I've been prowling the corridors for sometime and thought I'd pop in and say "Hello"
and ask a question
I'm from every so sunny Cornwall and my camping/walking experience only extends as far as Moorland (Dartmoor & Bodmin) and coastal (SW coast path).
I listen and look in envy at the landscapes described that are so three dimensional.
I'm in the process of lightening my kit, but not at the expense of either being cold or not having a good nights sleep. I would never make a soldier
Presently doing the whole Akto / LC debate in my head
My question relates to GPS; from someone who has only used maps and has no experience of GPS. I wish to continue to use map and compass primarily for the enjoyment as I learn more about the environment I'm stumbling across.
Is there a simple, cheap device that only gives you a grid reference/co-ordinates and nothing else. Just for use in the event that I'm totally lost on the map. The smaller the better. I don't want it to do anything else, it'll just confuse me.
In my ideal world I wish my watch would do it
Anyway, thanks to all so far for some great advice that I've borrowed from others questions.
Garmin Foretrex might fit the bill. They do one that takes AAA batteries and one that has an internal battery that you need to charge - the 201. There's also the Forerunner.
I got a GPS60 not very small though but has a good quad helix antenna hence the larger size. YOu can get Garmins for £80 or 90. Alternatively look at the Lowrance units. Silva distributed them when I last looking into it. They are a big American firm that moved into the land and foot based outdoor GPS market. They are most well known for marine gps, sonar and marine fish finders for industrial and leisure users. THey also produce a lot of the electronics that go into other manufacturer's stuff. They are supposed to be bigger than Garmin and Magellan.
Lowrance do a cheap basic unit and when they hit the market it made Garmin drop the price of their base product to match (from about £130 down to £90 in one big jump). Just shows how much overpriced the big two were overpriced at the time. The Lowrance Go and Go II were actually better specced than the equivalent priced ones from the other two main manufacturers. More channels (better for reception), more track logs, more waypoints and generally a bigger memory (takes SD cards for some models).
Still Garmin are the market leaders if you have the money. Although Suunto do a watch based GPS that looks more like a watch than the square GPS shape rotated and strapped to your wrist like the foretrex / forerunner.
That's all I originally wanted a GPS for too, Blackbird. But, once you get used to them, they have other useful features, like being able to put in a grid ref, and the GPS will 'point' you in the direction of it as you walk along, and also show you getting gradually closer and closer to your destination, which is very handy in bad visibility even if (like me) your primary navigational tool of choice is still a map and compass.
Unfortunately, my collie ate mine, and now I have to borrow my cousin's one, at least until santa arrives.
I'd agree with Mick that if you're going to get a helper device it makes sense to do it (relatively) properly.
In practice it's quite hard work to get really lost on a map. If you'd rather not take extra gadgets as a Get Out Of Jail Free then the best thing is improve the map reading, specifically ways to relocate. I've found doing some orienteering is easily the best way to get more at home with maps, because you get lots of practice at finding things which are deliberately a bit tricky to find and keeping track of where you are is an integral part of that.
Start at the British Orienteering website, find out a bit more and look up a local club. Note that you don't have to run or be in any way competitive if you don't want to. It's still enjoyable as a solo "can i find my around?" exercise and with a bit of O-experience under your belt you'll be able to eke out far more info from a map than most folk do. Including where you are right now, or if you're not sure how to get somewhere you know.
If you go off-course, and it's very misty, dark and so on, it's very hard to relocate yourself, as I found out once (just before deciding to get a GPS, funnily enough!). It wasn't life threatening, I knew roughly and could get to safety easily enough, but a quick grid ref would have made things a whole lot easier.
I couldn't see more than about twenty feet in any one direction, it was howling with wind, wet and dark, and I didn't like it at all. Basically, I just couldn't see enough on the ground to work out where I was on the map.
So, I think as a safety device they have their uses, but always remember batteries can run out, water may bugger them up, blah-di-blah..!
and of course a gps has a track back feature so should the "investigating alternative destinations" get a bit too complex you can go back the way you came.
the garmin geko (green one) is small and light and works well. once you get used to a gps you realise what a useful little gadget it really is, so much more than just a "where am i". (like where's the car in the car park, this is where the caravan was before the hurricane, the tent is here for night time wandering after setting up camp etc )
