Can someone fill me in about GPS units?

[Dee]

Beast's company has handed out catalogs to choose their safety awards stuff from and he's looking at a Garmin e-Trex GPS unit.

All we really know about GPS units for sure is they help you find where you're going and that dive boats find dive sites with them. That's it! So just how useful are they day to day? Do they end up in the 'junk drawer' when the newness has worn off? Wouldn't we need the GPS co-ordinate for wherever we wanted to go? How easy/hard is it to get that info? Can someone explain just what they use them for?

TIA

 

[Scott M]

Beast's company has handed out catalogs to choose their safety awards stuff from and he's looking at a Garmin e-Trex GPS unit.

All we really know about GPS units for sure is they help you find where you're going and that dive boats find dive sites with them. That's it! So just how useful are they day to day? Do they end up in the 'junk drawer' when the newness has worn off? Wouldn't we need the GPS co-ordinate for wherever we wanted to go? How easy/hard is it to get that info? Can someone explain just what they use them for?

TIA

Unless you have a day to day need for one they pretty much as you describe end up in the drawer. I have two hand helds that I HAD to have and used them for a while but they have mostly sat idle. I do use one occasional in the summer on my boat if I am heading out and will not be back before dark. I know the way but using track back keeps me out of trouble.

I have on in my Land Cruiser which is pretty fun to play with but has only really been "usefull" a few times.

 

[DivemasterSteve]

i bought the Garmin Legend a couple of months ago for a play toy not knowing much about them. i later found out you can buy a program to download road maps into it that will allow you to put in an address anywhere in the US and it will give you directions to get there. it comes preloaded with all major hiways and interstates, so this will get you to the towns your going to. its a fun toy if you like playing with things like this while on the road. it also has preloaded whats at the exits on the interstates, as in gas stations and eatting places. so if your getting low on gas or getting hungry you can check out how far to the next exit that has what you want on it. once i learn how to use all of it, i think i will enjoy playing with it.

steve

 

[CAPT HOOK]

Basically if your not a boater or hiker they spend a lot of time "out of the way."

 

[Scott M]

i bought the Garmin Legend a couple of months ago for a play toy not knowing much about them. i later found out you can buy a program to download road maps into it that will allow you to put in an address anywhere in the US and it will give you directions to get there. it comes preloaded with all major hiways and interstates, so this will get you to the towns your going to. its a fun toy if you like playing with things like this while on the road. it also has preloaded whats at the exits on the interstates, as in gas stations and eatting places. so if your getting low on gas or getting hungry you can check out how far to the next exit that has what you want on it. once i learn how to use all of it, i think i will enjoy playing with it.

steve

Steve, Just be aware that the trip feature on some of these units can be real screwy. I have seen mine want to send me in some weird ways to my destination. Other times it has been dead on.

 

[DivemasterSteve]

Steve, Just be aware that the trip feature on some of these units can be real screwy. I have seen mine want to send me in some weird ways to my destination. Other times it has been dead on.

thank you sir, LOL it must be like Map Quest then. when using Map Quest at the house we had before we moved here, anywhere we were going the program told us to turn left out of our driveway and go down 1 mile and make a u-turn and then pass right back by our house.

steve

 

[herman]

Life without my GPS, no way.
Actually, alone, they are not a huge value unless you do have lon/lat coodinates or have a mapping program. I use to have a link to an online map that you could get lon/lats off of but I can't seem to find it now.
If you have a laptop, you can get some very good mapping programs that can be lot of use. I use "Streets and Trips". I can attach my GPS to my laptop and use it for real time navigation down to within a hundred feet or so of any place as long as I have the lon/lat OR the street address. I also keep it running on most road trips and log rest stops, gas stations and restaurants. On later trips I can recall the info real time and make stop decisions based on my saved info.
Then there is Geocaching. It's a new age game of hide and seek using GPS. Basically, people hide "caches", put the info on a web site. Then you get the info off the site and go find the "cache". It's a lot of fun. http://www.geocaching.com/

 

[Jersey]

As a 'professional driver' (sales & marketing rep) I have found it useful in planning routes, finding alternate routes, storing routes for repeat trips, things like that. Useless for running about town things. Keeps the kids interested during road trips - they can watch the routes, tell you how far you've gone, ETA, etc. I can download detailed street maps into Magellan Sport trac as well.

I too have found serious flaws using Mapquest & other electronic map programs, simple stuff like forgetting to mention you need to exit... As always, nothing compares to the road atlas in the back seat!

 

[Scott M]

thank you sir,

You are most certainly welcome

LOL it must be like Map Quest then. when using Map Quest at the house we had before we moved here, anywhere we were going the program told us to turn left out of our driveway and go down 1 mile and make a u-turn and then pass right back by our house.

steve

Ya, I've seen that one a few times. It's also not uncommon to have it want to take you off the main highway for no apparent reason for several miles then right back on. LOL

I did have it come in real handy this past Dec. I was in NYC with friends for the weekend. When we left (I didn't have the directions I was following a friend home) we got seperated. I hit the destination home botton and it brought me right back behind my friend. Life saver that day. I'd probably still be driving around there looking for the way out. : :

 

[Scubaroo]

I have a Garmin e-Trex (base model) that sees a lot of use in the car - as herman said, great for marking waypoints on roadtrips. If you get one of the better topographical road atlases, you can enter in major highway turnoffs, etc, and use it to make sure you don't miss exits, etc. I also used to log In-n-Out burger joints on the highway because we were sick of missing the turnoffs on the way to/from Tahoe. I also used to use it in conjunction with altases and aerial photos to pick out new goldpanning spots in CA, and on day hikes just to mark where the car is - the trail feature is great for walking off into the boondocks and finding your way back (assuming you're not walking around under the redwoods - doesn't work so well then!).

Best use we found for it was in Utah, driving through the maze of dirt roads that litter the desert. There's no road signs, and every turn looks the same, so we'd pull over, pull out the atlas, and look our location up based on the coordinates - never missed a beat.

Handy if you've got the money and spend time outdoors or driving. Mine is very basic and doesn't have mapping features, but neither does my compass.