: can anyone give recomendations on gps units? what to look for? what to avoid?
: brands? make and model? price range?
: i'm planning a longish trip for next summer and the s-o thinks i should not
: leave home without one.
: tia
: daren.......

I went shopping for a GPS 2+ years ago and bought a magellan 315, which I enjoy.

Then and now: At the time the base GPS units were around $100 -- they still are. Obviously you can go up from there -- and I have yet to find plans for building one.

The big feature I was looking for was the ability to import new materials into the GPS. for that it needed a computer interface. At about $150 the 315 was the least expensive model I found at that time which would do so. Functionally it is very much like the model that is $50 cheaper (the gps 12) and it is the same size.

To attach it to the computer you need their cable and their Data Link or Map and Track software.

Depending on which cable you get this can be about $60 to $80 more. I rarely use the software, but it would alow me to download maps from a CD into the GPS. Obviously the maps are going to be the ones that magellan supplies.

However, there is one feature I read about in the instructions and I have not yet had the time to play with. With their software and a scanner you can scan any map and download it into the GPS. ANY map! This cna be a hand drawn scrawl or a topographic map. As I read the instuctions, you just need to have two known reference points (longitude and latitude or UTM ) on the map which is scanned. I assume that from this information the software can scale the scanned image to fit the screen of the GPS.

Data communications seems to be just one way. You can send stuff from the computer to the GPS, but there does not seem to be an easy way to save the info in the GPS back to the computer. the long slow way is to go through the list of waypoints you have stored and copy the information over by hand. A friend with the same model of GPS was thinking of writing a program that would access the stored data in the GPS, but I have not heard of any progress on that front.

The GPS315 has a preloaded set of data about cities around the world. When you load in new maps or other data that original information gets wiped to make room for the new stuff. the CD has a copy of the original data and you can later reload it. The GPS 325 is the same thing as the 315 but it has a preloaded set of data that relates to maritime locations. I haven't checked to see if that original data is also on the CD. If so, then it makes no difference which model you buy as you could swap databases at any time.

Manufacturer claims about 20 hours of battery life from a pair of AA batteries.

HAH !

Figure 8 hours. If you are lucky you'll get only 4 to 6 if you use the thing at night and keep the LED backlight glowing all the time on the display.

I keep the thing in my car and use the 12 volt cable, which plugs into the cigarette lighter socket. (I bought the combined power and data cable so theoretically I could run the map software on a laptop and feed GPS info from the receiver) I'm real happy with it for driving 95 percent of the time. The other 5 percent I get back reception, and a good deal of that is due to geography and road locations. These things don't work in underground garages. I would not suggest them for spelunkers. In camping I've had some glitches when surrounded by tall trees.

PGJ