yep, its ironic, the money spent on search & rescue would likely far outway making these sort of items, PLB, EPIRB etc either tax exempt, or at least a rebate offered on some specific types of units.mudgee hunter said:
Advice on GPS units
- Thread starter Nofind
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Yeah I saw them on the net.Ded Driver said:
What do you think of it so far?
I like this little unit MH. for $58 ($50 +$8 p&p) its a handy gadget. it now stays in my 4WD along with the old-school brass military style compass.
A few seconds to set the home point, drip it in your pocket & off you go.
I have a good sense of direction, but its good peace of mind to have this in your pocket if you wander off into an unfamiliar area &/or dense bush.
A few seconds to set the home point, drip it in your pocket & off you go.
I have a good sense of direction, but its good peace of mind to have this in your pocket if you wander off into an unfamiliar area &/or dense bush.
The Garmin GPSMAP 64 series is a very good unit in the mid price range. Around $350 +or-
If you have a smart phone there are a number of useful GPS apps that are a viable backup to a dedicated GPS unit. Best practice would be to have a GPS and use the phone as a backup.
I like to have Memory Maps installed on my phone, with all the topo maps for NSW loaded. Battery life is no problem, I get two days out of my phone, or up to a week in airplane mode. The GPS still works while in airplane mode. It is quite useful.
I like to have Memory Maps installed on my phone, with all the topo maps for NSW loaded. Battery life is no problem, I get two days out of my phone, or up to a week in airplane mode. The GPS still works while in airplane mode. It is quite useful.
You're life is at stake with this technology. If something goes wrong with it you're dead.
I do use a Garmin gps but i have a backup. I take a reliable compass and i always know in what direction the highway is whether it's 5, 10 or 20 kilometers away. A water flask helps.
I do use a Garmin gps but i have a backup. I take a reliable compass and i always know in what direction the highway is whether it's 5, 10 or 20 kilometers away. A water flask helps.
Just done a very remote hike using GPS. Because of the thickness of the scrub (visibility 2m), speed was down to 1KPH. The biggest problem we had was using the compass as many gps require you to be moving above a certain speed. Impossible in the situation we were in.
I guided the group using a hacked Garmin https://www.prospectingaustralia.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=26353 which was the best for navigation. The Rhino had problems or was cumbersome with compass direction (admitably it was on it's first run(home grown satellite jnx imagery on this was poor)).
Turned out the best item we had for direction/compass was wrist mounted (can't tell you what it was). Even a proper compass failed, just spun in circles (The previous group who did the walk had the same problem with their magnetic compass)
,
Moral of the story, make sure you can find N without having to move to much.
Hacked Garmin and SASPlanet proved itself
I guided the group using a hacked Garmin https://www.prospectingaustralia.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=26353 which was the best for navigation. The Rhino had problems or was cumbersome with compass direction (admitably it was on it's first run(home grown satellite jnx imagery on this was poor)).
Turned out the best item we had for direction/compass was wrist mounted (can't tell you what it was). Even a proper compass failed, just spun in circles (The previous group who did the walk had the same problem with their magnetic compass)
,
Moral of the story, make sure you can find N without having to move to much.
Hacked Garmin and SASPlanet proved itself
condor22
Mike
Use your watch as an approximate compass in the southern hemisphere, hold it horizontal, point the hour hand at the sun. Half way between that point and the twelve o'clock mark on your watch points North.
If your watch is digital, a rough sketch on the ground will still give you a good approximate. You obviously need to know where the sun is, fortunately in OZ, there are very few days it's not obvious.
If your watch is digital, a rough sketch on the ground will still give you a good approximate. You obviously need to know where the sun is, fortunately in OZ, there are very few days it's not obvious.
condor22 said:
Unless your in a rainforest.
Cheers
Doug
condor22
Mike
True Doug, I suppose I get a bit blase, I've trained to navigate at night in jungle among others. There's always caveats attached to any methodology.....
Thanks Condor. We did discuss that. We ended up having unseasonal rain, never saw sun or shadow (one of the complaints, loss of the feeling of time because of sunlight). And the scrub we were in would not have allowed for it. Often visibility was less than 2M for km after km.
Many lessons were learned on that hike. Pics later.
Many lessons were learned on that hike. Pics later.
condor22
Mike
Mr Magoo said:
True, one learns every time, reminds me of the pea soup fog in the UK, when I had to feel my way on front fences on a 3 mile walk home after school cos it was so thick the busses stopped running.
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So the 66i is pretty nice.
I loaded open street map onto the device to get more comprehensive routing and trails, its far better than the included topoactive map for that.
