The early handhelds....Old Timers ?s

[+Woodstramp]

I'd read about Geocaching taking off with the SA change which allowed for better accuracy. From what I gather (maybe incorrectly) that there were handhelds for civilian use before this event?

 

The GPS that hooked me on this game was a Magellan GPS 2000. Bought it from a coworker for $20. It only acquired a 3D lock on hilltops on clear days. It was enough to get my interest up.

 

Can any of you "old timers" chime in about some of the early units you bought in the early days? Price (then), accuracy, etc.

[+Arrow42]

This is the GPS I used to use:

 

 

Way more accurate then those silly gamins!

Edited July 19, 2009 by Arrow42

[+Cardinal Red]

This is the GPS I used to use:

 

 

Way more accurate then those silly gamins!

 

What's a gamin?

[jholly]

I have a gps48. Used it when SA was still on, not very accurate but that was the idea. I used it for boating and to improve the accuracy I got the DGPS receiver. That worked pretty good and the accuracy was pretty good. When SA was turned off I used it for caching. The biggest problem with that unit was the lack of electronic compass and the need to always be moving to get the compass to work. It also sucked under tree cover, but out on the boat that was not a big problem for some reason.

 

Jim

[+Arrow42]

What's a gamin?

 

Making fun of people's spelling errors makes you soooo dreamy!

[+Snoogans]

I'd read about Geocaching taking off with the SA change which allowed for better accuracy. From what I gather (maybe incorrectly) that there were handhelds for civilian use before this event?

 

The GPS that hooked me on this game was a Magellan GPS 2000. Bought it from a coworker for $20. It only acquired a 3D lock on hilltops on clear days. It was enough to get my interest up.

 

Can any of you "old timers" chime in about some of the early units you bought in the early days? Price (then), accuracy, etc.

 

I found my first 175 caches with that exact unit. I paid FULL PRICE ($199) for it in 1995. I have it listed on my profile.

[+Snoogans]

This is the GPS I used to use:

 

 

Way more accurate then those silly gamins!

 

THAT is wayyyyyyyy COOL! Did you make it? Can you make ME one? I will trade ya a couple sets of my coins for one!!!! PM/Email me if you are interested.

[+Woodstramp]

This is the GPS I used to use:

 

 

Way more accurate then those silly gamins!

 

That is purty cool!

[Clan Riffster]

I don't remember which Garmin it was, but the Big Black Brick I was issued many moons ago stopped counting down distance at 0.1 miles.

[+PirateKatz]

On occasion, I still break out my old Garmin GPS 12. I can't remember when I bought it but it was before SA was turned off; maybe around '99 or so. It's not a bad unit; it's very solid, can hold a position, and performs (sans the map) just as well as my eTrex Vista or my GPSMAP 76S.

 

When I bought it, I still used it like how we used the "Pluggers" when I was in the Army, by plotting everything on topo quads. Even with SA, the whole novelty of using GPS really blew me away and even with the 50+ m accuracy and excessive time to get a lock, it was still an amazing piece of technology. Back when I was in the Army, we actually had a log book of good times to get get a GPS lock based on location.

 

In the mid-90's we used to carry GPS units for work and they were all backpack units and ran in the thousands...

[+Arrow42]

THAT is wayyyyyyyy COOL! Did you make it? Can you make ME one? I will trade ya a couple sets of my coins for one!!!! PM/Email me if you are interested.

 

I wish I had a wood shop to make stuff like that, but alas, it's not something I made. I shamelessly lifted that image from some website.

[+Atlas]

I bought my fist GPSR in 1997, it was an Eagle Explorer. Cost was just unter $100.00. It ate through 4 AA batteries in a matter of about 4 hours, better longevity with E2 Lithium's when they came out. Accuracy was about 20 meters, and if you stayed in one place for any length of time you could see your trail drift around on the screen. No mapping capabilities, it just read out where you were, and had a screen that could track your path and display any waypoints that you had to manualy enter. Trees or heavy cloud cover really degraded the accuracy as you lost sight of satelites and when walking you pretty much had to carry it in front of you as a divining rod as it would not work if you carried it in your hand and walked normally. Most of my finds to date were with this unit, I have recently upgraded to a Garmin.

