I have a dividend of about $400 from REI. I don’t really know what to do with it. I have a big tent and a little tent. I have a down sleeping bag and army-surplus intermediate and extreme sleeping bags. I have an MSR Internationale stove, and my old Svea 123 – plus a two-burner Coleman. Got all the kayak stuff I need. In short, there’s nothing I really need. I have a GPS receiver – a cheap one that doesn’t “do” a lot, so I thought I’d check out REI’s supply of GPS receivers.
I really don’t need a GPS unit, but it’s the only thing I can think of using the dividend for at the moment. I suppose I could wait a month, get the cash instead of store credit, and put it toward the restoreation of the MGB.
Wow, if you have that much of a dividend, get that bad boy. Then buy a nice journal to document the locations of all your trips. I wish I’d had one 20 years ago and kept track all the great places I went to that I can’t find anymore.
I don’t know about this particular unit but as a general rule, color displays are hard to see under bright light (outdoors). If you intend to use it outdoors I recommend you check on-line reviews and see what they say about screen visibility.
I’ve used both Garmin and Magellan GPS units (Garmin 12 and Magellan Meridian Gold). It seemed to me that Magellan units are better built (more solid), but the interface is less obvious. For example, the Meridian doesn’t have a “Set Waypoint” button and without the manual I couldn’t figure out how to mark the current position as a waypoint. It turns out you press and hold the GOTO button.
Personally if I had $400 to spend on REI I’d buy a (yet another) bicycle. Even if you have a fancy bike already, you could always use a cheap spare bike for errands, bad weather, etc.
I have a Garmin 195 for flying and its pretty nice. Seems like a well made unit. Even without the plug in antenna it establishes quickly. If I’m not mistaken, Garmin came up with the 12 satelite technology which most units use today.
I would suggest you pick one that seems logical to use. They all usually come with cases so they should all hold up. You might even look at a palm pilot with a GPS interface. The delorme sofware looks good on them. I love driving with my laptop and GPS when I’m researching historic sites.
The bike idea isn’t a bad one either. I have a touring bike and a folding mountain bike. I’m now looking at a smaller/lighter folding bike to take in a plane (should have measured the mountain bike first).
Something to keep in mind with the GPS unit: if you are going to be using it in a heavily forrested area it won’t be as useful as you might think. I took my GPS unit (Garmin eTrex Legend, pretty nice) on a hike (just a bit south and east of Seattle) and was only able to get reception at the beginning and the end.
Hmmmm…I do GIS and field work for the National Park Service, and I always pack along my Garmin V. Great little GPS unit, and I have a WAAS transceiver and a Panasonic Toughbook with ArcPad for on-the-fly mapping. Plus I can link photos of the sites to GIS features in the map in real time, and mark the photos with the coordinates from which they’re taken.
But all that may be a little out of your price range.
Oh, and I do work in heavily, heavily forested areas all the time, and while it may take a while for the G5 to hook up with the sats, it does a pretty good job of retaining a lock on the signal. I’ve only ever lost signal a few times, and at least one of those was in a canyon.
I’d like to have a GPS with a moving map display. Street-level would be brilliant.
Yeah, I have the REI card. 10% back on REI purchases and 1% on everything else. Last year I bought a kayak, rudder, paddles, LPU, etc. from REI. And my REI card is the only one I use except for one other that only pays for my internet service and AOPA membership, and the other one that I use only for gasoline.
I used my GPS on the motorcycle today. According to it, my speedometer is reading about 10% fast (which I suspected) and my daily commute is 43 miles each way (which I already knew).
I’m still thinking about a new, spiffier GPS. Having street maps would be quite useful. And if aeronautical charts could be used in it, so much the better.
scr4: I don’t need a bicycle. I live too far away to ride it to work, and I have the kayak to play with on weekends.
