GPS advice

[AZ-JIM]

Like many of you I use my GPS mostly for marking where I park my truck. Also for marking rubs, scrapes, water, etc. If I'm not actually using it I turn it off to conserve batteries. I've noticed that somtimes in a little tree cover it will lose signal anyway.

Always carry extra, fresh batteries
Always carry topo maps of the area you are in, or forest svc. maps minimum
Always carry a compass
Know how to use the GPS BEFORE going out in the woods!!

Several years ago my dad, my brother in law and I had an elk hunt. My dad bought my brother in law and I new GPS's, the unit wasn't the cheapest but by no means was it top of the line either. We decided to learn how to use them on the fly...bad idea. This particular model seemed to work fine; set truck location, head into the woods. Unknown to me, if you weren't traveling consistently at a fast enough pace, the unit would not track/update your position. The pace you had to go for it to function was just a little faster than you can trek up hills, over fallen trees etc. When I would get on flat ground again it would update and tell me I'm such and such distance and what direction to go. When you know you've gone past where you should have found the truck and the unit updates again telling you to go a different direction with more distance it starts to become a problem. I relied on a piece of equipment I was unfamilliar with, and with no map or compass, and not paying enough attention because "I have a GPS" and ended up lost. I was only 3 hours late for our rendezvous at the truck not to mention worn out.

Know how to use the GPS BEFORE going out in the woods!!

I have a better unit now and I know how to use it. It's a Garmin GPS12. It's simple, it works well, I can upload/ download waypoints to and from my topo software.

az-jim

[Artful]

OK, I'll tell my Garmin story - wife wanted to go visit "OLD TUCSON STUDIO" which is a movie set and museum down close to city of Tucson but not actually in the city - So I start typing in "Old Tucson" and bing a co-ordinate pops up suggesting that is what I want so I assume it is and say map it and off we go - we leave phoenix in the right direction and it takes off onto a two lane going west of Tucson so I "ASSUME" all is well and drive like a good german soldier would - follow directions the GPS gives turn here, speed up, slow down, turn there, told me turn onto a dirt road - now I'm not brilliant but I know a movie lot/tourest destination isn't going to be on a one lane dirt road but now I'm curious - wife is upset cause I want to see what's out there showing up as "OLD TUCSON" in the GPS - so after a mile or more on this rutted getting worse dirt track found a sign that really freaked the wife out so we turned around and went back to the highway and followed the tourest signs in.

CLICK it if you want to see how ICE protects US Territory...


Uploaded with ImageShack.us

I later talked with a friend (retired border patrol tracker) who basically said he wouldn't go in that area with out his AR and backup - so wife has good instincts

I'd still like to know what "OLD TUCSON" the GPS is alluding too but I'll do my research at the library.