 

Eagle Explorer Owners Manual 1996

 

I'd read about Geocaching taking off with the SA change which allowed for better accuracy. From what I gather (maybe incorrectly) that there were handhelds for civilian use before this event?

 

The GPS that hooked me on this game was a Magellan GPS 2000. Bought it from a coworker for $20. It only acquired a 3D lock on hilltops on clear days. It was enough to get my interest up.

 

Can any of you "old timers" chime in about some of the early units you bought in the early days? Price (then), accuracy, etc.

[+W7WT]

I still have my Garmin 45. As Jim mentioned it was great in the boat.I even paid almost $100 for a passive antenna for it. Worked fairly well with the antenna in our fiberglass top Van RV. I used to get coords from airports and so forth and even used it to track our trip on the Alaska Ferry. On my first attempt at finding a cache in August 2001, I lost satellite signal as soon as I entered the woods. Went and bought a Maggy the same day and found the cache. I will never sell or give away that GPS. It was like my first born. Dick, W7WT btw: It saved me from going the wrong way near Haines Junction just west of Whitehorse. Dick, W7WT

[+R.O.B]

I found my first 200 caches with a Cobra 100. It had to be the worst gpsr ever made. First, it had no cable to transfer the coords to the unit. All the coords had to be entered by hand. When you got within 100 feet of the cache it would no longer navigate. It was say arriving at the cache and the arrow would lock which ever way it was pointing. And it there was any tree cover, lord help me. There was a bright side to it, it made me and the kids much more adept at actually looking for the cache.

My youngest was about 7 when we started caching. She found a piece of bark and said it was her gpsr. She would use it help find the cache. She said it started to shake whenever we got close to the cache. That's about as low-tech of a gpsr as you can get...

[+JackQuest]

Started with a Garmin 12XL and added an external antenna.

[+WRASTRO]

Not sure if we qualify as oldtimers, but our first GPS was a Magellan SporTrak which my Wife paid $150 for at the end of 2003. We still loan it to new cachers to use while they decide if they want to get into the game. Our "new" GPS is a Garmin GPSMap 76cs which I gave myself for Father's Day in 2005. Found about 500 with the Maggie and about 2,000 so far with the Garmin.

[Keystone]

I am moving this thread from the Geocaching Topics forum to the GPS and Technology forum.

[+julianh]

This is the GPS I used to use:

 

Way more accurate then those silly gamins!

 

What's a gamin?

gam·in (gam-in)

n.

An often homeless boy who roams about the streets; an urchin.

[French.]

 

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/gamin

 

When all else fails - ask a street urchin for directions?!

[robertlipe]

Moderator's note Typo flames aren't very interesting. Back on subject, please.

[+splashy]

Garmin 75, big as a stone, heavy as a stone.

For that time a small 'fortune' used it while sailing did it's job that time and is not comparable with today's units.

Has a very nice display and I saw people doing Paris-Dakar with it.

[+2Wheel'in]

Started with a Garmin GPS 12 and "graduated" to a Garmin GPS II+, both fine receivers. Small monochrome screens, but they did the trick. Used them mostly for hiking, and (big as they were) cycling. MooseMaMa lost the GPS 12 on a hike, and I gave the GPS II+ to a friend who lost his off the roof of his van. Wasn't long after that he lost the one I gave him off the rear bumper of the same vehicle . When SA was removed I got a little yellow eTrex........man we've come a long way .

 

Bill

[+donbadabon]

... and I gave the GPS II+ to a friend who lost his off the roof of his van.

 

[knowschad]

This was a bit before my time (and probably most of you)

 

 

The Manpack was the first man-portable Global Positioning System (GPS) receiver. It was developed by Rockwell Collins (then the Collins Government Avionics Division of Rockwell International) as part of the GPS phase 2 preproduction contract and deployed during the GPS phase 3 initial production equipment contract. It is a one-channel set that weighs about 17 lbs. and was designed to be carried on a rucksack frame, backpack style. However, due to its weight, it was most often strapped to a truck or helicopter. Since it was a single channel GPS receiver, it was not able to track multiple GPS satellites simultaneously. To form the GPS position solution, the Manpack sequentially acquired and tracked four GPS satellites. A cryptographic code could be loaded into the set, thereby giving it the capability to provide Precise Positioning Service (PPS). Adaptations of the Manpack were used in early GPS missile integrations including Conventional Air Launched Cruise Missile (CALCM) and Standoff Land Attack Missile (SLAM).

