Hand held GPS

[BIGHOSS]

Since Billy Ray has an ongoing thread about mapping, not wishing to highjack it, I will start a similar one.

Since I am retired, I spend a great deal of time trailriding horses. We ride everywhere, open fields, unmarked trails, marked trails, state parks, federal parks, etc.

I bought a Garmin Etrex for less than $100 a few years ago to help map, but mostly to track miles traveled and get me back to camp. First of all, I am not smart enough to follow the limited instructions that came with it. I needed close and personal help to get me started. A riding buddy of mine has an old Magellan that will run circles around mine. For instance, he will show that we have gone 8 miles, while mine will show only 6 miles. Now we are riding alot in the woods, so apparently mine is losing signal. Bottom line, I have given up and rarely take it with me, anymore.

Question, do I have to spend $300-400 to get one that is accurate and simple to use? All I want it to do is track where I have been and if I ride in a long circle, get me back to my horse trailer. Nothing fancy.

Ron

[Mr E]

Ron, seems Yogie had one that did a great job when he was riding his cub all over the country-side. Hopefully he will see this and give us his experience.

[Jim Becker]

A riding buddy of mine has an old Magellan that will run circles around mine. For instance, he will show that we have gone 8 miles, while mine will show only 6 miles.

Maybe the other 2 miles are from the circles?

[Winfield Dave]

A riding buddy of mine has an old Magellan that will run circles around mine. For instance, he will show that we have gone 8 miles, while mine will show only 6 miles.

Maybe the other 2 miles are from the circles?

Good one Jim !!

[Winfield Dave]

This is one I have:
http://farmallcub.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=59990&hilit=493627#p493627

[Rudi]

Ron:

As I mentioned before we have an older Garmin GPSMap76 ... a great gps unit -- basic -- black and white, good graphics, great maps and highly accurate.



It has the ability to track up to 17 or 19 satellites if I remember the specs properly. The more gps satellites that a unit can acquire the greater the accuracy. Our Garmin is accurate enough for survey work and we use it in our prospecting all of the time. In fact it is/was the preferred unit for most of the prospectors in NB then. It has all of the mapped roads available when the unit was manufactured and is still pretty accurate. Will it update ? Yes but it takes some work. Mind you ours is at least 5 years old now and newer ones are probably a lot more accurate.

Garmin is probably the best there is. Garmin has been providing US and Cdn Forces with GPS gear for almost 2 decades and their civilian stuff is developed from those applications from what my chums in the Forces tell me. I have had a Magellan on loan and used it for a few of our fossil/rock hounding expeditions but I was not impressed with it at all nor how complicated it was. So my vote has to go with the pros. Garmin is the unit to use especially off road. You do have to understand the units a bit.

No matter which unit you choose, remember you get what you pay for. We waited a while until ours was on sale to get it. With good GPS units in the $300.00 to $600.00 price range sales are a good thing. Ultimately it will be a personal choice based on what you consider the most important factors to be.