scuba steve wrote: I agree with David on his choice of the Garmin eTrex. For around $99.00 it gets the job done. I've had more expensive units but they drive me nuts. I have another unit for street navigation that can take me to a Starbucks when needed.
Steve, you're one of the first defenders of the basic, no frills GPS I've encountered! Nice to know we're still around!
I didn't go into a lot of detail, especilly on the Garmin, because I figured anything I said would go ignored because most eveyone has higher end GPS units. But a bit of personal history:
* For over a decade, I wanted a GPS but couldn't really justify owning one. I did fine for decades on my wits, intuition, maps and research into the locality I wanted to visit before hand.
* In 2007, an online electronics vendor was offering the basic eTrex for just over $90. So I just couldn't resist any longer and I bought one and a case to go with it, coming to a total as delivered price of $111.
* I'd have bought the Garmin windshield mount, but I've found that a 79 cent suction cup with hook from a hardware store does wonders holding the unit upright on trips in the windshield where the GPS gets a good signal.
* The Garmin, as well as with help from a friend who is a scientist and a GPS afficinado since GPS's early days), really aided me in learning the basics of GPS and believe me, just because the eTrex doesn't display a map doesn't mean it's redundant or outdated. It will take you where you want to go, period. And it has a remarkable degree of acuracy.
* I can't download my tracks to my latest computer (laptop), as my computer doesn't have a serial port (Garmin did stubbornly stick with serial port only output until just recently), but I still can get useful data from it as far as distances covered, time, speeds, averages, and more. It will even tell me when sundown or sunset will occur and I notice it changes if I climb in elevation or drop, or go behind a mountain range, so apparently it's not using just a generic formula for generic sunset every day. As for downloading information, I can get a USB cable from Garmin, but they're darn near what a new eTrex costs, so I doubt I'll ever get one (I've been told by some that you can get a cheap serial to USB adaptor, but others have told me you get data errors using that - aftermarket cables and even Garmin's have software in the package to interpret the two types of cable data handling differences). But I still use it to note the coordinates of things that I find in ghost towns, I use it for measuring, elevation, etcetera. I've used the "cookie crumb" feature a few times.
* My Garmin has been reliable as there being dirt on the ground every morning when I get up. A friend of mine, who bought the same unit from another vendor just before I got mine has had issues with his. Some of it was his lack of knowledge, but then it was determined that there was some reliability problems with it. Garmin replaced his unit with a higher end eTrex (ours are now discontinued) and sent along a ton of accesories as a consolation. Now that's good business!
* Using our eTrex's, a friend of mine, who owns a 2000 Toyota Tacoma TRD and I were able to determine his speedometer was about eight miles per hour slow (his truck is stock and he uses stock size tires). My speedometer, as per my eTrex is 1.2 mph slower than indicated speed. My buddy, setting his cruise control at the same speed as I would tell him over the radio I was travelling at, would always fall behind fast. We found our eTrex's would read spot on simultaneously, thus we were able to deduce his speedometer deficite, which he's had a speedo shop re-calibrate (interestingly, the shop uses a GPS to confirm their efforts). I even measured my property when I bought it using my eTrex.
Though my Delphi displays pretty maps that move with me, it's simply another tool in my "toolbox" in the cab of my truck. I have a love/hate relationship with it as its faults are frustrating and it's nowhere near as accurate as the eTrex for speed and altitude. But for real navigation, getting coordinates on things to note, and other tasks, I use my eTrex. It's booted up when I leave my driveway on any exploration, 4x4 or ghost town trip, it doesn't get turned off until the trip is over (well, I do turn it off at night when I camp out ... ).
I view GPS as an aid to navigation in addition to my maps. Take for example the ghost town of Delamar, in Lincoln County. In 1999 I visited the town. I had trepidations as to actually finding it as I had read online a Las Vegas based 4x4 club trying to find Delamar without success (they did find the cemetery, a mile before hitting town) even though they had the coordinates programmed. I surmise that they were so busy looking for Delamar digitally that they missed it visually even though they were very close (you can't see town from the cemetery because of an intervening ridge). I found the town easily with an AAA map. I also found the road freshly graded all the way in and I enjoyed the day exploring the extensive ruins.
And that brings up the point of datum settings on your GPS, a topic in itself. I use NAD27 CONUS setting on my Garmin because that's what topographic maps are based on. When I first got my unit, I left it in default WGS84 mode. Plotting my home coordinates onto my topographic mapping software, my house ended up being a dozen miles west of its true location. But my learning curve continued and I really appreciate raw GPS as a science as well as in actual use.
If you wish to learn the basics of GPS, I'd heartily recommend a basic H model eTrex or equivelent from another manufacturer. It will make you appreciate your high tech GPS units far more.
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