Thread: GPS experts/Dorks:

What's the hottest new gadget?
I have an ooold Garmin ETrex Vista, and man, I need a new one for the stuff I am doing/will be doing in the future.

I am looking for one that is very, very easy to navigate in the field (create waypoints, edit, possibly even paint as I go on the trailhead)

One of my dreams would be to have one that I could insert a picture at a waypoint, with a camera built into the unit, in order to present 'live-time' viewpoints of conditions in the field, EXACTLY where that condition was encountered. I am pretty sure I could figure that out in post-production, but, man, wouldn't that be an awesome GPS app?


I am pretty awful at using mine, (actually, I am scared of it...it has a mind of it's own, and pocket-dials itself on and off) does anyone have any good online/real life resources to master the art of GPS-ing for professional applications?

If weight/size isn't an issue, we use ArcPad on a touchscreen tablet pc for field surveys in northern NV. Being on a windows-based system, you can dial it pretty well to take notes, upload pics, etc as you go.

It needs to be relatively lightweight/small...(I use it for designing Mt. Bike trails, rugged BC, human powered)

The upper level Nikons have GPS input so you can stamp the EXIF with coordinates, but thus far I don't know of a GPS with built-in camera.

I have a mid-generation eTrex Vista C, and still love it.

Originally Posted by bio-smear

The upper level Nikons have GPS input so you can stamp the EXIF with coordinates, but thus far I don't know of a GPS with built-in camera.

The upperlevel Nikon dSLRs will but it's very limited by cabling - the Nikon cable sucks and the only alternatives are cheapo eBay jobs.

Several of the upcoming Nokia Smartphones will geotag images - the N96 and N78 to start. Transmit the real time image to your host. There were roomers the iPhone 3G could do the same but I've not found verification

New Iphone?
Its the only thing I can think of with a gps and a camera... although I'm not sure if they are usable together

Originally Posted by Hugh Conway

Several of the upcoming Nokia Smartphones will geotag images - the N96 and N78 to start.

The upcoming Nokia smartphones are going to be really good i think, as they've bought Trolltech for Qtopia, and Symbian I think too-- 2 of the top players in the linux handheld arena.

Originally Posted by rideit

One of my dreams would be to have one that I could insert a picture at a waypoint, with a camera built into the unit, in order to present 'live-time' viewpoints of conditions in the field, EXACTLY where that condition was encountered. I am pretty sure I could figure that out in post-production, but, man, wouldn't that be an awesome GPS app?

Magellan thought so too.
Unfortunately, they were incapable of implementing it successfull.
But they sold it anyway:
http://www.gpsreview.net/magellan-triton-2000/
Otherwise, if you want a GPS unit (as opposed to some sort of other device that also has GPS capability), I think the choice really comes down to which type of high-sensitivity (i.e., amazing satellite lock compared to previous generations), mapping (i.e., still not a full substitute for a paper map, but pretty close sometimes), and removable memory (i.e., load in lots o' maps) Garmin:
-- if compact design matters, then Legend HCx (if you prefer a separate altimeter watch for barometric altitude measurements, and prefer using a separate mirror-sighted magnetic compass) or Vista HCx (with barometric altimeter and electronic compass)
-- for larger display but also more bulk, 60Cx/60CSx (without/with barometric altimeter & electronic compass)
-- if floating is necessary, then 76Cx/76CSx (without/with barometric altimeter & electronic compass)
-- for two-way radio, Rhino 520HCx/530HCx (without/with barometric altimeter & electronic compass)

Another interesting unit is the upcoming Delorme PN-40, which sounds like it will address lots of the frustrations with the PN-20.

Originally Posted by DropCliffsNotBombs

I'm not quite sure how a GPS unit would even help you in a skiing situation?!

