REQ - Cheap BASIC GPS

grey_man

Hey!

I'm looking for a basic GPS unit for as cheap as possible. I'm looking for a unit that basically gives you your Lat/Lon or even better your Ordance Survey grid reference. That's really all that I'm looking for as I only want to use it to verify my location if I get lost while hiking .

Other non-essential features would be a unit that has a backlight, waterproof and good battery life.

If any of you here have an old GPS going cheap I'd be glad to take it off your hands!!:D

Thanks again,
grey_man.

offline.seller

Hey man.
I've got a magellan 2000xl here that will do exactly what you need. I haven't powered it up in a bit but I'll check it out and if it works it's yours. Where are you based?

o/s

offline.seller

It's working ok, missing a button from the front (cosmetic). It's a ruggedised unit but not sure whether its waterproof. Anyway, it's free if you want it.

o/s

coylemj

If you set the location to Irish Grid, make sure the datum is set to 'Ireland 1965', the newer Garmin units do this automatically but the original Garmin (yellow) eTrex unit did not so if out hiking you could have the location reading set to Irish Grid and the Datum set to WGS 84 in which case the location displayed would not correspond to your actual location.

The modern Garmin eTrex models now do this automatically (switch the datum to Ireland 1965 when you set the location display to Irish Grid) but I'm not sure about that Magellan, it's worth checking by taking yourself to a road junction with a Discovery (1:50,000) map and validate the grid reference from the GPS against your actual location.

=== Updated after some research on the Magellan 2000 XL...... ===

I just checked the Magellan GPS 2000 XL manual and the 'Ireland 1965' Datum is called 'IRELA' on the Available Datums. The manual can be downloaded here, there is no mention of automatic datum switching so I'd keep an eye on the datum being used. I queried this with Garmin several years ago and their answer was that (on the original yellow eTrex) it was necessary to manually change the datum when you changed the location display so for Long/Lat you specified datum 'WGS 84' and when you changed to Irish Grid you had to manually change the datum to 'Ireland 1965' or the reading was invalid which I knew from experience was the case, by about 50-100 metres.

http://www.magellangps.com/support/product.asp?prodid=1284

grey_man

offline.seller wrote: »

Hey man.
I've got a magellan 2000xl here that will do exactly what you need. I haven't powered it up in a bit but I'll check it out and if it works it's yours. Where are you based?

o/s

offline.seller wrote: »

It's working ok, missing a button from the front (cosmetic). It's a ruggedised unit but not sure whether its waterproof. Anyway, it's free if you want it.

o/s

Thanks for the replies lads, especially offline.seller!

I went ahead and bought a Garmin Etrex H online. I'm quite happy with it!! It does exactly what I want from a handheld unit . At the time of posting I was looking for the cheapest, most basic unit out there!!!:o

Thanks again for the offer but I think someone else might benefit more from it though!!! Too bad I didn't see it sooner!

Thanks again,
grey_man.

offline.seller

No prob. The offer is open to anyone else who might want it, I also have a power pack/data cable for it. Would prob suit someone for hillwalking etc as is very basic. It can be picked up in wexford.

coylemj

Just spotted the 'Wexford' piece, I have a friend who's into hillwalking and he visits his family in Fethard on Sea every few weeks, would you be close to Fethard?

offline.seller

I'm in rosslare, would be about a half hour spin in the car.

coylemj

Have PM'ed you.

offline.seller

This is gone to coylemj