Handheld GPS for trecking(Hillwalking/Mountaineering)~ Recomendations?

MotteDai

Hi All

Im sure this thread has existed here somewhere before but I couldnt find it. Can anyone recomend a good GPS for Hillwalking/Trecking? My local outdoor shops have what look to be basic Garmin ones in rejoin of 200-300 euro.

I've seen people with different types so I'd like to get an idea before I get one. Anyone any suggestions?

concussion

Garmin eTrex Legend - good price, rugged (mines had more than a few tumbles off the bike), light and runs on AA's so you don't need to worry about getting caught without a charger. If you use a program such as GPS trackmaster you can easily transfer routes, tracks and waypoints between the unit and your computer. The Legend HCX has a more sensitive receiver for use in heavy forest of valleys but is more expensive.

Some questions you should ask yourself to help narrow it down.
Colour screen or greyscale - colour screen will show maps better but needs more power
Internal rechargable battery or AA/AAA batteries - internal makes for a smaller unit but may not be suitable if you're spending a few days in the hills
Do you need it to connect to a bike cadence meter or heart rate monitor?
Do you want to upload detailed maps or just use it to give your location and show/navigate to preprogrammed waypoints/tracks?

Alun

http://boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055477945
http://boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055377808
http://boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055626870

MotteDai

Alun wrote: »

http://boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055477945
http://boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055377808
http://boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055626870

Thanks Alun, looks like you have given invaluable information over the past year on this subject. As I guessed it has been discussed in depth. It looks like however there are no GPS with actual maps of Ireland in them and ya have to download/figure it out yourself. Pity that, my day job is figuring stuff out and Id like a break!
I seen your comment on inbuilt compas and Barimetric Altimeters being poor on your model, are they useless in your opinion?
I'll read more and prop reply on one of the older threads on this.
Thanks a million.

MotteDai

concussion wrote: »

Garmin eTrex Legend - good price, rugged (mines had more than a few tumbles off the bike), light and runs on AA's so you don't need to worry about getting caught without a charger. If you use a program such as GPS trackmaster you can easily transfer routes, tracks and waypoints between the unit and your computer. The Legend HCX has a more sensitive receiver for use in heavy forest of valleys but is more expensive.

Some questions you should ask yourself to help narrow it down.
Colour screen or greyscale - colour screen will show maps better but needs more power
Internal rechargable battery or AA/AAA batteries - internal makes for a smaller unit but may not be suitable if you're spending a few days in the hills
Do you need it to connect to a bike cadence meter or heart rate monitor?
Do you want to upload detailed maps or just use it to give your location and show/navigate to preprogrammed waypoints/tracks?

Colour screen or greyscale - Would prefer the colour screen, point taken of course on Battery life!

Internal rechargable battery or AA/AAA batteries - Again good point

Do you need it to connect to a bike cadence meter or heart rate monitor? I have a Garmin Bike/running GPS I havent used it enough, couldnt figure maps out and to be honest software snt user friendly so Ill keep that for that. What I want is a good mountain sturdy one.

Do you want to upload detailed maps or just use it to give your location and show/navigate to preprogrammed waypoints/tracks?
Sounds like one has to have upload capability given it doesnt have any irish maps.

Its sad how Ireland is always left out, then again so is Nepal and one would think with they would have maps for there given all treckers going there.

Alun

MotteDai wrote: »

I seen your comment on inbuilt compas and Barimetric Altimeters being poor on your model, are they useless in your opinion?

Well, lets just say that they're less useful than you might initially think.

To my mind the GPS derived altitude is good enough most of the time for navigation purposes, and the barometric altimeter only adds an extra element of complication (i.e. calibration) to the whole thing. That having been said, if you're into multi day trips in the mountains, being able to plot the barometric pressure (at sea level) over time on a graph can be a useful tool for predicting weather changes. There is an automatic calibration feature that supposedly keeps the altimeter calibrated even under situations when the barometric pressure is changing. My experience is that this works fine most of the time, but when it's changing rapidly, i.e. when a front (low or high) is coming in it can't compensate quickly enough and starts to misread. it wouldn't be so bad if you could turn it off and let it revert to GPS altitude, but those clever people at Garmin don't think that's necessary

The inbuilt compass only comes into operation when you're at a slow enough speed for a certain length of time (both configurable). It also needs calibrating now and then (some say at every battery change). Personally I always carry a Silva compass anyway, so if I want to use the compass when standing still, say to sight a bearing to the next waypoint, I just transfer the bearing from the GPS to the compass and use that. Having it on also affects battery life to a degree.

MotteDai

MotteDai wrote: »

It looks like however there are no GPS with actual maps of Ireland in them and ya have to download/figure it out yourself.

Yikes. Didn't know that at all, assumed they had places like the Reeks mapped anyway. As I am a luddite, is this process tricky or just a case of plugging it into the computer? And if the real function of them then is to simply show your location in relation to the trail you've already travelled, are they really only a back up to compass and map here then and of no use on circuit routes?

Alun

See the other recent thread here for new developments.

http://boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055728830

I tried reading it, but got lost at georeferencing, oziexplorer, satellite maps and overlays, beta software and jpg, png and pmt formats!

I think I'll have to go the old 'more expensive is better' route!

grumpygit

I got one lately and I have to say I find the maps completely useless, it would make no difference how good of quality the map is, the display is so small its useless, if you want to use a map use a paper one. Having said that I find the gps brilliant. What I would normally do is load a route on it by getting the co-ordinates for waypoints from the osi on line map viewer and then use the compass on the gps and follow the arrow to the waypoint, its only as good as the waypoints you put in but normally zooming down into the osi map you can find good wayponts, just make sure you go around cliffs and not over em. you can also download some gps routes I think from sites like wikiloc Ii have uploaded some but not downloaded any yet) The gps wont replace a map and compass but i find it a good tool or toy whichever way you want to look at it but in my opinion dearer may not be better

grumpygit

grumpygit wrote: »

I got one lately and I have to say I find the maps completely useless, it would make no difference how good of quality the map is, the display is so small its useless, if you want to use a map use a paper one. Having said that I find the gps brilliant.

Thanks. Sounds from all that that I might just stick with something cheap like the Garmin etrex H...

http://www.mysatnav.ie/garmin-etrex

grumpygit

not sure about that model the one I got was http://www.amazon.co.uk/Garmin-eTrex-Vista-HCx-Handheld/dp/B000UH1YZ8/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1259087425&sr=1-3

i see the one you are looking at has no electronic compass not sure how it points to waypoints. Now that I look at the Amazon site I see that the one I got was one of the dearer models, maybe I was wrong in sayin dearer may not be better bet you're confused now

Alun

If you have one that doesn't have a built-in compass, the "compass" screen uses your current direction of travel as calculated by comparing subsequent GPS position fixes, i.e. it will only work properly if you're moving. In practice that's not really a huge problem, and in any case if you prefer to use your compass you can simply take the bearing off the screen of the GPS and dial that up on your compass ring.

Even the models that have built-in compasses don't actually use them above a (configurable) speed, but use the same method as the simpler models. This is down to the power consumption of the built-in compasses.