Re: kayak application
- From: Jack Erbes <jackerbes@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sun, 26 Jun 2005 13:49:00 -0400
adynak wrote:
ok, opinions please
suppose I'm kayaking in the mangroves and want to use a GPS so that I can easily find my way out. what is a good choice?
Any of the Garmin or Magellan handhelds should work for you. If the sky view is intermittent it will drop from 3D to 2D and even no fix occasionally for short distances. When that happens it will straight line your track from the last fix to the new one. At kayaking speeds that is not a big deal. If you are in very dense mangroves with very little sky view, the problem will be worse. You really need to try one to see how it works for you where you go.
i've seen most GPS offer time/distance/average speed, and I want that. are any displays easier to read in the glare on the water?
For all around use, day and night, and good battery life I would prefer one of the grayscale LCD displays over the color. They are good in daylight without any backlighting and a little backlight works well in the dark. Battery life decreases by 1/3 to 50 percent on color displays. They are useless without any backlighting, and the more you use them at full brightness (needed in daylight) the shorter the battery life. Worst case, I would figure replacing batteries (2x AA) once a day with a grayscales LCD and every 6 to 8 hours on a color display.
and...
since i'm sinking (ha) this much $$, how about using the same GPS to hike in the Tetons? a GPS that can take topo maps. (i can find my way in the city without a GPS, thank you).
Garmin and Magellan (G&M). The newer Garmins (60/76 series) or Magellans (Meridian series) have a built in base map with most major state and national highways and major terrain features. From there you can add the optional, much more detailed, street and highway package, a topo package (with more like 1:100K than 1:24K paper maps as far as details), or marine charting packages.
The highway and topo mapping packages are $75 to $150 each and the marine charting around $150 per region
and a GPS that can save the route and send it to some software on my laptop via USB so I can archive my travels/view them on a much larger screen
You can do that with the G&M handhelds I've mentioned. Sounds like you would want a PC software that will display 1:24K and 1:100K USGS DRG maps (available free for the most part) and then let you import your G&M tracks and display them superimposed over the map. That kind of software is readily available too. By the way, a track is where you have been, a route is where you intend to go.
If you buy a Magellan you are more or less locked into using their proprietary mapping software, with a Garmin you can make your own maps but it may not be real simple or easy yet.
If you don't want to use it anywhere but in the swamps and mountains, you could get all your mapping for free if you used USGS DRG raster maps. Most people that want to get off the beaten track consider the 1:24K USGS topo maps, when displayed on a PDA, to have better and more meaningful detail then the topo packages offered by G&M. It is just like looking at the topo maps most people buy for hiking as far as the detail.
What is hard to get with the free USGS DRG mapping is a rugged and waterproof handheld system with an integral antenna and good battery life (like the G&Ms) to display it on. You have to use a fairly cheap PDA and that brings up a bunch of issues with external receivers, battery life, waterproofing, etc.
There are a couple of handhelds that will let you display your own mapping but they are quite expensive, like $1600 or so. One is the Magellan Mobile Mapper.
Jack
-- Jack Erbes in Ellsworth, Maine, USA - jackerbes at adelphia dot net (also receiving email at jacker at midmaine.com) .
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