To start off, let me make this disclaimer: I am not asking a "what's the very best..." type of question.
I am seeking a GPS that not only shows contours, but also shows faint roads and trails, and will select a line following the roads, rather than direct straight line routes.
So, heres's the explanation and situation.
Given: 1. My wife and I spend a great deal of time in the back country out west. We know the area pretty well, in the country we do most of our time in. Been on most of the roads out here, and know what lies beyond. General directions to certain places or landmarks are not a problem for US (some of the drivers are wives of pilots, experienced but not familiar with our area).
2. We have a Tom Tom GPS, which has NEVER shown anything off the main paved highways, and a Garmin 550T which shows every contour but only gives direct line routes, never sticking to roads, (unless I buy the added mapping program, which I may do).
3. We have all the maps except the Topo maps for this region (Forest Service, and county road maps, and the Gazeteer), and can actually do that if need be, since we cut our teeth on that (topi and compass) in the Sierra 40 years ago, and I was an Infantry Medic before that with that certain year in the A Shau environs.
Now the Situation: We were chasing a hang glider this last week. He is known in his community of pilots as the guy who goes cross-country, but when the other cross country guys say it about him, they emphasize "Cross-Country". He lived up to it.
We were driving his Subaru (good 4 wheel, but low-belly for those kind of roads) We'll take care of that next year. He has to bring his truck.
Inside is a 50 watt ham (but not keyed into the repeaters, another thing we are going to change, so we can talk to him when he is on the ground) and a Nuvi GPS, which while it didn't show contour lines DID show every single little two track and gave us a good route on those little roads to get to him.
Also, when we picked him up, it wanted to show us direct paths (on roads but not the way we wanted to go generally) off of the route that we knew was better. After picking him up that was a bit of a struggle.
We used the Gazetteer to compare notes against the GPS, and that helped ALOT.
I can dictate the type of vehicle we use for the next trip, and I can dictate that we use the repeaters, but I want my own GPS.
What suggestions for where to start so that we get one that keeps us on a track (not straight across country) and so that we can see the roads, and terrain.
I need a nice big color screen, a computer that actually thinks, long battery life, ability to hook up to 12 volt or even possibly 120 for charging (I said Possibly, not required), and any other things (features) you might think are needed due to personal experience Such as memory of tracks (sometimes called bread-crumbs) for back-tracking, and an ability to choose alternate routes.
To give you some idea of where we were, We picked up the pilot and his kite at W 42.55.40.64, N 119.26.17.03 at 5279 ft Alt.
We continued driving east since the roads THERE were so bad, and rejoined a paved road some 5 hours after we picked him up, exactly 1202 AM. He landed at 5 PM, We got to him at 7:15.
The two track we followed was so bad, we scraped and bounded all day. good experience, but I need a better GPS.
Also, is there a way to look at google earth when I have no cell signal?
Any suggestions for where to start?
Never mind, I solved it entirely. Simply and for less than 8 bucks.
I am seeking a GPS that not only shows contours, but also shows faint roads and trails, and will select a line following the roads, rather than direct straight line routes.
So, heres's the explanation and situation.
Given: 1. My wife and I spend a great deal of time in the back country out west. We know the area pretty well, in the country we do most of our time in. Been on most of the roads out here, and know what lies beyond. General directions to certain places or landmarks are not a problem for US (some of the drivers are wives of pilots, experienced but not familiar with our area).
2. We have a Tom Tom GPS, which has NEVER shown anything off the main paved highways, and a Garmin 550T which shows every contour but only gives direct line routes, never sticking to roads, (unless I buy the added mapping program, which I may do).
3. We have all the maps except the Topo maps for this region (Forest Service, and county road maps, and the Gazeteer), and can actually do that if need be, since we cut our teeth on that (topi and compass) in the Sierra 40 years ago, and I was an Infantry Medic before that with that certain year in the A Shau environs.
Now the Situation: We were chasing a hang glider this last week. He is known in his community of pilots as the guy who goes cross-country, but when the other cross country guys say it about him, they emphasize "Cross-Country". He lived up to it.
We were driving his Subaru (good 4 wheel, but low-belly for those kind of roads) We'll take care of that next year. He has to bring his truck.
Inside is a 50 watt ham (but not keyed into the repeaters, another thing we are going to change, so we can talk to him when he is on the ground) and a Nuvi GPS, which while it didn't show contour lines DID show every single little two track and gave us a good route on those little roads to get to him.
Also, when we picked him up, it wanted to show us direct paths (on roads but not the way we wanted to go generally) off of the route that we knew was better. After picking him up that was a bit of a struggle.
We used the Gazetteer to compare notes against the GPS, and that helped ALOT.
I can dictate the type of vehicle we use for the next trip, and I can dictate that we use the repeaters, but I want my own GPS.
What suggestions for where to start so that we get one that keeps us on a track (not straight across country) and so that we can see the roads, and terrain.
I need a nice big color screen, a computer that actually thinks, long battery life, ability to hook up to 12 volt or even possibly 120 for charging (I said Possibly, not required), and any other things (features) you might think are needed due to personal experience Such as memory of tracks (sometimes called bread-crumbs) for back-tracking, and an ability to choose alternate routes.
To give you some idea of where we were, We picked up the pilot and his kite at W 42.55.40.64, N 119.26.17.03 at 5279 ft Alt.
We continued driving east since the roads THERE were so bad, and rejoined a paved road some 5 hours after we picked him up, exactly 1202 AM. He landed at 5 PM, We got to him at 7:15.
The two track we followed was so bad, we scraped and bounded all day. good experience, but I need a better GPS.
Also, is there a way to look at google earth when I have no cell signal?
Any suggestions for where to start?
Never mind, I solved it entirely. Simply and for less than 8 bucks.
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