• Why Buy a GPS?
• Overview of GPS Technology
• What About Perks?
• Extras That You'll Need
• Geocaching
• Shopping Suggestions
  

Convincing a backpacker to load on a piece of gear that didn't exist twenty years ago is hard. If you spend time on the trail every ounce counts, and anything you can leave behind gets left. A piece of new technology that weighs an ENTIRE POUND! (with batteries for a week, it can) had better be good. In fact, it better be essential--or entertaining.

I'd say that by now nearly every outdoorsman either has a portable GPS or wishes they did. For most of us, though, it is not essential equipment--map and compass are better survival tools that are lightweight and don't run out of batteries. Good woodsmen's habits easily outshine anyone's skill with a GPS, and experience weighs nothing at all.

In spite of that, the GPS has become standard gear for many; it's a fascinating and entertaining--or frustrating--tool that will only get better. For now, it's the mainstay of only a few--surveyors, geologists, prospectors, and archaeologists find it indispensible. Master the GPS and you can relocate any unremarkable location of the sort you'd never find again if you closed your eyes and walked fifty feet away. This has even become a sport--geocaching.

If you're a hunter or fisherman and you need to mark a favorite location without drawing attention to the site, a waypoint in a GPS will be visible to no one but you. If you're a hiker and you want a detailed record of your wanderings, a stored map with notes and directions home is in the little yellow box. For outdoorsmen it's a useful addition to wilderness gear, but with limitations.

The GPS, or Global Positioning System, is an amazing piece of technology of which the unit in your hand is only a tiny part.  Contributing to the utility of your little box is a vast network of satellites first established for military purposes--when you're lobbing bombs or artillery shells it helps to know exactly where you are and exactly where your target is.  The signals emitted by these satellites become public domain when they leave the transmitter, and any device capable of reading the signals and triangulating a position can use the network.  Your GPS does not have to sign in, and is not locatable by the network.  GPS technology is now standard in cellphones, allowing your position to be tracked in case of emergency--or in case somebody wants to keep an eye on your activities.  The GPS handheld is not a telephone.  Cell phones with GPS software will only work if they are in range of a network transmitter--wilderness areas often are not, so the GPS has not been replaced by AT&T's efforts to keep everyone in touch at all times.  You can still get away.

Years ago when GPS units first became available, many people expected them to be more than they really are.  With this much technology, they thought, you can't possibly get lost.  Wherever you are, the GPS will lead you home.  Actually you can still get lost.  The GPS has to be in touch with the satellite network, with three or more satellites at once, and the line of sight frequencies can be scattered by obstructions like rocks, trees, and buildings.  In rugged terrain you'll only have partial record of your movements, and the "home" arrow will point towards the shortest route.  That route, in rough country, will often be impassable.

Trusting souls went out the first couple of seasons with fancy new toys that led them into the wilderness and left them there.  I remember that year, when hiker after hiker equipped only with cell phone and GPS had to shrug away dignity and call the local rescue squad to come get them, as they sat and tried to figure out what the numbers on the GPS screen meant.  They knew where they were, within a few feet, but it didn't help.  A GPS in poor conditions creates a blank map with your position marked in the middle.  Sometimes that's not enough.

Oh how those of us who knew better laughed while helicopters plucked the technically affluent from the mountainsides . . . but quietly we were all thinking the same thing. I wish I had one of those things. It took awhile for the price to drop far enough that regular people could afford one. Then we wrote checks.

The early GPS devices, at real people price levels, were functional. Battery life wasn't great and the internal mapping wasn't detailed. No matter what anyone may say to the contrary I am sure that operation of the original Etrex from Garmin (which I still own) was not simple or intuitive. Five buttons provide what seem like an infinite series of functions, settings, options, page up and down and sideways, and multitudes of mistakes to make. Set a waypoint? Easy enough. Get out of that program section without deleting the map? Not so easy. Part of the weight of the device became the manual, and a good part of the hike was devoting to figuring the thing out.

Although the GPS is not yet perfect, a new sport has been created around it anyway--geocaching. If you like hiking and looking for secret treasures, you'll find geocaching a pleasant combination of both, and an excuse to use your GPS within its own limits. Geocaches may be located deep in the wilderness but more often they are placed in plain sight within an easy walk of parking, and much of the challenge is figuring out what went on in the mind of the person who created the cache. You don't need the most expensive system to play the game--even the most basic GPS will get you close to the buried treasure.

But as a survival system the GPS lacks dependability. It is a useful accessory to map and compass and provides hours of entertainment, so long as you keep the manual in your pocket. I've come to like my Etrex for other reasons--it's handy when I'm out running and want to know where the mile markers are, for example. As a runner's or biker's companion it's great, giving me updates on trip time, current and average speed, and in most cases recording a fairly complete map of my course, plus a measurement of altitude gained and lost. On country roads it does the things I expected it to do on hiking trails.

GPS is developing technology, moving faster than the marketplace does. New models go far beyond the abilities of the old Garmin Etrex, including electronic compasses that will work independently of the satellite grid, digital cameras which allow users to photograph landmarks and waypoints as well as record GPS location data, and even unexpected options like LED flashlights and digital voice recorders. Sophisticated software and increased flash memory provide detailed topographic and highway maps. Updates to operating systems can be downloaded from internet sources and installed by users. Some units have special circuitry which makes them more able to locate the network from partial cover, like forest canopy.

But not all of that is of use to everyone, and much of it comes at extra cost. An expensive GPS may come with minimal basic mapping software, upgradable to fantastic quality but for an additional fee. You'll need to make sure maps are available for the places you intend to go, as not all areas in the world are covered as yet. Cables required for downloading updates and software may not be included in the original package. The more complex units are also more difficult to master, with bugs to be fixed after they hit the marketplace. If you don't need the extras, a basic system is less likely to have problems, and it will be easier to understand and operate.

If you've ever bought a new PC game you know the drill.  You've paid a chunk of money, everyone says good things about the product, and when you run it you find out it doesn't work.  Maybe it's just a small problem, but it gets in your way.  Sometimes the company patches the software, and sometimes they don't bother.  You learn to live with it.

People found bugs in the Garmin Etrex and the company fixed them.  I've never encountered the bugs and didn't bother buying the cable I needed to download the patch.  Whatever problem hides within, it hasn't bit me yet and I'm not worried.

But if you buy a new one, understand that this is a computer driven system that probably hides flaws they never encountered at the factory.  Nobody field tests these things better than owners do.  The reputable companies will respond to consumer complaints and fix the problems.  Don't get angry--get vocal.  The more people who report the problems, the sooner they get fixed.