 
I have used many of the non-D Base handhelds and just built my own set of waypoints as I arrive at them. For destinations not yet saved, I get the closest Lat/Lon I can from regular maps, etc. and then when I get to the exact point I wanted, I refine the waypoint with that spot.

Having topo maps in the memory is great but largly unnecessary for mosts uses, IMHO.
 
I use a Garmin 2+ for backpacking, and it doesn't have maps (except for a breadcrumb map of your route, w/ waypoints). I bought some software called Topo! (www.topo.com) which has good maps of the areas that it covers at several different scales. The two features I use the most are defining waypoints, and trail marking/profiling. You can print out any portion of any of the maps at any scale, including a section that would be the corners of four 7.5 maps, which is where the hikes always seem to go. If you print them at high quality on a color bubblejet with coated paper, the results are quite usable, though not as good as a standard printed topo.

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"The most formidable weapon against errors of every kind is Reason."
-Thomas Paine
 
There's a small recessed bar at the base of the unit nearest the battery cover.

[This message has been edited by Jebediah (edited 02-05-2001).]
 
Thanks Jebediah, I consider myself an intelligent human but that one was throwing me. Sometimes the correct answer is right in front of you but doesn't register.

Thanks again!

Bruce
 
I have had a regular old GPS 12 for about 3 or so years. It works great! I use a program called Street Atlas to get lat/lon's and enter waypoints. This program works awesome! I even looked up my friends cabin at the end of a dirt road and entered those lat/lons and when I drove there, 350 miles, it was within about 40 feet +/- which is not bad! Same when i entered my buddies ranch in Montana... drove there and it was again very close...

I have thought about a GPS 3+ but i'm not sure it would be worth the cost to upgrade at this point.

Jon
 
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