got my gps today

i decided to give it a try. I know where a starbucks is, usually takes about 7 mins to get there.

I fired up the gps, It was taking me in the opposite direction. I decided to humor it and go with it. It took me the long ass way around and took like 20mins,, but then again i guess it still did its job.. it did get me there.

On the way back, it was all tryin to take me the long way back around again. It has voice emulation. On the way back, i went off course to go the quicker way back... and the bitch on there kept tell me i was off course and i needed to get back on.

Serves you right for letting a woman give you directions 😄

Sarge.. Try this out now that you have GPS... It's quite fun

http://www.geocaching.com/

Don't get Bubba started on Geocaching! He is probably the only one of us that gets to use one of these regularly. And yes, he does make the backpack look "cool" 😉

I've always wanted to do GeoCaching......

Geocaching is fun, brings you to alot fo cool places you'd never make it to otherwise. Even in your own backyard. EC I have a travelbug that is out near you. BY near you I mean the mid-west area

Geocaching!!!!!! DocJon made fun of me when I told him I wanted to get into that! I read the web pages fairly steady for awhile. There is a cache just a few min from me in a small community park. There are a many not too far from me. These things are very popular!

Paladin wrote:Geocaching!!!!!! DocJon made fun of me when I told him I wanted to get into that! I read the web pages fairly steady for awhile. There is a cache just a few min from me in a small community park. There are a many not too far from me. These things are very popular!

Oh dear God you've done it. You've unleashed the monster. . .are you all HAPPY now? :roll:

Sarge wrote:Don't get Bubba started on Geocaching! He is probably the only one of us that gets to use one of these regularly. And yes, he does make the backpack look "cool" 😉

Yup that pic right there, that's an old Trimble XRS with a tsc1 datalogger...

Bubbaspanky wrote:

Sarge wrote:Don't get Bubba started on Geocaching! He is probably the only one of us that gets to use one of these regularly. And yes, he does make the backpack look "cool" 😉

Yup that pic right there, that's an old Trimble XRS with a tsc1 datalogger...

<POINTING AT BUBBA> NERD!!!!!!! NERD!!!!!!


😉

I forgot how much you know about this stuff Bubba....

So, who has actually done GeoCaching? Anything interesting ever happen?

I have spent a decent amount of time geocaching. Typically You will get dragged out to some fringe cool place of a park to find a cache. For instance when my wife and I did some geocaching in Acadia Nation Park we found our 3 favorite spots. We would have never found any of them otherwise. We typically bring the GPS on any "vacation" and use geocaching as a way to find some fun places. I mean caches are normally in some sort fo park or conservation land. Being a tree hugger that appeals to me.

As for the caches themselves, we typically don't take anything, they tend to have lots of trinkets. Another fun part of this is the idea of a travel bug. A travel bug is a little dog tag that you put in a cache and someone else picks up and drops it off at a cache further down the line. Some have goal such as I want to make it to the pacific coast others just float. As I stated earlier I have a travel bug in the mid-west right now. He has traveled over 1100 miles since I dropped him off in Wisconsin.

Now remember GPSs still aren't overly accurate(unless you have a sub meter survey quality $$$, ie Trimble XRS with tsc1 as I have at work :-) ) so it'll get you within say 15' of a cache and the rest is up to you to find it.

What do you do for a living that you use the GPS so often? I will talk to you when I buy one. I looked into them but have no idea which one to get, there are TONS of them out there.

I have always wanted a really nice hand held one but never had a REAL need, so never got one you know 😉

I guess I want one that can do trip maps and not just GPS coordinates, might as well. Advice?

The only GPS I have now is a small GPS receiver that plugs into my Palm T3. It was on clearance from Radio Shack for $30 one time so I got it. I have used it with software I have on my Palm T3 called mapopolis (www.mapopolis.com) I always keep the software on my “brain” anyway as I always have my T3 with me. I can still use it without the GPS unit attached so.

It is fun as hell to play with when the receiver is attached though I admit! I drove to work and back several times to see where it would send me etc.. I used it once to get to my cousins house which I never been too before. Man it took be through some weird back streets but I got there 😉
It has voice prompts so that is fun. I keep the receiver in my SUV just in case I ever get lost or need it. I rarely travel. though 🙁

I did manage to get all the maps for the entire US and most of Canada though so that is cool 😉 I keep enough to have the entire state of PA and some of OH on an SD card. I have ALL of them on a separate SD card but won’t ever use them 😉 they are separated by county.

I was thinking of just getting a Bluetooth GPS receiver to use with my palm but would think it would be a pain to have to find a place to “mount” it for personal use..

This is a cool subject for me, I always wanted to dweeb on this with someone but do not know anyone into it. One of my many many interests.

BTW there is nothing wrong with being a tree hugger within reason. Just don’t be a flaming lib and you are okay in my book. 😉

Bubba's alright.... Not too many people can claim to be a tree hugger and an NRA member.... :-)

I bought the Garmin 2720 after driving to Phili with a guy at work who has one. I was really impressed. To be honest, moving to a completely new state, it's 110% worth it. No more trying to find stuff on the map or getting turned around and having to figure out how to get back to the point you got lost. If you make a mistake, it auto calculates a new route on the fly. It has been a huge stress reliever for me.

My only concern is I haven't figured out how to program it to go to Coordinates instead of addresses. I can see coordinates, just not how to input them into the route stuff.

Paladin wrote:What do you do for a living that you use the GPS so often? I will talk to you when I buy one. I looked into them but have no idea which one to get, there are TONS of them out there.

Well I have 4 job titles:
GIS Analyst (I.e. I draw maps and use geographic data for analysis.)
Transportation Analyst (I.e. I do alot of road data collection)
IT Dude
Sarge Bitch

So I try to play with the GPS as much as possible, the GIS part fo my job is what I love, the Trans part and the IT part are what get me in the door and pay for my salary. The "Sarge's bitch" part is just for the fun of it.

Seriously though, I have been looking at gps's for a year now deciding which one to buy next. They all have their pluses, but I also have some extra demands others don't. It seems to me that now adays they are all rather similar.

I haven't played with the car navagation gps at all though.

Intrestingly last month I took my handheld (an older magellan and my backpack survey quality out) I hung the handheld from the backpack and went for a decent hike. Then I got to the GPS imported the data from both and compared. While the handheld was able to collect points more reliably (ie it got points when the backpack didn't have a signal). it ranged from 4' to 40' from the line from the backpack. It was a cool little study that I plan to do some work with.