-- above treeline, navigation in white-out conditions
-- below treeline, finding various "secret" glades (even after doing work on them in the summer, can be hard to find in the winter)

Originally Posted by DropCliffsNotBombs

I'm not quite sure how a GPS unit would even help you in a skiing situation?! What are you going to do if there is an emergency?... Finding out your GPS location isn't going to do anything to stabilize an injury, dig out your buried partner, or help you get down to safety!
Gadgets are just giving unprepared gumbies a false sense of security.... stub your toe, call in a helicopter!!! The fact is, YOU are the rescue party...calling in an outside rescue takes a LONG time (even in the best of cases) to get to you. By that time your partner has bled to death or suffocated under the snow! What would you tell the victims families? "I didn't help but I called in our coordinates to someone else to come get us??!!!!" SHEESH!!

Rideit is designing mountain bike trails.

Very impressive -- an attempt (however oddly amusing) to discount the utility of GPS for navigational use in backcountry skiing and ski mountaineering.

who needs a GPS in the mountains, just pack your sextant in your backpack..
Dropcliffs... so what do you do when you end up in a complete whiteout, how do you navigate, share your secrets with us , please

You can take the cheap way out and do this to tag your photos with GPS coords:

http://blog.makezine.com/archive/200...o_gps_tag.html

There's also freeware that will automatically synch photos taken with the nearest GPS coordinate based on the times - but you need to make sure your camera and GPS are set to the same times. I forget the name of the software available - there are several.

In terms of units, I'm super happy with my Garmin 60CSx.

Etrex is the basic model. It is rugged and will take a beating. Accuracy will increase with the number of channels. 12 channels is good for general use. Units that will run ArcPad aren't really necessary as the same thing can be accomplished with lesser units and a little creativity. That being said, the units capable of running ArcPad have bomb-proof cases that you can buy to protect them, so the durability is less of an issue but is associated with more expense. Additionally, the ArcPad units can be prone to locking or crashing as is any small computerized gadget.

The short: get a Garmin base level GPS with 12 channels.

GPS and camera technique.
Time stamp pictures.
Time stamp waypoints.
Use time stamps to match photos to waypoints.
Plot on any mapping/topo program available on the net.


Additionally, any file or waypoints that you create in almost any GPS unit can easily be imported into ArcView or ArcGIS (ESRI suits) or remote sensing software as point or vector data...

Yeah, GPS receivers suck. I hate having my speed/time/vertical ascent/descent automatically recorded and computed for me. I also hate marking waypoints of interest.

Originally Posted by iscariot

The short: get a Garmin base level GPS with 12 channels.

Garmin's newer units with high-sensitivity chips make a big difference: they work anywhere outside, and even quite often inside too (which is almost kind of spooky).

Originally Posted by DropCliffsNotBombs

Check the weather before going out above treeline in a whiteout-duh. If you still do get surprised by the weather, hunker down and don't move until conditions improve. Stumbling around in a whiteout while fixating on an electronic gadget to guide your way is sketchy!!

So when the whiteout lasts for days and the temperature drops to -20 and the wind is kicking your ass do you just sit down and die? I for one like using a gps, I turn it on at the trailhead, put it in the top of my pack and usually never look at it again until I shut it off back at the truck. There have been times however that it being on and tracking may have saved my life and the lives of my partners. Especially on glaciers in whiteouts knowing where you've been and being able to go back the same way can keep you out of a crevasse.
But then again you're probably somewhere where a highway is never more than 10 miles away and the glaciers have been gone since the last ice age.

Oh yea and the high end Garmin Rhino is the shizz probably the best available combination of features and usability IMVHO.

Turn on GPS, ski, go home, look at GE, see that there looks to be sweet skiing 200m left of your line, go back tommorow and pick that ripe fruit, with the aid of your GPS to find it... just one of the many ways that GPS is fun and useful.

Garmin 60Csx/60Cx is my present fave.

For the most part, you can accomplish anything you want with a relatively simple GPS unit and a good pad of paper.

As discussed above a decent unit will let you track locations you've been to and navigate to way points. You can then take photos and track which photos go with which location manually.

