[Okay, Going Gps Shopping..]

So, what for initial choices do you guys recommend?

 

Dang, I thought I was doing good.. :-)

 

Dondo

[Okay, Going Gps Shopping..]

And I still don't know what I want. I've narrowed it down to these 2 models:

 

Magellan Meridian Gold Handheld GPS

 

Garmin eTrek Vista.

 

The Magellan uses a card reader, which isn't that big a deal to me, plus is looks pretty cool.

 

The Garmin is small, connects to the computer. The accuracy is probably about the same. What I haven't figured out is which one of these 2 have the better maps to either download or buy?

 

I plan on using them for geocachings and just generally messing around with. I do alittle 4 wheeling in my Jeep and though it might be kind of chic looking to have a GPS mounted on the dash. (1953 M38-A1 Army Jeep) You know, old with new stuff.. :-)

 

Any opinions before I commit?

 

Thanks for any advice.

 

(btw, I read most of the posts in this forum on this subject. I still can't make up my mind though)

 

Dondo

[Extreme Newbie Here, Couple Of Gps ?'s]

Great advice. Thanks everyone. Last night I was looking around at the caches near my zip code. I couldn't beleive how many there were, even in the middle of BFE Kansas. Hopefully, in the next couple of weeks I'll try to find some of these.

 

Thanks again

 

Dondo

[Extreme Newbie Here, Couple Of Gps ?'s]

Michelle -- Thanks for the info (everyone else too). I don't even know what a "Pocket Query" is.. :-) Actually, the iPaq and GPS are not mine persay, they belong to the County I work for, but I was put in charge of them. Thought I might try out some of this geocaching stuff. What I have managed to do so far, is convert the *.loc files to *gpx and load them onto my Palm Pilot. So, I guess I'll carry my iPaq for the GPS info (can't seem to figure out how to load a map) and use my Palm to check the information. I guess, I could just print out the info and carry it around, but where is the geek factor in that? :-)

 

Anyone use ArcPAD for anything? It is part of the ArcGIS package from ESRI.

 

Dondo

[Extreme Newbie Here, Couple Of Gps ?'s]

Thanks for the replies, but my iPaq Pocket PC uses the Windows OS. It looks like Cachemate is for the Palm OS. I'm also looking for a program that will use the GPS besides the built in iPaq Navigation program.

 

Any help on these fronts?

 

Thanks

 

Dondo

[Extreme Newbie Here, Couple Of Gps ?'s]

I have an iPaq H4300 Palm PC with the iPaq Navigation System using a little bluetooth GPS reciever. There is a program installed called IPaq Navigation System (basically, a street level voice direction program and I also have Arcpad 6 from ESRI. Neither one of those programs allow me to input Lat/Long and do some of this Geocaching stuff. I just installed a program called GpxSonar but it doesn't look like it can do anything with the LOC file I downloaded. I also have GSAK installed on my desktop, but the learning curve looks rather steep.

 

Anyone know of anything I could get to load on the iPaq that will let me use all of this stuff?

 

Sorry I'm such a newbie.. :-)

 

Dondo