Latest posts for the topic "Advice on buying a GPS recorder"

Advice on buying a GPS recorder

Fri, 22 Jan 2010 16:38:49 GMT

Hi,

I was looking at google earth and came across some options where people have uploaded their day's skiing. I believe this is done by recording the day on a GPS recorder and uploading this to a PC.

I just want this for fun as opposed to anything serious so I dont want to spend a lot of money on it.

Any advice on products and how to use them would be appreciated.

Thanks

Re:Advice on buying a GPS recorder

Fri, 22 Jan 2010 21:19:52 GMT

If you have an iphone there is an app that does this called runkeeper pro
its aimed at the running market and I use it to track my runs and bike rides but it has a downhill skiing facility on it.
I will be trying it out in Austria at the end of feb.

Re:Advice on buying a GPS recorder

Fri, 22 Jan 2010 23:52:14 GMT

If you have a Nokia N97 there is also a app that you can download for free on the Ovi store called Map My Tracks. its abit basic and iv not really used it much.

Re:Advice on buying a GPS recorder

Sat, 23 Jan 2010 00:01:42 GMT

Just had a quick look on my N97. it does have the option to select skiing and also an option for it to update your twitter acount every so many minutes it you wanted it to. your friends back at home could see where you was skiing and how quick you where going and stuff. that would be quite cool i guess. (if you can get a signal when skiing that is :lol:

Re:Advice on buying a GPS recorder

Sat, 23 Jan 2010 09:38:32 GMT

The sort of unit I was looking at was the Qstarz 1300
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Qstarz-BT-Q1300-Recorder-Bluetooth-Receiver/dp/B001EV2IY0/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1264239465&sr=8-1

Any thoughts?

Re:Advice on buying a GPS recorder

Thu, 28 Jan 2010 13:30:40 GMT

I have a small iGOTU (from Maplins). I think I paid around GBP30 but that was in a sale. it's about 1/2 the size of a matchbox. google this... @trip i-gotu . it charges up from USB and lasts about 3 days between charges if you turn it off when not in use and set the data rate up sensibly.
it maps straight to google maps on your PC..i've just updated the software and it seems to have a new section that is aimed at sport so i'm interested to see what it does. It has a button you press when you take a photo and then you can add pictures to your trip at the exact location you took them.

hope this is helpful :D

Re:Advice on buying a GPS recorder

Thu, 28 Jan 2010 22:26:30 GMT

You can register on Ski Line, and key in your ski pass number, no toys, no cost.

Re:Advice on buying a GPS recorder

Fri, 29 Jan 2010 07:32:22 GMT

live_Ade wrote:it maps straight to google maps on your PC..i've just updated the software and it seems to have a new section that is aimed at sport so i'm interested to see what it does. It has a button you press when you take a photo and then you can add pictures to your trip at the exact location you took them.

That's probably not needed, if you have a file that Google Earth can read I assume it's some type of mark-up language like KML or GPX. That can be read by a bit of software that can look at the capture times of your photo's and work out where you were. That software can then update the metadata of the photograph to have the location of the photograph.

huh? :-)

If you click that it takes you to a larger version of the same photo. That larger version has loads of other data in it, metadata in the trade which is data about data. So the metadata for this photo has the latitude and longitude it was taken at as well as the altitude. That's coded in from a track file produced by a Garmin Oregon 550t GPS.

An online read is available and if you follow this link it will display all the metadata for my photo :

http://regex.info/exif.cgi?dummy=on&url=http%3A%2F%2Fsnowslider.net%2Fgallery%2Fimages%2F2010_nordic%2F2010_01_15_col_du_mollendruz%2F20100115-124804.jpg

What you need is to make sure your GPS and camera have their times synced and some software, on the the Mac I use HoudahGeo and on a PC there's some things around but I don't know the names. You can upload photo's to specialist services like panaramo which provide the links you see in Google Earth. You see some appalling locations there though which I suspect is due in part to how massively inaccurate these GPS loggers are. Also, Flickr can read this stuff so this is the same image :

http://www.flickr.com/photos/snowslider/4282199946/

and they read my data to work out where this was taken.

This is all good stuff, I take over 5000 images a year and having a good proportion of them tagged with locations is useful. As this becomes more common we'll see an ability to search Google Images by location as well which will be great.

Re:Advice on buying a GPS recorder

Fri, 29 Jan 2010 15:52:11 GMT

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.

Re:Advice on buying a GPS recorder

Fri, 29 Jan 2010 16:09:54 GMT

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.

Re:Advice on buying a GPS recorder

Fri, 29 Jan 2010 18:38:53 GMT

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.

Re:Advice on buying a GPS recorder

Fri, 29 Jan 2010 18:55:27 GMT

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.

Re:Advice on buying a GPS recorder

Fri, 29 Jan 2010 19:09:42 GMT

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.

Re:Advice on buying a GPS recorder

Fri, 29 Jan 2010 19:53:08 GMT

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.

Re:Advice on buying a GPS recorder

Sat, 30 Jan 2010 12:53:16 GMT

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.