Need help picking a GPS

[njjeepthing]

I know a few of you are into GPS's technology, I need some help cutting through all the information and picking a good solid GPS for a newbie.

We need a new GPS, ours is horrible, can't even find our own house half the time.

I'd like something portable that could be used in the Jeep, on a Mtn Bike, hiking, kayaking, etc, but still do regular old street GPS stuff. Something that can find trails in the woods, but find my FREAKING house too!

I've had my eye on the Delorme products for a while, the PN 40-60 series, I see Garmin has the Oregon, kinda similar.

What are you folks using, any recommendations?

Thanks you!

 

[PirateMcGee]

I have a delorme pn-30 (a 40 without the electric compass), they are by far the best deal in gps's. The mapping is awesome, it comes with a good topo software and for $23 a year you can download usgs quads (my favorite), aerial etc.

I use gps's a lot (magellens, lowrance, garmin) for my work and my delorme is my favorite. The only issue is they are very battery hungry so if you can swing it I would buy a pn-60 (were not out when I bought mine).

 

[rambrush]

I am partial to Delorme Products and software.
I have the Pn 20,40 and the Lt 40 for my laptop.
No real problems to report on them and been through the Topo 7,8 and 9 series maps.
The 60 with Spot has been out awhile and would thing they would be releasing a new version fairly soon but who knows.

 

[dirty Bakers]

One more for Delorme. I have been using my pn-20 for two years now, love it, built solid. Try megellan triton, big mistake.

 

[njjeepthing]

Are all of you guys using the Delorme's as multi purpose devices? Trail, street, hike, kayak?

Looks like it might be a good direction for me.

There are some good packages out there on these, some of them include different software it looks like. Any thing to stay away from?

And thanks for the replies so far.

 

[PirateMcGee]

Are all of you guys using the Delorme's as multi purpose devices? Trail, street, hike, kayak?

Looks like it might be a good direction for me.

There are some good packages out there on these, some of them include different software it looks like. Any thing to stay away from?

And thanks for the replies so far.

I use my Delorme for work, geocaching (paperless=yahoo), exploring, camping, hiking, rafting, street (not the best option as the routing is a wee slow and the screen is small but it does the job if needed), mountain biking etc. One of the best things is that the screen is easily viewable in sun unlike many other gps's.

USGS topos and aerial views on the gps are invaluable, I don't know how much I can stress that, but nothing else is close.

For work I use my pn-30 everyday to calibrate equipment in harsh conditions and to hike out to remote locations. It works awesome and has held up great to 40+ hours a week which is way more use than your average user would put it through. Plus it's been in hard rain, creeks, snow, heat, etc. with no cover other than a little peel n stick screen cover.

I would just buy the standard gps that comes with the topo software and buy the map subscription but post up some links and I'll let you know if they are worth it. Also if you happen to be a government employee (military, police, etc) I can give you a good link to get a great discount (pm me).

 

[deserteagle56]

I use a Delorme PN40 on the dirt bike, quad and hiking. It's a great unit for that, and can run off the 12 volt powerpoint on the bike and quad so no battery worries. But I don't use it in my big rigs because for one, my old eyes just can't make out at a glance what I need to see on that small screen. For another, it does not have an external antenna connection and so has trouble maintaining connection with the GPS satellites. In my van it won't pick up a signal at all. Also, if you want to use the Delorme to route you to some particular location, it's not so good at that.

So in my big rigs I run a Garmin Nuvi 5000 loaded with topo maps.

[/IMG]
You can pick one of these up relatively cheaply and then download free topo maps from gpsfiledepot. Follow the instructions on their site to load the maps onto the GPS unit. That gives you a big screen to view the topo map on. For free maps, they are surprisingly good. The Nuvis come with street maps that are routable; that way you will have both topo maps and routable street/road maps on one unit. My Nuvi 5000 has an external antenna connection (my understanding is that not all Nuvi units have this) which, combined with a cheap GPS antenna, provides a superb signal from the satellites in any of my vehicles, no matter where I mount the unit.

 

[MuckSavage]

njjeepthing....if you wanna try out my DeLorme PN-60, I'd be willing to meet up with ya somewhere between us (Wharton S.F.?) I'm out there almost every weekend looking for tupperwear in the woods.

 

[njjeepthing]

njjeepthing....if you wanna try out my DeLorme PN-60, I'd be willing to meet up with ya somewhere between us (Wharton S.F.?) I'm out there almost every weekend looking for tupperwear in the woods.

That be cool. I'd like to see how it works in the real world, we should definitly hook up for some exploring and a :beer: Dunno about that tupperware thing though!!

 

[MuckSavage]

It's cool. Hey, do you attend the njtlc.org meetings? I'll soot you a pm with contact info.

 

[rambrush]

I use my Laptop for most street and trail running the LT-40 is the gps of choice for that application.
Hiking, Geocaching or running plots on the property I utilize the PN-40. Today I used the 40 for caching and the EVO 4g phone for logging caches as I found them. This was very handy today