RE: [Philmont] - GPS

> If you are marking waypoints yourself, and "stringing" them together, you
> are basically cutting corners and will end up with a significantly lower
> total distance that what was actually traveled.
> content deleted <

Sorry that it has taken me a bit of time to respond to this post. I was
hoping the discussion would have continued a bit more. I find this year's
GPS discussion to be an interesting turn from past years. The discussion
has been less of "is it worth taking a GPS?" and more of "how do I make this
thing useful". I'll try not to be too long winded, but here are a few
comments to chew on.

First and foremost, as several people have mentioned, it is important that
you get to know your GPS. I find that when I pick it up after a few month
of non-use, that there are several thing I need to re-learn. The more you
use it, the more useful it will become to you.

Develop a routine if you want to be successful. Learn when to turn it on
and when to turn it off. Learn when and how to do the various maintenance
tasks such as clearing data, resetting max values, etc. The better and more
routine your habits, the better your data, and the longer your batteries
will last. Some examples....I can store 10 tracks. Thus, every evening I
saved the track and cleared the current track (or else the data accumulates
and eventually writes over itself). I reset the max speed, etc., settings.
I set up the next days route based on the waypoints I had pre-stored.
Another example. When we got into a camp, I saved a waypoint. I tried to
follow a consistent set of rules. If the camp was staffed, I marked the
trail in front of the staff cabin. On trail camps, I marked the center site
that had camp site maps. I also marked camps that we traveled through. As
far as when to turn it on and off....turn it on BEFORE you are ready to
start hiking: otherwise, you lose data as it's trying to capture satellites.
Turn it OFF when you aren't hiking. My GPS, at least, has a habit of making
star patterns when it is still, as the various satellite signal strengths
come and go. Turn it ON if you need to get data.

How good is the data......I consider the data I get from my GPS as raw data.
It might give some accurate info on the microcosm, but it's difficult to
tell when the data is good, and when it needs to be worked. I find the data
is not that useful without dumping it to a computer and using some other
program to work on it. As I've posted before, my preference is TopoUSA. I
can take the tracks along with the waypoints I marked (which I assume to be
more accurate) and try to make sense of the data. I take out the above
mentioned stars. I fill in the missing data that Jeff mentioned. I try to
fill in switchbacks from the map -- BTW, I've found that switchbacks are one
of the worst areas of accuracy. Unless you pause at every corner and mark a
waypoint, the sampling will cut all of the corners and may miss some
switchbacks all together.

Batteries....if your device uses AA batteries, I highly suggest that you try
out Lithium batteries. They cost more, but....they are lighter (half), last
about twice as long, and work in cold temperatures. One warning, though.
Most battery meters don't handle lithium batteries. Lithiums hold their
power output much longer, but drop off very rapidly at the end. When your
device starts to taper on the power meter, time to consider a new set of
batteries. I made it almost the entire trip on one set of batteries. I
think I had to put in new ones for the last day and a half.

Well, enough for now. If there is any interest in continuing this thread, I
can probably come up with more to write.

David DeLano
Phoenix, AZ
Crew 124
Troop 5

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Received on Thu Mar 13 23:37:56 2003