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Garmin GPS Experiences 01
This is a report about Mr Thomas's recent upgrade to a newer model of GPS.
As readers of this web site know Mr. Thomas spends most of his free time hiking the outdoors of northern Arizona. This activity is a blend of archaeological mapping of ancient cultural sites, absorbing the beauty of the natural history and a personal pilgrimage relating to his own past and alternative healing. From all of this comes useful data that is shared with professional archaeologists, native plant ethno-botanists and inspiration for many of his visionary paintings. For several years he has carried with him a basic pocket version of GPS, in a unit by Garmin.
The Geko 201 is as basic as you can get but it did the job well, pinpointing over 500 archaeological sites recorded by Thomas since August 2005 when he began to record his discoveries officially. The archaeological office of the Coconino National Forest confirms that more than 80% of his discoveries are heretofore unrecorded.
Here, for example, is a cave used as a shelter perhaps a thousand years ago. Wall stones, amendments, remain intact even today and are visible on approaching.
These deeply incised petroglyphs, including a swastika, are nearby. And painted onto the ceiling of the cave are many beautiful and colorful pictographs.
Having a GPS unit to record these archaeological discoveries proved indispensable.
So, in May of 2009 Thomas began shopping for some improvement in his GPS.
Thomas was attracted to the new Delorme PN-40 GPS unit when he began looking into what's available. First, it is less expensive when all is added up. It includes background topo maps and satellite photos of high quality, according to all of the reviews we could read. The company has an incredible demo video and tutorial on their web site. The bright color would make it hard to lose and the button arrangement is appealing. This was, in fact, his choice in the beginning.
But Thomas is a MAC computer user, as the graphics on this web site attest. Just a little inquiry into specifications and it was confirmed that Delorme is PC all the way. Worse, Delorme is the only manufacture completely incompatible with MacGPSPro software, a software bridge between the Mac and several GPS brand names on the market. It isn't supported. Period. At this time.
Emails to Delorme confirmed that the GPS unit does not arrive with the background maps installed. They must be downloaded using a USB connection and a PC, only.
One last attempt was made to overcome these issues. We visited local outfitter stores here in Flagstaff and found the product for sale in town. What we also found is that none of the store employees would allow us to open the box allowing us to touch and feel the product. It might have made the sale. It didn't happen.
So, with Mac compatibility still a highly desired part of the deal we continued shopping, online and in local stores. Besides MacGPSpro as a bridge Garmin also makes claims about being Mac friendly. Interestingly, their Macintosh section on their web site has no visible links from it's home and product pages. You have to use a Google search to find them, then bookmark them. This is not promising but it makes us feel better.
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After much deliberation which included looking at GPS units owned by friends and others who also do archaeological mapping we decided to purchase a Garmin 60Cx GPSMap unit. We bought it online.
The product arrives in a professionally designed box with corrugated compartments for the GPS, the owner's manual, the USB cable, a lanyard, a belt clip and more.
Moving up from the small Geko unit meant also moving up from AAA batteries to AA batteries, same as he uses in his SONY digital camera. Since this meant recharging batteries between each outing Thomas decided to upgrade the whole operation and also purchased a new NUON Battery Recharging unit. To kick it up a notch he also purchased the highest quality POWERX batteries possible, 2700 m A hours.
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Examining the unit, with owner's manual in hand, was the first thing to do.
Here is the unit with the back waterproof cover removed exposing where the AA batteries reside. In this photo is also revealed one of the mysteries of the model 60Cx -- the 65 MB SD memory chip. More will be reported on this once we understand it better. Great claims are made about additional map data we can now purchase and install into this miniature storage device.
Here. for example, are some actual GPS screen shots from two popular Garmin models. Again Garmin saves the best for its buyers of the more expensive models, as these comparisons reveal. The picture on the left claims to be how our unit will look after we have added the local topo map using the SD chip. It is advertised that this map data can be downloaded from the internet, purchased on a CD, uploaded to our unit via the USB cable or purchased preloaded on a new SD chip.
While we drool over this possibility we will first learn to use our new GPS as it is.
Newly charged batteries in place, our first start up was quick and efficient here in the middle of town. Full strength connections with all but two satellites occurred within two minutes. This is pretty good for first time in a new location.
We have a very positive first impression of our new GPS unit and we'll add reports on our experience herein as they happen. We know how we looked around when we were doing our research. We got tired of finding web sites with duplicated text from the manufacture's sales copy, telling us nothing new. The non professional photos and the anecdotal comments helped us the most. Hopefully we can pass on the favor. JV
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