What do you think of GPS units?

[Scots_Charles_River]

I presume you mean navigating in fog. Well as to following a bearing, you simply find it and walk, and of course check regularly to ensure you are on course.
Usually it's easy to tell where you're going in mountainous terrain, as you simply need to study the map carefully and you can tell which way you're going.

I hope you are not thinking that this is it and folk go out on your advice. A bearing only works if you know where you are when you take it ! And the compass has not been effected by anything.

I'm sorry but navigation, especially in cloud, is not as simple as you make it out to be, especially in winter on hills. A gps can be a lifesaver FACT.

Nick

 

[Scots_Charles_River]

Personally I've never liked 'em. They're not that detailed and they run out of batteries faster than you could ever replace them.

Not that detailed ? More accurate than the maps we use.

Run out of batteries ? Last a full winter day in scotland up Lochnagar -7-9hrs walking with plenty left. Garmin Etrex Cammo.

Nick

 

[Spindrift]

Navigating in the hills in mist can be confusing for anyone and if an error has been made a gps can be a great comfort in relocating your position quickly.
They can even be a lifesaver in some situations especially in places like the Cairngorms in winter where I have found navigating by map and compass can be difficult Especially when the compass is barely readable from snow/water on the baseplate, my glasses are freezing up and the map doesn't want to remain in my hand let alone stay still while I carefully try and take a bearing to the next diffuse snowy lump in the near distance!
They are a very useful aid and are always secondary to practiced map, compass and pilotage skills, but they can be very reassuring in a variety of situations IMHO.

Cheers Dave.

 

[Bogman10]

I'm a big fan. My epiphany came when I was easily able to find my hunting treestand in the dark, while traveling through heavy cover. Most of the time I use a compass or simply nothing for navigation but in certain situations, I've found the gps excellent. It can also be great when you are driving in big country that is riddled with logging roads that are not on the map or you just don't have the map. My GPS will store topos for the entire lower 48 states here. If you travel multiple states on a trip, you are never without a topo map. Many times I have come to a the end of a T road wondering whether I need to turn right or left. I can stop, get out of the truck, get the map out (if I have one), shoot some bearings, and figure it out, or just keep the gps fired up and take a quick look. It's a tool, like anything else. One of my favorite uses of a GPS is to mark my fishings spots, especially my icefishing spots. Works a treat.

Finding deer stands or underwater points again, when fishing is way easy. Recently I was checking out an area full of Logging roads and Gas line roads very confussing area, the gps got me out fast and helped me find some "good" spots later.

 

[Cairodel]

In areas where the terrain is very flat and closed in with few reference points, or on a desert, a GPS could be a life saving back-up to solid navigation skills. The GPS will never be foolproof as long as you are foolish enough to not learn basic navigation. Mac

I use GPS to determine my position, then use a map and compass to plot direction of
travel. As said elsewhere, in many areas of the desert, there is very little topography to
take a "fix" on, and a lot of the maps are blank pieces of paper with gridlines and place
names, with PERHAPS the odd escarpment.
I use a Garmin E-trex Legend, and a Garmin 1200.
This part of the world still has inaccuracies built into the satellite coding, which would
have an effect on artillery or other types of targetting at some distance, for obvious
reasons, but not the traveller....

 

[Templar]

Hi all,

I have one they are a great bit of kit, but will never replace a good compass and map...
I use mine as a Check-Nav aid when I have my stops out on hikes, but I navigate by map, compass and pacing...

Also they are very handy in an emergency to mark the location of an injury victim if you need to go for help or call in SAR... Ten fig grids are a pain to workout with some protractor Romers out there... and that is how accurate you need to be for a land search team to find you in thick undergrowth if the victim is out cold...

Have one, use it, like it, never rely on it....

Cheers,

Karl

 

[Rob84]

slightly OT

In the UK are the high-sensitivity, WAAS-enabled Garmin GPS receivers more accurate than those without. or is it just in the USA ?


Thanks

 

[Soloman]

Like all technology used correctly they could save your life but rely on them by themselves at your perril.
Ill bet alot of people are using the ones with a compass as their sole nav tool.
I once spent a few interesting hours on the cairngorm plateau walking round in a big circle in a white out after being out voted on our decent route.
No gps and a missplaced compass.
what made it worse was that it was christmas eve at about 4 oclock,i was only 5 hours late getting home.
In the word of Billy connolly "manhole cover ten bob bit"
Soloman.
I aint ever been lost just mighty confused fo a week or two.

 

[Scots_Charles_River]

slightly OT

In the UK are the high-sensitivity, WAAS-enabled Garmin GPS receivers more accurate than those without. or is it just in the USA ?

WAAS and Diff. GPS is here. There is a Forth Estuary Diff GPS signal. I had 6 Diff gps signals on a Glenoce hill two weeks ago with my Garmin Etrex Cammo.

 

[Rob84]

WAAS and Diff. GPS is here. There is a Forth Estuary Diff GPS signal. I ahd 6 Diff gps signals on a Glenoce hill two weeks ago with my Garmin Etrex Cammo.

