GPS for geologists

[texasgeoman]

hello World!

 

I'm new to the forum, new to geocaching, and trying to learn as much as I can. Am reviewing all the FAQs on "which is the best GPS unit", etc., and finding a lot of it overwhelming.

 

So, here is a more pointed question: What GPS brand/model would you recommend/use for a geologist who is interested in finding his way around field trip guidebooks (most of which include lat/long info for geology stops), as well as a geocaching tool?

 

Any geologists out there? THANKS!

 

paul

geoman@Lx.net

Edited August 13, 2011 by texasgeoman

[+Gitchee-Gummee]

Most all of the brand name consumer-grade GPSr units will do what you want. Those steered towards geocaching have more bells and whistles than necessary for most other applications. More B & W means higher cost without benefit of improving signal/acquisition/accuracy.

 

Competition between brands is stiff, and each is trying to out-do the other, but all of that hoopla will do nothing to improve what you want.

 

You want a high-sensitivity antenna, WAAS capable, and long battery life. Mapping would be a boon, but not absolutely necessary.

 

Though not often thought about, a hand-held is far superior to an in-car unit regarding durability, waterproof(ness), battery life and portability. There have been improvements as late regarding in-car units. Hand-held is still the best choice.

 

Geologist? No. I am a lapidary/rock hound, but there are many that think/believe I am a geologist.

[+CatchyCacherton]

I'm a senior level geology major with a minor in GIS at ISU if that counts...

 

I use a TomTom One 3rd Edition with TTMaps and make my own maps using ArcGIS, the USDA Spatial Gateway (download 1m satellite data in NAD1983 from 2009/2010), and GDAL on my iMac. I download a county or a few--then cut out areas I'd like to cache in and compress the maps using GDAL in the .ecw format which TTMaps likes. This lets me use a fairly outdated (4 years old) turn by turn system as a true picture 50m resolution device which displays tracking angle, keeps track of routes and paths, provides TONS of stats, and can import the GPX formatted waypoints with no issue. The only drawback is that there's only 1gb of memory--any other TomTom which can take an SD could be outfitted with TTMaps though.

 

My phone got GPS last year so I figured it was time to hack the TomTom a bit and it works fabulously! Its a touch-screen, very accurate, and the maps look very very nice. I'm able to fit the eastern portion of Idaho in 1gb, you can add/remove at your leisure. I've even super-imposed the topo and streets in a few of the maps I've made, and if you load topo's along with satellite and road maps which are all geo-referenced, the TTMaps can cycle through them with a screen push--very good for finding elevations quickly if the satellite image isn't telling enough. I've seen the TomTom One 3rd go for as little as $40 locally, can't beat that price for the customization capability.

Edited August 14, 2011 by shak3zula

[texasgeoman]

I'm a senior level geology major with a minor in GIS at ISU if that counts...

 

...

 

Wow, THANKS! I'm afraid, tho, that a lot of what you said is lost on me! TTMaps, satellite data in NAD1983, USDA Spatial Gateway, GDAL in the .ecw format, etc. etc. ....? I think at this point I'm more of a plug-and-play kinda guy!

 

Budget right now is not a problem, and I'm looking at a couple of higher-end units: Garmin Montana and Garmin 62st for example.

 

One thing I'm curious about ... many newer units use touch-screens. Everything these days is going that way, and it works well on Blackberries, tablets, etc. How well does it work on GPS?

 

Also, some units are described as "pre-loaded" with topo maps, and others say "additional maps can be loaded". What are pros and cons of "pre-loaded" vs adding later? How are new maps loaded? Do they reside on microchip or loaded into units memory?

 

Some units advertise 3Gb memory, others only 500 Mb... why the big difference, and what does it mean for the user?

 

thanks!

pau

[texasgeoman]

Most all of the brand name consumer-grade GPSr units will do what you want. Those steered towards geocaching have more bells and whistles than necessary for most other applications. More B & W means higher cost without benefit of improving signal/acquisition/accuracy.

 

Geologist? No. I am a lapidary/rock hound, but there are many that think/believe I am a geologist.

 

 

Thanks! (I wish more people believed I was a geologist!)

 

Yes, I'm planning to keep my Nuvi as my car unit, and want the new hand-held for hiking, field trips, and occasional geocaching.

 

Budget right now is not a problem, and I'm looking at a couple of higher-end units: Garmin Montana and Garmin 62st, for example.

 

One thing I'm curious about ... many newer units use touch-screens. Everything these days is going that way, and it works well on Blackberries, tablets, etc. How well does it work on GPS?

 

You mention "mapping would be a boon" but I'm not sure what that means...? Ability to view topo maps? Ability to make your own maps?

 

Some units are described as "pre-loaded" with topo maps, and others say "additional maps can be loaded". What are pros and cons of "pre-loaded" vs adding later? How are new maps loaded? Do they reside on microchip or loaded

into units memory?

 

Some units advertise 3Gb memory, others only 500 Mb... why the big difference, and what does it mean for the user?

 

thanks!

paul

[+geodarts]

Yes, I'm planning to keep my Nuvi as my car unit, and want the new hand-held for hiking, field trips, and occasional geocaching.

