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Do yall use your GPSr for things other than caching?


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I am new to the forums but I am not a new GPSr user. I have had a GPSr for a little over 10 years and I love these things. Although it is not a replacement for a compass and a map, nor will it ever be. Any way, I love the outdoors and I do a lot of Climbing, Hiking, Camping, Backpacking and my GPSr goes with me along with my topo maps and compass.

 

I am just curios as to how many people use their GPSr for things other than GeoCaching? Obviously I use my GPSr for GeoCaching; however, I like to store logs of the places that I have hiked, or my favorite fishing spot, or campsite, some of which are in remote areas and require a GPSr to get to the location, as some or all of the roads do not have names, and my require a 4 wheel drive vehicle to get to that "special spot".

 

Thanks,

 

Axel

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I am new to the forums but I am not a new GPSr user. I have had a GPSr for a little over 10 years and I love these things. Although it is not a replacement for a compass and a map, nor will it ever be. Any way, I love the outdoors and I do a lot of Climbing, Hiking, Camping, Backpacking and my GPSr goes with me along with my topo maps and compass.

 

I am just curios as to how many people use their GPSr for things other than GeoCaching? Obviously I use my GPSr for GeoCaching; however, I like to store logs of the places that I have hiked, or my favorite fishing spot, or campsite, some of which are in remote areas and require a GPSr to get to the location, as some or all of the roads do not have names, and my require a 4 wheel drive vehicle to get to that "special spot".

 

Thanks,

 

Axel

 

I just purchased mine for off trail hiking. I'll probably never use it for anything else.

 

Beck

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I've had a GPS12 for 10+ years and now a 60CSx for 1+ years. I've used them for the following:

  • Being able to answer the kids' "Are we there yet?" questions
  • 4WD trails in CO/UT - nice to know the way back...
  • Hunting public lands - we can find those obscure WIHA plots in the dark at 4AM!
  • Basic "where am I now" info when traveling in a new city

-RenHoek

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Yep!

 

I use it for auto navigation and also plan on using it fishing. I have a Garmin Colorado 400t (came with topo maps), then I purchased City Navigator and Inland Lakes.

 

For the money I spent on it, you better believe I'm going to come up with as many ways as possible to use it :(

 

I'm also using it for geotagging my digital photographs so I can see exactly where I was when the photo was taken.

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I have the Vista HCx with City Navigator maps installed. I use the auto-routing feature all the time to get around the nearby, huge metropolitan area. I also use the POIs to find stores, restaurants, etc. It took me a long time to remember I could use the GPSr for that purpose . . . :(

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These days I mostly use mine for benchmark hunting. Sometimes I use it to help me get to other places, such as when I took a different route to visit friends in a rural area. And just for kicks, I keep a permanent waypoint file of some friends' homes and special places I've visited.

 

Patty

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I haven't geocached in a couple of years, but I have two GPS's (60Cx and Vista HCx). They are used for:

 

Capturing track logs and creating my own trail maps.

Reporting the approximate elevation of the rain/snow line in winter

Doing elevation profiling (Vista only).

Getting turn by turn prompts when driving to new places (60Cx only)

Golf - to measure distance of drives (usually a percieved 240 yd drive is more like 190 yds!)

Kyacking, Fishing.

General curiosity about distances, elevations, speeds, etc.

 

I'm afraid to use either one for biking because I crashed good a few years back and ruined an E-Trex legend that was mounted on the handlebar.

 

The uses are endless..........

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I use my Magellan XL with a ram mount and ToPo 3D maping on my Suzuki 700 KQ ATV and my wife also has the same set up. We use them for navigation while we are on our desert adventures to find that elusive old gold mine or the hidden canyon that is 60 + miles out into the middle of the boon docks and then to be able to make it back to the pickup with out worries.

We have had several adventures exploring with the GPS that would have been imposable with out them.

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Since I don't really do geocaching ...

 

tracking my bike rides and training hikes

tracking my actual route when doing orienteering competitions (the unit stays tucked inside a fanny pack, not used for navigation)

navigating to various places (in a number of different countries) in car and on foot

tracking my location and route during climbing expeditions and backpacking trips

tagging digital photos (my DSLR has a cable connection to add the tag to the Exif file attached to the image)

occasionally in S&R operations (thankfully this is not too often)

routing and progress following on long cross-country drives (sometimes take caching breaks along with the food and rest stops)

A couple times to find a repair garage for the car when a minor problem developed on a long trip, halfway across the continent

sometimes in a new town to find a non-fast-food restaurant (sometimes find the info in the GPSR is not up to date, too).

routing the fastest way back to the airport in a rental car

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I used to use my Magellan XL for setting pulleys on lure coursing fields. The screen is a nice size, resolution

adequate, backlight nice and bright when needed, an all-around functional, and accurate receiver; until the

ineptitude of Magellan's software implementation became readily apparent @ the WAAS switchover.

Now it's a very expensive, less than mediocre POS. Come May I'll probably off it. If Garmin gets the bugs

exterminated I stand a good chance of recouping an not insignificant chunk of my MacBooks hard-drive

back from Parallels, W/XP2 and MapSend.

