Our first GPS; HELP!

Cornkid

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Charlottesville, Va
I am going with my dad and my brothers with the scouts to Minnesota to do some canoeing.. I need a GPS and have never owned one. I would like to spend less than $200 on one with a background map. Can someone help?

-tom
 

ACMarina

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How much of a background map? Even the cheepies come with a base map of sorts. How complex do you want it to be?
 

bole64

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Jan 30, 2005
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Minnesota, USA
I would defiantly go with the E-trex Legend. A very good model, small, waterproof to 3 feet, WASS enabled, 8mg of internal memory, it is a great unit. It comes with a pretty good base map of the US. I would also highly recommend the City Select map source CD. I think it is only $50, but I am not sure. That CD will give you a VERY detailed map of the area you will be in. Just have to download the maps to the unit from the CD. I DO know that the E-trex Legend sells for about 170 (noticed it for 160 at target.) I personally own one of these and I LOVE it. Very accurate, very nice. Not too expensive either. That is my recommendation.
 

bobisculous

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If you want to be able to navigate the streets, Im not sure that the Legend is BEST. But it is the cheapest. 8MB wont get you THAT far on there. Not much of a city can be loaded on such. The screen is small on it too. But its only $182 according to their site. As far as the software being $50, no. I believe software is well over $100 and easily into the $200 range also....yeah, their site has North America for $116. But that software is nice...

If you have a laptop though, dont invest too much into GPS software. You can connect your GPS to your laptop, and with Microsoft Streets and Trips, it does the same thing. And from what I am told, its much more detailed. Apparently it can tell you all the way down to what side of the street youre on. From Personal expirience, the software for Magellan isnt great. Not sure on the Garmin. I used a Magellan, nice GPS with slightly larger, color screen, and it was rather off. The coordinates for the streets really werent great. I know it cant be perfect, but when it says you are in the middle of a backyard between two streets, it could be better. But once you get on highways, freeways, or more or less, out of multy street towns, it gets much more accurate.
Perhaps you can invest in the Recreational Lakes program for Garmins. I have no idea what its usefulness is for you and conoeing, but its worth looking into.
I am sure jtice will chime in soon, as he knows quite a bit about a GPS's. He got me into it really. It and geocaching...thanks jtice /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif
I have seen and used a top model Magellan for cars only. Had a ten gig HDD in it. That thing was incredible. Touch screen, accurate like crazy, smart as hell, fast at predicting a path, bright screen, talks to you...twas nice. Wish I had the $1000 for that. I want a new D-SLR camera more right now though....got to save for that and stop getting my mind on GPSs from threads like this. lol.
Anyhow, I am going canoeing this weekend as well. I will bring along a my cheep etrex with me(no mapping on it /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/frown.gif ) and do some caching I suspect. If you do get a GPS, try geocaching some time, its really fun. Once you get a GPS, its 100% free entertainment.

Cameron
 

flashlite

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If you have some spare time, try doing some geocaching while you're there.

Whoops, Cameron beat me to the suggestion.
 

Bright Scouter

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West Michigan, USA
CK,

I have used several with the Etrex Legend being the one I use most. I agree it is a nice one. For scouts, canoeing, hiking, etc,,, It doesn't do a tremendous amount of good unless you have software on a pc that you can use to build a track ahead of time. Especially canoeing. You at least need to be able to mark a waypoint as your expected destination. A GPS does a lot of good getting back to where you started, but if you don't have a waypoint set,,, I guess I would rather use a compass and map.

I have used topo software from Delorme to find the river I was going to canoe. Then set the start point and build a track out of waypoints at each major bend in the river. Then load it into the gps. That way, you have a much more realistic estimate of trip distance yet to go.

Good luck and have fun!
 

Bright Scouter

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And I second the idea of geocaching. Our family, and our troop does it quite regularly. But there again, it is best to load the cache as a waypoint ahead of time.

And the laptop idea for when you are in a car is exactly correct. We use the gps connected to a laptop running mapping software anytime we take a trip.

But a laptop IS pretty tough to carry on a canoe trip. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif
 

bobisculous

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lol, Heck, if you are willing to take a laptop on a conoe trip, then I believe you should /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif Water and non waterproof electronics just have this ability to create an angry situation.

Thats it, I am going to make a waterproof laptop...or have they already? Probably

Cameron
 
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