I also exported some snippets of my QGIS mapping to KMZ files so I have them available on the gps as a layer - works very very well, though the export process is a bit of a pain in the butt in that you can only do it for the visible area of the map in QGIS. There may be a way to script this process in python for more efficiency. I found that a zoom of 1:5000 with a scale in the KMZ export of 2 yields good detail and size of the GIS symbols for use on the gps. You have to use the GarminCustomMap QGIS plugin to do this export. Ive included all the usual geovic data on top of google earth so I have high res satellite with geovic layered on top. :Y:
Its also possible to load point and vector layers as GPX files - this way you get selectable waypoints with data available on the gps. I tried exporting the shallow workings lines but couldnt get the GPX export to work in QGIS. I successfully exported waterways and loaded them into the base camp app but wow was it slow to load that - froze for over an hour on my fully upgraded 2018 MacBook Pro that can handle anything - so I think the base camp software is just not suitable for this amount of data. QGIS handles that and much more data without a hitch. I abandoned this effort and am happy with just the KMZ raster map exports. I can add specific waypoints that I want if needed and not bog down the device with 100k mine sites and geochem surveys etc - the raster maps are plenty good for in the field navigation.
The gps screen is excellent and easily readable in sun and shade, the interface is pretty quick with a bit of lag when loading my custom maps. Location accuracy is excellent. I havent used the inreach satellite messaging features yet as I havent been in too remote of an area this far. I plan to activate the plan on my next camping trip coming up soon.
Battery life is great, Ive only had to charge it once a over several full 6 to 8 hour days in the field (it came with 80% charge and I put it on charge at 20%).
Its really nice to have a compass that doesnt require you to move! Of course your regular analog compass does that, but it cant point you directly to the gold
I loaded open street map onto the device to get more comprehensive routing and trails, its far better than the included topoactive map for that.
I also exported some snippets of my QGIS mapping to KMZ files so I have them available on the gps as a layer - works very very well, though the export process is a bit of a pain in the butt in that you can only do it for the visible area of the map in QGIS. There may be a way to script this process in python for more efficiency. I found that a zoom of 1:5000 with a scale in the KMZ export of 2 yields good detail and size of the GIS symbols for use on the gps. You have to use the GarminCustomMap QGIS plugin to do this export. Ive included all the usual geovic data on top of google earth so I have high res satellite with geovic layered on top. :Y:
Its also possible to load point and vector layers as GPX files - this way you get selectable waypoints with data available on the gps. I tried exporting the shallow workings lines but couldnt get the GPX export to work in QGIS. I successfully exported waterways and loaded them into the base camp app but wow was it slow to load that - froze for over an hour on my fully upgraded 2018 MacBook Pro that can handle anything - so I think the base camp software is just not suitable for this amount of data. QGIS handles that and much more data without a hitch. I abandoned this effort and am happy with just the KMZ raster map exports. I can add specific waypoints that I want if needed and not bog down the device with 100k mine sites and geochem surveys etc - the raster maps are plenty good for in the field navigation.
The gps screen is excellent and easily readable in sun and shade, the interface is pretty quick with a bit of lag when loading my custom maps. Location accuracy is excellent. I havent used the inreach satellite messaging features yet as I havent been in too remote of an area this far. I plan to activate the plan on my next camping trip coming up soon.
Battery life is great, Ive only had to charge it once a over several full 6 to 8 hour days in the field (it came with 80% charge and I put it on charge at 20%).
Its really nice to have a compass that doesnt require you to move! Of course your regular analog compass does that, but it cant point you directly to the gold
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G'day all Just thought the members should know that the Garmin Rino 750 GPS/UHF has a UHF problem in that ch 40 receives a signal full time and if scanning all channels it will lock on 40 so useless if listening to the truckies. Sounds like Garmin don't have a fix as they told me to return the 2 units for a refund and if they sent replacements there was no guarantee that they wouldn't have the same problem. Has anyone else got these that work correctly?
Best way to navigate in the jungle at night, is not to! Dont move at night in proper jungle,, its not worth the effort, waste of time.
I would like a gps that is based on google earth or google maps, I dont know much about hand heads, can you down load google earth to a gps?
I really want a waterproof one as well.
I would like a gps that is based on google earth or google maps, I dont know much about hand heads, can you down load google earth to a gps?
I really want a waterproof one as well.
Google has threatened to close its search engine in Australia.
A week old news now but certainly made me think we may potentially loose Google Earth & Maps.
What I have noticed is if you have G-Earth opened and then are disconnected from the internet the program still works zooming in & out.
If there is an area on the maps you are interested in save it to screen shots.
Seems like Google is having a Love / Hate relation-ship with Dollars & Cents.
https://techcrunch.com/2021/01/22/g...alia-as-it-lobbies-against-digital-news-code/
A week old news now but certainly made me think we may potentially loose Google Earth & Maps.
What I have noticed is if you have G-Earth opened and then are disconnected from the internet the program still works zooming in & out.
If there is an area on the maps you are interested in save it to screen shots.
Seems like Google is having a Love / Hate relation-ship with Dollars & Cents.
https://techcrunch.com/2021/01/22/g...alia-as-it-lobbies-against-digital-news-code/
My computer tech told us to use a VPN then we can get any Google stuff we need as Google doesn't know where we're located provided the VPN is not an Aussie one, plugged into Nord and we can select a VPN from anywhere in the world. Seems to work, also good for security.