 

Norm

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I use my GPS primarily for hot-air ballooning. It's a great help to find elusive, thin layers of air that move in different directions and different speeds, as the receiver shows small changes in heading and speed very rapidly. Thus it helps me navigate to a good landing area, or to goals and targets in competition flying. Competitive balloon pilots were early adopters of GPS technology - I got my first Garmin GPS45 years before selective availability was abolished, and have been carrying a GPS 12XL for almost a decade on all my flights. Recently I upgraded to a 60CSx, and I guess that one will see some use outside ballooning, due to its routing capabilities (it also helps to find the shortest way back to the launch site after landing in some remote area).

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Here are my main uses:

 

*to mark small patch reefs, ledges, individual coral heads, etc., in the Florida Keys that hold lobsters (we take an annual trip the 2nd week of August to go lobstering in the Keys)

 

*to return from offshore in the Gulf in Louisiana. We spearfish offshore on rigs and in bluewater. Sometimes we go 50 miles offshore. Sometimes we go out of one pass in the Mississippi River delta and come in another pass on the other side of the delta. We have all the passes marked and can just work our way offshore and pick the nearest pass when it's time to come back in. This would be very difficult, almost impossible, without GPS.

 

*to navigate down the Mississippi River below Venice, Louisiana in foggy conditions. The Gulf of Mexico is 30 to 35 miles down the Miss. River from the last road. In winter on calm days before the next front, the river is often socked in with fog. I have a smaller boat without radar and use my GPS to follow a tight track downriver. Get 100 ft. to the right and run into a wing dam, get 200 ft to the left, run into a ship. That's why I like the Colorado 10000 point track log that does not compress the data! I've had some near misses with my GPS 76 when it decides to get poor signal reception and let me get off the track or did not record the track with enough resolution initially.

 

Here's where I don't use it -- backpacking in the Wind River Range. No doubt this probably seems strange to this forum. Each year I take a 10-14 day backpacking trip, usually solo, off trail, to remote high altitude lakes to flyfish for golden trout. I have never taken a GPS and never needed one. I'm an ultralight hiker and just cannot justify the 8 oz. for a GPS. The hiking is mostly near or above timberline and mountain ranges, peaks, clearly defined drainages, and streams make navigation easy. The only place a GPS would come in handy is in the first 10 miles from the trail head to get up to ~ 10,000 ft. But you're on trails this first 10 miles and don't need a GPS. After you break out of the trees you don't really need anything but a map to get around even for a couple of weeks.

 

I got a Colorado a month ago and am looking very much forward to getting City Navigator on it and using it in the car. I think this is going to be the best toy I've got when I get to using it to play in the car!

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Wow! Well I am glad to hear that I am not the only one who uses the GPSr in everyday life, and other sports. Like I mentioned before I am new to geocaching but I am no stranger to the GPSr. I had a Garmin GPS III series, and it worked pretty good. Then it got stolen. Well it was time for an upgrade anyway. So I bought an eTrex vista and I have loaded the Topo maps on it and I like it.

 

The only downside with the Topos on this unit is that it takes forever to redraw on the screen. I think it is time for another upgrade!

 

I don't know why but I had this feeling that everyone that Geocaches only uses their GPSr for geocaching and nothing more. I am glad to see that yall get a lot more use out of it than that!

 

Also, the fact that I use my GPSr for things other than GeoCaching the GeoCaching software that is available seems to be lacking, if you know what I mean. I would like to track all of my fishing spots, hiking trails, and other finds that I store in my GPSr using the computer to transfer to and from the GPSr unit. That being said, I am writing an open source software to track all of this, and so far I have sort of somewhat have the GeoCaching part working. I don't intend to charge for the software and it will be Open Source. If you are interested I would like to hear from you! Feel free to send an email to axeldoomeyer [at] sbcglobal.net or send me a PM here if you are interested or if you have any suggestions. I will post more here and on my website once the program is a little more refined.

 

-Axel

-Axel

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Wow! Well I am glad to hear that I am not the only one who uses the GPSr in everyday life, and other sports. Like I mentioned before I am new to geocaching but I am no stranger to the GPSr. I had a Garmin GPS III series, and it worked pretty good. Then it got stolen. Well it was time for an upgrade anyway. So I bought an eTrex vista and I have loaded the Topo maps on it and I like it.

 

The only downside with the Topos on this unit is that it takes forever to redraw on the screen. I think it is time for another upgrade!

 

I don't know why but I had this feeling that everyone that Geocaches only uses their GPSr for geocaching and nothing more. I am glad to see that yall get a lot more use out of it than that!

 

Also, the fact that I use my GPSr for things other than GeoCaching the GeoCaching software that is available seems to be lacking, if you know what I mean. I would like to track all of my fishing spots, hiking trails, and other finds that I store in my GPSr using the computer to transfer to and from the GPSr unit. That being said, I am writing an open source software to track all of this, and so far I have sort of somewhat have the GeoCaching part working. I don't intend to charge for the software and it will be Open Source. If you are interested I would like to hear from you! Feel free to send an email to axeldoomeyer [at] sbcglobal.net or send me a PM here if you are interested or if you have any suggestions. I will post more here and on my website once the program is a little more refined.