You can also go the ArcPad/TerraSync route and use a fairly high end unit like the Trimble GeoXM/XH/XT, Juniper Systems Archer or equivalent. With a bit of setup and some skills development those could be your best option, but it does require significant setup and familiarization first. Some of these might be able to connect to a camera and accept an image across a bluetooth connection, but I haven't played with it myself. Note that this route will probably cost you a minimum of a couple grand to get fully setup while the Garmin + paper route will have you in good shape with $500 for the unit(Garmin 60CSx) and topomap software (which will come in handy).

Originally Posted by snoboy

Turn on GPS, ski, go home, look at GE, see that there looks to be sweet skiing 200m left of your line, go back tommorow and pick that ripe fruit, with the aid of your GPS to find it... just one of the many ways that GPS is fun and useful.

Garmin 60Csx/60Cx is my present fave.

another vote for the 60Csx... Just got one and love it.

Originally Posted by DropCliffsNotBombs

Do you also hate being a gear dork?

Hurtful and ridiculous attitudes like that will only get you a bunk with Ted Kaczynski, you self-loathing luddite.

I love my track files.

I don't think anyone here is saying you would definitely die without a GPS, but I sure as hell will say that you could die from not having one. I can imagine a lot of situations where, without a GPS, even the best map and compass work simply won't do... Imagine yourself on a 38 degree slope that was to windward when you started and has suddenly changed to a leeward-position wind deposition zone when the weather turns to shit. Yeah, you probably shouldn't have been there, but there's plenty of times when most of us decide we'll take the risk 'cause it's the only way up. Well, in any situation where it's snowing/windy enough to create a whiteout and put me on a leeward slope, I sure as hell don't plan on "hunkering down". If that shit slides, I'm going down with it, so I'll be sure to use my GPS AND MAP AND COMPASS to get me down as fast as possible and onto some island of safety. Or what about when someone is seriously injured and you do have the option of calling in a medivac? I'm pretty sure you're gonna want a fucking GPS in that situation... sure you could read him a location from a map, but I for one would feel much safer reading a Lat/Lon or UTM coordinate.

Originally Posted by mb2778

I can imagine a lot of situations where, without a GPS, even the best map and compass work simply won't do...

like the following:
http://www.turns-all-year.com/skiing...ic=10009.0;all
"Things got much worse from here. My skin track down the ridge was rapidly filling with wind-driven snow, and following it down became impossible, as visibility for snow features was less than 10 ft. I navigated by altimeter and dead-reckoning, trying to hold a 14060+ contour (including a mental correction for altimeter error) which would put me at the saddle separating Point Success from the summit craters, and from which I could easily ski down the fall line to intersect my ascent route. Unfortunately, I made a nearly-catastrophic navigational error. I held a contour just a bit too low, probably only 20 vertical feet low, but that's hundreds of feet of horizontal error in the flat featureless vicinity of the saddle. The distance I had skied was hard to gauge in the whiteout and strong tailwind pushing me along. I suddenly halted as a dark black feature appeared about 50 feet to my right. What?!? I realized that I must have overshot the saddle and was now on the uppermost Tahoma Glacier, standing just below a gaping bergschrund. The sudden fear and panic of being lost in an unknown field of crevasses in a whiteout was gripping me. I pulled my seldom-used compass out of the bottom of my pack, turned 180, and began following my track back away from the crevasses. It was painfully ironic to know that my two GPS units were sitting warm and dry at home while I was lost and freezing in a whiteout at 14000 ft. At least I had a nice waterproof topo map of the summit region, and could attempt to navigate by compass."

[Granted an even better approach would have been never getting into this situation in the first place, but still, note that the skier here is so familiar and experienced with the Cascades that he is literally writing the book on skiing them: http://skimountaineer.org/CascadeSki/CascadeSki.html ]

ill also add, that while not really a life\death scenario, having a gps would have saved us 9mi/8hr of bushwhacking to find out hut this past december.

having a gps also helped me find the trail when i was exploring on my bike a little bit as what I thought was the trail, was actually a game trail in super thick scrub oak. I had about 15mins of light left and was still 1.5mi away from the TH. I tried looking for it without the gps for 10mins, gave up, and found it in 5 after i figured out how to use it (first time riding with it ever).

gps has its use as a tool
as with any tool, dont rely on it exclusively