HikeArizona.COM

The world of GPS is always changing but prices have always seemed high and UNchanging. However, perhaps that, too, is starting to change. The Fry's (electronics) Friday ad (3/15/02) features a decent 'bottom end' Magellan for $77 on Page F3. Based on the ad's description, we believe this is a Magellan Model 315, one we have owned since June 1999. We paid $155 back then and the price (at least at Wal-Mart) pretty much stayed in that range even since. We were very confused (what else is new?) when buying a GPS back in '99 and perhaps posts to this topic can help newcomers to GPS make relatively informed decisions. Personally, we would rather take the advice of HAZ members than just about any other source.
If you spot a deal such as the one above and/or have time to review your own personal unit, this might be useful to other HAZ members.

OK, here's our review of the Magellan 315:

It's good as far as it goes. Its battery consumption is higher than advertised, especially when cold. It supposedly has a 'super sensitive' antenna but it sure has a hard time locating its satellites when it's in a forest or ANYWHERE near a rock ledge or in even a south facing canyon.
It seems like it takes forever to boot up and even longer to get an elevation fix. It's GOTO function is somewhat confusing, especially because it defaults to the 'MOB' feature, which is suppoed to help boaters find their 'Man Over Board.' You have to mess around with the unit for quite awhile to learn how to change its various defaults. We never have been able to get it to 'undefault' that MOB function. Clearing the GOTO is a tad cumbersome, too. Mostly just annoying. It gets its best signal when the unit is held vertically so we've had to rig a special container on the back of our pack to keep it in the position it prefers. Even then, it routinely loses its 'lock' and we never trust the mileage it produces while walking a route. Likewise, it uses so much battery juice we've decided to use it only for various important waypoints. Speaking of waypoints, if we are hiking in a forest (even a pre-settlement condition ponderosa forest), we need to find a REALLY BIG clearing to be able to get more than 3-4 satellites. This is not always possible in a forest and sometimes we find ourselves wandering around looking for 'GPS habitat,' i.e. somewhere the dang thing will find suitable for locating satellites. Yes, you can put custom lettering/titles on your waypoints/landmarks but it is time consuming and, once again, annoying. There are numerous other annoying features about this unit, too, that are a bit too trivial to recount here. That said, we actually LIKE the little bugger. We have settled into a 'relationship' with it that apparently suits us both. We only use it occasionally and rely more on the tried and true (pre-GPS) route finding techniques. It comes in real handy for collecting personal 'benchmarks' in any given area so that we know all of our major nearby landmarks even if we can't see them. Its biggest drawback is its worthlessness in a dense forest. There's no 'workaround' for that one. (Except avoiding dense forests, of course.) At the time we bought it, we felt it was worth $155 and so we'd have to say it's well worth $77 now. The old adage of 'you get what you pay for' seems to apply well to GPS units. High end Garmins, in particular, seem not to have the problems of this Magellan. But, then again, they cost a lot more. So, it's a trade off and, as always, know your needs BEFORE you buy one of these buggers. We hope some of the other HAZ members take time to post reviews of their equipment. Maybe ck1 will even do one of his fine articles. Also, we suppose there was once a topic on GPS on the pre-February HAZ website. However, it's likely that topic is 'history,' as Joe likes to say.

Well, hope this helps.

J&S in RR

I'm intrigued by the new Garmin Rino. It combines a GPS unit with an FRS radio, like those little Motorola rigs. Also will indicate location of another Rino unit which is "on the air" Two versions are available: one with 1 mb storage and one with I think 8 mb and a bunch of road maps, etc. The more modest version is now about $165 at the Cabela's website. I'm assuming the radio channels will permit talking with other brand FRS radios. -Randy

It's interesting that this topic resurfaced today. Earlier, my boss dropped a Garmin 12CX, still in the box, on my desk. It's one of the perks of being the first president of our office's newly established Hiking Club. He got it as a giveaway from some vendor (one of the perks of being a CIO).

Time for some field testing!!

Regarding the rhino, I'm holding off on buying one until they incorporate the cool features already available on other hand held radios.
The rhino uses FRS, which has a 2 mile range in a pefect world, but gets hard to hear about a mile away on most hiking trails in AZ. Recently available GMRS has a 5 mile perfect world range, which would be much more useful.
Also, the Motorola T6300 series radios receives the NOAA weather channels, has a electronic thermometer, barameter, clock, alarm, stopwatch and picks up FM radio (they also have an altimiter, and electronic compass, but the GPS part of the rhino should have that).
Put all that in a single unit and I'm sold!

It is a cool idea though, I like that you can send your GPS location through the radio, but at the current 2 mile range, you could almost yell to the person almost as effectively. I'd hold out on getting one until they reach their full potential (at least GMRS and the NOAA weather channels).

My $.02

Good points Daryl, but.......I haven't bought a new toy yet this week! : -Randy

I have used the etrex in the woods quite a bit and I did not have any trouble receiving signals.

I have an etrex Vista and love it. I found out that I don't really need all the bells and whistles. I would suggest all one needs is any brand with WAAS (wide area augmentation system) which will give better accuracy. I just tried in heavy tree cover on a recent backpacking trip and had no problem acquiring 6 satellites which gave me a very accurate fix. I have my unit set to read in UTM coordinates and print my NG Topo maps in 1:24000 scale with UTM grid lines. I only turn my gps on when I want to verify my position, (this saves my batteries), get the UTM numbers and locate them on my map using my Brunton Eclipse compass which has a neat little UTM coordinate overlay built in to it. It's very fast and very easy.

[quote="Mike"]It's interesting that this topic resurfaced today. Earlier, my boss dropped a Garmin 12CX, still in the box, on my desk. It's one of the perks of being the first president of our office's newly established Hiking Club. quote]

Now that's nice...