Advice on buying a GPS recorder

Hi,

If you have a look at Suunto watches they do a watch called the Military x10 from memory, and these have a facility to record your movements via built in GPS and then you can plot your movements on a PC and also on Google Earth.

jon.

Just X10, there's a "military" version which I guess means it's in stealth colours or something :lol: I don't think they've caught on in a big way, too expensive for a mass market and just not appealing to professional users to have so many eggs in one basket. Battery life is also apparently a problem if you use it every day in GPS mode.

Another Suunto option is to get a more basic wrist top like the t3 and use the GPS pod.

Personally I'm dubious about having a GPS without some sort of display to see how accurate it is at any point.

If you don't mind the bulk you can probably pick up a proper GPS off ebay for very little. There's not a lot wrong with the Garmin etrex for example and you can get them for very little, just be wary that the bottom models don't have a data interface though. Apparently GPS chipsets are pretty cheap now, although I think the price hasn't bottomed quite yet, but you do need some sort of antenna which is what some of the small units lack.

In fact I'm dubious about the whole thing, geotagging photo's is great but as a souvenir of the day I think a camera's better :-) I do create tracks of trips but only when I need the data for something.

Hi Ise,

Yes the x10 military comes with slightly better software and is just ina "stealth" colour....black with black face, as you mention a normal hand held GPS would probably be more than enough....I use a Garmin GPS 38 for when I'm hiking and out and about ,it's a little old fashioned now and there are more up to date models around.



But it is a great quality piece of kit with a very sturdy build and has never let me down, as with all GPS's they should always be backed up with a traditional map and compass, but a great idea concidering they were originally designed by the US Military to guide cruise missles......don't think they will make me ski any faster though :D :D


jon.

jonG wrote:......don't think they will make me ski any faster though :D :D

I don't know, some of the trackers are so inaccurate you see some wonderfully unrealistic claims for speeds )

The Garmin GPS 38 was a good single channel device IIRC, reasonable battery life as well. My Oregon has the 2000 waypoints I need but then the batteries last no time at all, I went through two sets of alkalines in about 12 hours this week which is just ridiculous.

Oddly, the GPS38 is the spitting image of my old Magellan which is weird.

Hi,

I know what you mean, the GPS38 i have has not actually been calibrated for realtime tracking there is a 1 second delay, so the travelling speed is about 2 - 5 mph off ,and the accuarcy to within 30metres...when i enquired the reason given that due to Garmin satellites being owned by the US Military if you wanted the GPS calibrated to it's true accuarcy of 1-4 inches you needed to aquire a code to download or words to that effect.

But for what i need it's a solid piece of kit to have in the pocket although being nearly 6x2x1 1/2 inches in size not as portable as some of todays hardware.

I think it makes a great accompaniment to help navigation ,but still use a map and compass as my main navigational aids and use the GPS to confirm my orientation.

jon.

Your GPS38 possibly isn't accurate for speed as it's a single receiver and it's poor at getting the altitude correct so it's producing 2D data when you're moving in 3D. I think whoever told you about the accuracy was getting a bit confused about something called "selective availability", that's gone since 2000, Wiki has a great article about it http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_Positioning_System#Selective_availability

I've always assumed the cheap GPS loggers were single receiver as well but I've never really checked. There's a series of other technical reasons why things like phone's with GPS aren't accurate.

Hi Ise,

Thanks for the link will have a look, on the phone side of things i think they are maybe an interesting thing to play with but for serious navigation i think it is still best to use kit that is soley used built for that one purpose.

Cheers again for the link :thumbup:

jon.