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JUST HOW SERIOUS ARE YOU!?

N

Number9

New member
Sorry...
I just can't help showing a grin when I read about someone wanting to buy a new GPS with all the " 'bells and whistles'.
They want one that has all the maps... One that has the most waypoints... The most features possible!
THEN... they are ready to navigate to and from any point with their "one" brand new tool... WRONG!

Now, I'm not talking about using a GPS to mark a good fishing spot.. or to find a local drug store in an unknown town.
Using a GPS for "light reasons" requires "light navigational training" and can be a real convenience and a fun toy to have and a nice novelty to play with... but how serious are you? It's been said that a new GPS has gotten more people lost than anything in history! Don't let using a new GPS as your only navigational tool give you a false sense of security thinking you can go to very remote areas without worry. We all know the stories where someone was lost, only to be found dead within a short distance of a main road. This happens to often and this is as serious as it gets!

In remote areas, I use the GPS for only one thing... to help give me my "current coordinates". If you don't know your current location you may have a very hard time locating any other point you hope to reach! If I suspect the coordinates maybe wrong, I will turn on my second GPS to double check... I hate a GPS that doesn't tell the truth!
I also carry an accurate compass, I use the Brunton Pocket Transit.. it will point true! But, I also carry two more small ones just for a quick check along the way.
I print out several detailed maps of different scale, covering an area larger than a location that I plan to be in. I use Maptech software and each map has the UTM coordinates grid overlaid. Being UTM gives me a distance reference by being a grid of 1,000 meters square on any scale map printed.

No, you may not be real serious about hitting a 10 foot square section in the middle of a million acres of forest...night or day... in any weather?
I don't call this being "Serious"... I call it "Life Insurance"!!
 
Hmmmm..........

My seriousness in a GPS being my navigator is about a serious as my car stereo reproducing a live concert. Both get close enough for me.
 
Hey Hightone...

I guess the point I was trying to make is...

If you venture into very remote areas, you should also know navigation well enough to find your way out without getting into serious trouble! The GPS that you bought will tell you... "Don't use the GPS as your only navigation tool".
I had an old GPS to stop working! That is the reason I now carry two different ones. Buying a new GPS without understanding basic navigation can be real trouble in remote areas!
 
LOL..................like the people who have followed their GPS into a river (true story). I make sure I have an updated Rand-McNally Atlas everywhere I go.
 
Just ordered the upgrade for Terrain Navigator Pro (Maptech) and use it constantly to make maps for our SAR unit. Glad to see others are using it and UTM for land nav. Overlaying a grid with 1000 meter squares on your quad map is pretty useful. Our new GPSs are usually accurate within about 7-10'. The one 5 years old only got accuracy to about 30'. Truth be known, the accuracy of any GPS is a software algorythmthat is proprietary to a particular manufacurer and is not shared with the real GPS Garus to evaluate how valid EPE (estimated positional error) or DOP(dissolution of Position) measurements are. However, I have had students take three golf tees to test accuracy. Place one tee in the ground and mark waypoint. walk randomly to a second place and place the T in the ground. Repeat for the 3rd one. Do GoTo or Find each of the Ts and follow the GPS directions to a given T. At night, within a 100 yard area, folks were navigating within 2-3' to the Ts they placed in the ground. Recovered all the Ts. Jim
 
Hi Jim,

I guess I'm "Old School"?

I only use the GPS to help give me my current location and it must be the same and be correct to my location on my maps. I never trust a GPS 100%. To me, navigation is a combination of GPS, compass, maps... and common sense!
Anyone only using a GPS to find a location is really looking for trouble!!
 
I'll bet he flyson airlines and sits in the cockpit with his compass and charts and points... Seriously most modern airliners and pilots use GPS in conjunction with magnetic heading and charts for navigation. Always good to have more than one clue as to where you are, where your going, and where north is...

GPS like all other contrivances are subjects to failure, misuse, and simple over reliance. Still I use mine all the time and it works nearly 98% of the time. The other 2% is iffy...

Get a good unit and it will help to find Number9 when his compass get's thrown off by that magnetite hes walking over or the the little fridge magnet someone stashed in his shirt pocket... Overreliance on any contrivance can be to your downfall...

GPS is now used for surveying routinely and accuracies in the sub mm are possible with augmentation systems and decent monuments...
 
Hello guys I got a garmin 205w for xmas and I was wondering if I can metal detect with it in the woods and how it would work because there is no streets out there and can I use it going out on the ice to go ice fishing and will it take me back from where I came on the ice any help would be nice thanks
 
Nevi's capabilities of navigating outside of the roads is very limited.

In the Tools / Navigation / Route preferences options you can choose "off road". That will give you a straight line from where you are to where you want to go. Well, where do you want to go? You can set a place as a "Favourite" and pick that as a destination. It will give you a straight line to the destination and if you follow that line, you will get there so; you can get back to a place you came from. It's doable. It may sound as easy as with any GPS receiver but, it's not. You will not get precise compass directions, off track info and a gazillion other things as you can with receivers that are designed with wilderness in mind but, you can still do it. There are two steps to doing it well.
1. READ THE MANUAL
2. PRACTISE
And I did mean it to write it as "shouting".
 
Don't laugh... I have had a compass lie to me because I was over rock that had a high metal content! But, if the needle isn't stable on a Brunton,
you know something is wrong!
Oh well... if the sun is out, or the stars of night, then you're OK! Because they DON'T LIE!!
 
the only reasons i use on is to plot house places on an old topo or to plot a good place to look if i hadnt been before but want to come back
 
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