Budget right now is not a problem, and I'm looking at a couple of higher-end units: Garmin Montana and Garmin 62st, for example.

 

One thing I'm curious about ... many newer units use touch-screens. Everything these days is going that way, and it works well on Blackberries, tablets, etc. How well does it work on GPS?

 

At this point, it is a matter of personal preference. I went with the 62s because I like buttons. My friends like the Oregon 550. If the Montana had been out last year, it would have been tempting. . . . although for my uses, the size of the 62 works out well. My advice is always to go to a store that sells them all and see how each of them feels to you . . . All of these will do the job. The display, the size, the touchscreen, and how many bells and whistles you want (such as an internal camera) are up to you.

 

The preloaded topo maps are 100k resolution. All of the units support additional mapping, including more detailed 24k topo maps -- there are sources (such as gpsfiledepot.com) that offer free maps, including 24k topos, that would work with all of the garmin units mentioned. Maps can be loaded into the internal memory of the units or on an sd card.

 

Most of the commercial garmin maps can be purchased as a dvd to load unto a computer before transferring a map to the unit or as an ad card to put into the unit itself. The dvd option gives you a lot more flexibility since it allows you to load more than one map onto any one card and to update or backup the maps.

 

The primary difference in the memory of the unit is how much room you have for internal maps and data -- my unit has 1.7 gb free, but I store most of the maps and cache information on the sd card so I have never run into a problem with space.

 

All of these units will work better for caching with premium membership on this site. Membership offers you the ability to easily load thousands of caches on your unit and have much of the cache information -- descriptions, hints, past logs.

 

Since you are a geologist, I hope that you will look at earthcaching -- but welcome to the game.

Edited August 16, 2011 by geodarts

[+CatchyCacherton]

Check out this link:

 

http://datagateway.nrcs.usda.gov/

 

Regardless of what unit you end up with, the raw raster data for 1:24K topo, 1:100K topo, and 1m Satellite in MrSID formats are available for the entire United States at this site. You can simply choose the State and County and download the raw data in a big zipped raster file. You can use that with ArcGIS (or ERMapper, QGIS, MapWindow, etc) to make maps in a format that your GPS can understand.

 

I mentioned GDAL/TTMaps as that's the program that my TomTom runs to read the maps I make using ArcGIS. Garmin likely uses a different format, of which I'm not sure. GDAL is opensource software (the Geospatial Data Abstraction Library) which lets you convert geo-referenced information between various formats. ERMapper isn't free anymore, and TTMaps likes the .ecw format for maps--thus you can use GDAL to turn a GeoTIFF which was exported from ArcGIS in to an .ecw file which TTMaps can understand. This should be similar for any other format--your GPS unit will tell you which format it wants the maps in and Datum used (most GPS's use WGS84 or NAD83, but projections/datums are a discussion far beyond the scope of this conversation).

 

I'm always up for talking GPS/GIS/Maps. If you have other questions shoot me an email at shakezula at gmail.com!

[+gcfishguy]

<I'm planning to keep my Nuvi as my car unit, and want the new hand-held for hiking, field trips, and occasional geocaching.

......I'm looking at a couple of higher-end units: Garmin Montana and Garmin 62st, for example.>

 

Ditch the Nuvi and get the Montana. Check youtube for some videos about the profiles. Just search for montana and profiles. You select automobile profile and turn it landscape and it's a Nuvi..switch back to off-road and now it's completely changed the interface to be used as an off-road GPS.

 

Once you start working with waypoints (for geology, life in general, and geocaching) you'll likely find that having one device to waypoints and tracks organized will be far simpler than shuffling between two. This may not be an issue for you, but in my mind, having one device that does an excellent job of both makes sense.

 

I'm some close to selling my old 60CSx and getting a Montana.

 

Another plus for the Montana is the screen size. I believe the 62 has the same size screen as my 60, and the only thing I don't like about it is that it's too small. Fine for navigating on foot, etc, but I use mine a lot on my ATV. The area I live in has a ton of trails and I have them all on the GPS. If you're at point A and want to end up at point B, when you zoom out far enough to see both points on the screen, the trails in between are just an overlapping blob of nothing. You have to start at one point, zoom in, pan the map, zoom out, zoom in again, pan the map.... The bigger the screen (and higher the resolution), the more stuff fits on it. That translates into (in most cases) being able to zoom out far enough to see point A and B, but still being able to see the tracks and trails in between.

 

My father's a prospector and he says the same thing..once start getting a bunch of waypoints in one area (say, a string of soil samples) then the bigger screen really shines.

 

Things to consider....

[+Huntleigh]

hello World!

 

I'm new to the forum, new to geocaching, and trying to learn as much as I can. Am reviewing all the FAQs on "which is the best GPS unit", etc., and finding a lot of it overwhelming.

 

So, here is a more pointed question: What GPS brand/model would you recommend/use for a geologist who is interested in finding his way around field trip guidebooks (most of which include lat/long info for geology stops), as well as a geocaching tool?

 

Any geologists out there? THANKS!

 

paul

geoman@Lx.net

 

Straying off topic but as a tadpole have you caught up with Earthcaches yet? Earthcaches are 'virtual' caches at a site of earth science interest.