 

-Axel

-Axel

It can be used as your own private invesigator lol

 

the Colarado battery life is not so good for it but my 76CSx works well

 

Turn it on leave it in the trunk of the car you want to track an external antenna discete or on the roof

when the car comes back see wheere its been works with trucks and vans too.

 

I found this out because I use it on track days I can see lap speeds and tracks. Left it running for the full day when I got home it it had every inch of my journey

 

It does caching, boating with the blue chart, walking and track back. and in large car parks like airports find the car on return, cycling, I run it in the truck all day so i can send the track to my friends in USA and canada they can not only see the route but also on google earth see the land

it has the NT streetmaps so I find address with it

my wife uses it for walking instead of the her old step counter she gets speed and distance now not just the number of steps

On holiday in 2 weeks got the hotel in already and the local maps of greece

in all many uses could not be with out one now

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I use mine for a paper weight on my desk sometimes. It makes a great conversation piece. Also its a great back up source of navigation if you are at 40,000 feet over the North Atlantic and have total electrical failure. (Assuming the engines are still running, if they aren't, it doesn't matter were you are).

Edited by randyrucker
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Actually never considered geocaching. As others noted this is an active forum for all sorts of GPS stuff. I use mine (60Csx) connected to an active sonar on my kayak, logging position and water depth, download to Map Maker to produce maps of reef bathymetry. The 60 displays water depth and temperature too. Also have it connected to the Thinkpad for real time tracking over a satellite image in OziExplorer mapping forest vegetation.

Can't imagine being without it.

 

Allan

St. Lucia

 

Oh yes - also make custom IMG (Garmin) maps of coastal areas so I can see where I am in relation to reefs and other stuff. But that's a bit of a chore.

Edited by reef mapper
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The major thing I've done beyond car use is this- http://mysite.verizon.net/resopl09/therive...tabase/id7.html The company that I work for has since implemented the database along with GPS receivers in the crew vans for our crew changes. I also do National Map for USGS.

 

I also have it on the whole 28 day trip at work. Happiness is never having to ask the pilothouse where you are, and I also use it to figure out when to yell at the captain for overloading the engines. My 60c might have more "on time" than any other due to it's use at work. (no failures, no problems!)

 

I have also used it to mark public restrooms in cities in Italy (my wife really likes this!) and as a way of marking "return points" for exploring in Italian cities. We still wander with a local street map, but it's nice to know that the front door of your hotel is a waypoint. I have also embarrassed the daylights out of my wife by using it to find out how fast the Eurostar (train) was going.

 

I have just recently started geotagging my photos with RoboGeo. I also keep files of waypoints for good photo locations for railroad and river photography, too.

 

I seem to keep finding more things to use it for as time goes by. :grin:

 

Tom

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Uses for GPS (Legend HCx):

 

Tracking the route to a school or other destination with a guide the first time, since the streets are poorly marked or unmarked and the highways have few signs. Then we follow the track back on subsequent visits.

 

Backup to the guide for jungle hikes to villages.

 

Marking the village locations in the first place.

 

Back seat navigation on the plane ride to the jungle villages (it's fun to compare my Garmin to the one the pilot is using).

 

A little bit of geocaching.

 

Checking the location of the equator while visiting the equator museum.

 

Probably use the unit for routing once I'm back in the states.

 

Joe Hewes

Quito, Ecuador

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Variety is the spice of life. I began the GPSR life hiking/backpacking. Then found Geocaching in a magazine on an airplane. Mounted the device in the car then on the motorcycle. This was a Magellan Map 300 waterproof handheld. It eventually died with parts rattling around inside. It was with me for several good years. Next I moved up to a Garmin Quest. The prime criteria were waterproof, internal batteries, and auto routing. It works well for the motorcycle, car, boat, backpacking/hiking and geocaching. The autorouting is wonderful. Geocaching use is good but not great. I miss the foot by foot readout. Everything is a compromise. I'm ready for phase three but finding a GPSR to do it all gets harder and harder. Too many models.

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I am a road warrior. I use mine all the time to navigate to my hotel, restaurants, and work.

 

Last week I arrived in Tennessee only to find that I had omitted that states maps from to 60CX. I immediately felt totally lost. Thought about calling my boss and telling her that I was sick and wouldn't be able to come to work for the next 2 weeks.

 

Good thing the hotel was only 3 blocks from the car rental and work was also close. Still having troubles finding a place to eat.

 

:ph34r:

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I use it for routing when I go to Montana to visit my daughter. I've used various routes (my wife likes to see new areas) going there and back. I love it. I find routes, hotels, banks, grocery stores, restaurants, etc. no matter where I am. I also use it to route me to various work sites. I do computer support for a gov't agency and I have the northern third of CA. Only 24 offices or so but a lot of geography. When I get to a strange town it's nice to have the unit drive me right to whatever out-of-the-way location the office might be tucked into. I use it a lot for geocaching and I also have it drive me to the cache location if possible.

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