[knowschad]

And then there's this lovely little thing by Rockwell:

 

[+Maingray]

Magellan GPS315 in 1999. Very accurate, loved it.

[+embra]

Up from the depths of my GPS drawer: my DeLorme Earthmate I. I don't recall exactly when I got this...it was sometime in the late 90's, I think.

 

I include the connecting cable in all its glory, as I had to connect it to my Palm Pilot in order to see anything in the field (a connection to a laptop in the car worked well with whatever version of StreetAtlas USA I had. It was cool to see my [fuzzy] location, although it was cumbersome holding the Earthmate in one hand and the Palm Pilot in the other, while getting the cable tangled up in whatever was available to snag it.

 

And it was priced great at $99 IIRC. That was an attractive price for the capabilities back then.

 

[+Renegade Knight]

Got a GPS V. Not the first, or even old school. It was at the time the best handheld consumer GPS bar none. I just got rid of it this year. I was happy with the GPS V in every way. The orgeon that replaced does exactly one thing the GPS V didn't. Paperless. It's drawbacks (dim screen) almost isn't worth it. Meaning I could still be happy with the V but I decided that I'd give paperless on the GPS a shot.

[nobody077]

I went out this weeked with ny Brother in Law NinjaBetic and we found 2 caches. He was useing his Iphone with the very nice Geocache plug in and I was using my old trusty eTrex Legend. The legend is the first model, serial cable to pc mono screen and pre-was so with a good 3+ sat lock acc is about +/- 15 feet, but usaly your in the +/- 30 foot range. This is usaly enough to get you into the area and then work the clues to zero in. You can get the Legend for under $50 now days, its water resistant, Fairly rugged, and gets many hours of 2 AA batteries. I use it on a handle bar mount on my Quad for desert rideing so it can take some abuse.

 

Now the Iphone was much nicer , down to less than 10ft and with the Geocach app that automarks all listed hides in the area, but I still have fun with my old Garmin

[+PirateKatz]

And then there's this lovely little thing by Rockwell:

 

 

It's really funny but I had no idea that the actual name was "PLGR". When I was in the service, we just called them "pluggers". When they were issued to our unit, they seemed so high tech, especially when they started putting the computers that overlayed our position in our Bradleys and Humvee's. It's been a very long time but if I recall, we also used them to set the time on our radio's for their frequency hopping.

[+steve p]

And then there's this lovely little thing by Rockwell:

 

That screw cap on the top makes it look like it has a built-in canteen.

[Overland1]

My first was an ICOM GP-2 back in the early 1990's; it did basic stuf and the five channel receiver was OK, but mapping was not included. It was great for rescue/EMS work, though.

[+Stroudwaterboy]

My first and still current is a Magellan GPS 315 and it still works fine despite years of use although my Blackberry Curve 8900 turns up tomorrow, not sure which one I will end up using.

[+Lt_Dusty]

This was my first.

 

[+clan_Barron]

Magellan GPS315 in 1999. Very accurate, loved it.

 

Same GPSr we started with. Then bought a Sportrak, then a Meridian Platinum. Now cache with a Delorme PN-40. My computer desk drawer is now a Magellan GPS Museum or cemetary depending on how you look at it.

[+GOT GPS?]

My first GPS was the Magellan 4000XL 12 channel unit, back in 1998.

That thing went through alot of abuse, like cooking in a hot window, and dropped on the road at 40mph.

[+twolpert]

Late 90's. Garmin III+. Seems like I paid around $300 for it. Mapping unit with B&W display and a whopping 1.44MB of non-expandable memory for maps. Bought it for back-country hiking and also used it for Geocaching up until early 2008. What a difference between the III+ and the Colorado