TrailManor Owner's Forum - View Single Post

06-19-2003, 11:10 AM

I have a Lowrence, it wouldn't be very suitable for your particular needs as mine is capable of MGRS, (Military Grid), which is what I bought it for. It has no maps of any kind on it, or anything like that, other than it can trace your steps back to where ya started from. The bottom line I learned when picking my particular unit though is plan on spending at least $200.00 on it if you want the highest accuracy possible. SA, (Selective Avalability) of the military satallites has been reduced from a football sized area, down to a tennis court area in recent times, but a poor choice going with a cheap unit, you'll be lucky to find something 1000 meters or more from what you're looking for. You see, the US government runs the sats all the GPS's run on, have a code on those sats, so that unless your GPS has that code, (i.e. military gps's, or what we call, "sluggers&quot

, the sats aren't immediately available to deliberately throw off civilian models. If you're heading down the road, trying to find a town, this might not at all be a problem, but if ya plan on finding that same sweet fishing spot, might be a different story. The Magellens are very good, and probably would have bought one if the models I had available supported MGRS. For what it's worth, the military "sluggers" that our troops use, simply output a military grid coordinate, and nothing more, and are accurate down to 1 meter. (Says a little about our "smart bombs", and the reason for "selective availability", doesn't it?) Anyway, point being plan on spending at least $200.00 on one, even if you do plan on using it just to find a town or whatever, the money will be well spent should an emergency come up such as a car wreck out on a strange highway or something where an ambulance might be needed. Basically, don't buy a cheap one, but don't break your wallet on a super expensive one with all the bells and whistles, $200.00 is the mark you're looking at. I've talked about this in previous posts, but thought I'd state it again for the newer people of this group that might or might not be considering buying a GPS, and don't want to sort through the thousands of posts just to "see" if there's anything already written about them. Hope this helps!

[glow=red,2,300]Happytrails.........[/glow]

06-19-2003, 11:10 AM	#6
Happytrails Guest Posts: n/a	Re: Hand Held GPS I have a Lowrence, it wouldn't be very suitable for your particular needs as mine is capable of MGRS, (Military Grid), which is what I bought it for. It has no maps of any kind on it, or anything like that, other than it can trace your steps back to where ya started from. The bottom line I learned when picking my particular unit though is plan on spending at least $200.00 on it if you want the highest accuracy possible. SA, (Selective Avalability) of the military satallites has been reduced from a football sized area, down to a tennis court area in recent times, but a poor choice going with a cheap unit, you'll be lucky to find something 1000 meters or more from what you're looking for. You see, the US government runs the sats all the GPS's run on, have a code on those sats, so that unless your GPS has that code, (i.e. military gps's, or what we call, "sluggers&quot, the sats aren't immediately available to deliberately throw off civilian models. If you're heading down the road, trying to find a town, this might not at all be a problem, but if ya plan on finding that same sweet fishing spot, might be a different story. The Magellens are very good, and probably would have bought one if the models I had available supported MGRS. For what it's worth, the military "sluggers" that our troops use, simply output a military grid coordinate, and nothing more, and are accurate down to 1 meter. (Says a little about our "smart bombs", and the reason for "selective availability", doesn't it?) Anyway, point being plan on spending at least $200.00 on one, even if you do plan on using it just to find a town or whatever, the money will be well spent should an emergency come up such as a car wreck out on a strange highway or something where an ambulance might be needed. Basically, don't buy a cheap one, but don't break your wallet on a super expensive one with all the bells and whistles, $200.00 is the mark you're looking at. I've talked about this in previous posts, but thought I'd state it again for the newer people of this group that might or might not be considering buying a GPS, and don't want to sort through the thousands of posts just to "see" if there's anything already written about them. Hope this helps! [glow=red,2,300]Happytrails.........[/glow]