:You_Rock_

 

[Greg]

A GPS will only work accurately while it is upto date, I have one that I bought a few years back (Its a Magellan) I turned it on in my garden a few months ago I let it boot up and it started recieving info from about 5 satellites. I looked at the co-ordinates only to find out that they were miles out, literally. I phoned Magellan and there techs told me that my gps was out of calibration which caused the faulty readings.
What I'm trying to say is technology can fail even when it is apparently working properly.
They also told me that sometimes satellites on the gps circuit up in orbit are sometimes re-assigned or shutdown for maintenance which can have an effect on your recieving capabilities!
The Mark One eyeball and good orienteering skills and upto date maps are all you really need. After all man has been navigating for over a millenia without them! The're a military concept for pin point bombing of targets they are not necessary for normal navigation.
A good backup for emergency situations is all I would use them for as long as I was 100% happy that it was working properly. Especially with what I found with mine, I only thank the gods that I was in my garden and not in the middle no-where!

 

[Bernie Garland]

to be honest i don't like them, as they take away your navigation and map reading skills,just another sign of the times, another big brother with you

 

[gorilla]

for multi-drop delivery work round the NW i would literally be lost without it! have never taken it out into the bungle-bungles though - will have to try it (tomtom one by the way)

 

[Greg]

This pretty much sums up GPS systems good and bad points:

http://outdoors-magazine.com/s_article.php?id_article=75

Its a good read.

 

[Scots_Charles_River]

to be honest i don't like them, as they take away your navigation and map reading skills,just another sign of the times, another big brother with you

So why don't you bin your map and compass and your sextant while your at it ?

Nick

 

[Scots_Charles_River]

An interesting GPS application.

http://www.roydennis.org/Younger%20chick osprey migration 2007.htm

 

[woodstock]

GPS units are very handy bits of kits but they all rely on some sort of energy source and can go wrong or power down just when you need it, I always have backups, compass and personal navigational skills no batteries required

 

[crazyclimber]

IMO GPSs can be brilliant - an accurate fairly reliable way of navigating, I like the extra safety factor it gives me. They have their downsides though, so if they're being used as the primary means of navigation a map and compass is also a must. Batteries run out, electronics fail, and another problem I've come up against is the military jamming GPS signals. Working fine one minute, the next minute it showed me as being sat in the South Atlantic just off Ghana as jamming started and my GPS reset to 0 deg N/S, 0 deg E/W.
My preferred method is to use a map and compass most of the time, just pulling the GPS out once in a while to confirm my position if I'm going on dead reckoning. Therefore I use a fairly simple GPS (the upside is a generally longer batery life) with no installed maps. If I'm expecting nav to be particularly difficult though I will put in a series of waypoints I've marked on the map so I can literally GPS my way out, checking that with the compass not the other way round. Cairngorm plateau in winter is the classic there.
If anyone's interested F&T are selling a eTrex for £50 at the moment on sale, http://www.fieldandtrek.com/aff/AA/product-Garmin-eTrex-H-GPS-25929.htm no connection etc looks a bargain if you use them like me though. I'm tempted to get one as a spare!

 

[Martyn]

slightly OT

In the UK are the high-sensitivity, WAAS-enabled Garmin GPS receivers more accurate than those without. or is it just in the USA ?


Thanks

WAAS makes no difference in Europe, it's a USA only thing. The WAAS satellite is in a geostationary orbit over the USA and augments the satellites visible from there. The European equivalent is EGNOS. Both systems are essentially the same and do the same thing, the good news for us though, is that the EGNOS system employs some clever trickery which makes the fix more precise than WAAS. So basically we get better accuracy using EGNOS that the USA gets using WAAS.

The other bonus is that the Russians have just deregulated their system (GLONASS) for free global civillian use, which will probably be coming into use in the next few years. The Russians and Americans are in discussions about switching the signal of the GLONASS system over to a signal that is interoperable with the American GPS system, which will effectively double the number of satellites available and significantly improve GPS accuracy.

 

[Martyn]

A gps can be a lifesaver FACT.

Nick

Absolutely.

I think the worry here is that out of some kind of inverse bushcraft snobbery, bushcrafters will turn their noses up at them, preferring instead to rely on their ability to read the moss on trees or something.

That's all well and good, but a GPS can save your bottom when you cant tell your Climacium from your Bryophyta. ...and people do get it wrong. History has shown over and over, that even the most proficient navigators can and do get lost.

Ther question isn't whether or not a gps is a good bit of bushcraft kit, but whether or not a gps is a good bit of navigational kit and the answer is yes it is. Unequivocally.

I think Doc summed it up well....

They are very very good if you use them correctly, and very, very bad if you don't.

Their best use is for confirming that your estimated position (based on traditional map and compass skills/dead reckoning) is correct. This can help hone your skills further. They are also handy as a clock, speedometer, record of distance, sunset/sunrise calculator, and for finding the car again when parked at festivals, etc.

Reliance on them is bad, almost as bad as shunning them through an over-estimation of your own ability.

So to the 18 people who said "I don't have one and I don't want one!" ...I'd say the next time you go off into the hills, think twice before turning down the offer of a GPS, cos you might just be heading for a Darwin award.