GPS for Boy Scouts

[Gamma Ray]

Hey Folks i have recently got myself back involved with scouting as a way of giving something back to where i've come from.

 

I brought up the idea of Geocaching and they loved it and have even managed to procure a £300 grand from a local group in order to buy GPS Units.

 

So basically what GPS units shall we buy?

 

ideally we would like 3/4

 

Rugged

Easy to use

Not easy to break by scouts

as paperless as possible!

 

and more to the point where to buy from!

 

Cheers!

 

Stefan

[+tarmacjohn]

Handtec is normally the cheapest. You will struggle to get 3/4 GPS's for that price, I would look at the Garmin E Trex range.

[Gamma Ray]

Handtec is normally the cheapest. You will struggle to get 3/4 GPS's for that price, I would look at the Garmin E Trex range.

 

The above are only guidelines as to what would be idea, i'm just looking for suggestions and where to buy really!

[+little-miss-naughty]

e trex yellow can pick up second hand ones from ebay for bout 50 quid or about £100 new

 

lmn

[+Lost in Space]

have even managed to procure a £300 grand from a local group in order to buy GPS Units.

 

£300,000? You could buy anything for that!!

[+SXParx]

Having recently purchased 40 new GPS units I can only recommend Handtech they were the cheapest and their service has been brilliant.

 

Depends whant functions you want and what you are expecting the Scouts to do..... our Scout Group went for the Etrex Venture and have certainly got their monies worth from them.

[+SXParx]

Having recently purchased 40 new GPS units I can only recommend Handtech they were the cheapest and their service has been brilliant.

 

Depends whant functions you want and what you are expecting the Scouts to do..... our Scout Group went for the Etrex Venture and have certainly got their monies worth from them.

[+Graculus]

If you want 'paperless' you are looking at a Dakota/Oregon. I bought my Oregon from Handtec - good price and great service. The Dakota 10 is £134 - probably more than you want to pay but you can load maps onto it (there are excellent free maps available) and of course all the cache details you want. Simple USB connection to the PC. It is rugged enough and waterproof.

 

Going down a model or two if you want to save money then the eTrex Legend H is a good choice. USB again for simplicity of entering data, can load the free maps but it doesn't do 'paperless'. It will only hold the cache coordinates.

 

Chris

Graculus

Volunteer UK Reviewer for geocaching.com

UK Geocaching Information & Resources website www.follow-the-arrow.co.uk

Geocaching.com Knowledge Books

[+Cornell Finch]

I have two eTrex H units for my scouts to play at caching and to be honest, the kids have a heck of a time trying to get them to work.

 

I lent them my eTrex Venture HC and they got on with that much better. Another plus is that it is USB connection for easy updating. We pickd mine up from eBay for £100 or so.

 

TBH, paperless with the scouts is just complicating it too much. I prepped a few sheets with cache details and laminated them. These only had 4 caches each, but you can easily fit 10 or 20 per page if your format it right and if laminated will stand up much better to Scout treatment.

[+Jacaru & Wemnog]

Not that we did anything with scouts, but our lads both got on with our Venture HC when we passed it on to them. As other people have said, it isn't paperless. I reckon that you are better off printing stuff off for a start to really see whether it is going to take off with your group. As for buying them, again as people have said, Ebay, or another place is Amazon where you may be able to get second hand or new units. Good luck, hope that it all goes well.

[+burtsbodgers]

I brought Etrex Venture HC's for our group, 4 of them so each patrol/ six could use one.

I also set up a course around our district HQ which has proved popular both with cachers and other groups.

We Hire them out to local youth groups along with a section of an OS with the caches marked on, so they get to use both technologies in one go and along side each other.

Check out : http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_detai...ad-c0a1ba000808 for ideas

These work quite well though they take about 30 mins to explain the basic operation and have basically no maps, however the very nice TalkyToaster did make me a map section (for our area ) which we successfully loaded on to a couple of the units. But these run out when we take them to Wales, but we can still use them for navigational exercises.

We have had them for around 2 years now and the Scouts have not broken them yet.

[+burtsbodgers]

OOOPS!

Edited July 19, 2010 by burtsbodgers