GPS recommends

[Blundstoned Love]

Good Morning

I've been given £80 for my birthday to buy/put towards a GPS.

It'll mostly be used for geocaching with Little Boots.

What should I get/avoid?

All advice welcome

Thanks

 

[Goatboy]

I'm a little behind with what's available GPS wise but still find it hard to see beyond Garmin's Etrex range. Small, good battery life, easy to read and use (even one handed), and does more than most users will ever need, at the price point they're at they're also very good value for money.

Sent via smoke-signal from a woodland in Scotland.

 

[quietone]

I use an old android phone, Motorola atrix with mm tracker. I think it's no longer available. But I still have a copy. Used with ordnance survey maps it works very well. Think I only paid a couple of quid for mmtracker. I have removed all the bloatware from the phone, no sim card either, so battery life is very good.
Just seemed prudent to recycle an unused phone for GPS, map backup.

Sent from my D5803 using Tapatalk

 

[QDanT]

In my opinion the Garmin Etrex are fine, but No Way is the lead to connect it to the computer worth £40+ they're x4 tiny thin, bent, brass pins in a big fiddly rubber plug and a standard USB plug on the other end see :- http://teddytourteas.blogspot.co.uk/2014/05/teddy-stone.html

 

[Quixoticgeek]

I have a Garmin Etrex 10 which is a great little GPS, highly recommend it.

J

 

[Brynglas]

The Garmin Etrex GPS units are fantastic. Accurate, good battery life and decent displays. Not a huge display but certainly good enough for geocaching. I recently bought a 30x and I've been very impressed with it. No issues with the lead to connect to my computer etc.

 

[Blundstoned Love]

Thanks for the advice everyone. Much appreciated.

 

[Bishop]

Electronics and bushcraft are an odd couple but I'm with quietone on this and use an old smart-phone with GPS app. It's not a brilliant solution as the small antenna in the phone makes for a weak signal and it sometimes takes a minute or two before it spits out a location but given how multi-function the phone is then it's not a bad trade off.

 

[Blundstoned Love]

Hi All

Thanks again for the advice.

I got a Garmin Etrex 10.

Can anyone point me to a site with good set up advice etc, as the Garmin instructions seem pretty ropey.

Thanks

 

[Quixoticgeek]

Take batteries out of packet, put batteries in GPS unit. Turn on. Go to settings, check the battery chemisty setting is correct (Alkaline or Rechargeable).

I think that's all I did. I may have set the screen order so it was map, sat info, trip info, other info. Oh, and I set the units to metric, the grid to UK, and left it as that. It pretty much did what I want out the box.

J

 

[Blundstoned Love]

Thanks.

I think I'll jsut have to give it a go and see what happpens.

Should I see an actual map on the screen?

 

[Brynglas]

It should be pretty straightforward. If you go to Garmin UK and set up a profile you can plug it in to your laptop and get any software updates it may need.

 

[Quixoticgeek]

Thanks.

I think I'll jsut have to give it a go and see what happpens.

Should I see an actual map on the screen?

No. if you zoom out enough you do get a crude base map, which has a rough outline of the UK with some towns/cities marked, but it's not much use.

As you move along you will get a track drawn on the map screen showing where you've been. If you upload a route, you will get that plotted on the map to follow.

Higher models of eTrex do have map functionality, but the 10 doesn't.

J

 

[SiWhite]

I've recently traded an old model eTrex 20 for a newer eTrex Touch. Far superior in every respect - faster scrolling through an OS map, much better interface, easier to use without buttons etc.

 

[Tonyuk]

Another recommendation for the e-trex here. Runs on AA's so batteries are available nearly everywhere too.

Tonyuk