| Jack Erbes 2007-04-29, 7:33 am |
| ceb wrote:
> Hi, apologies is this is a common question but I did try to do a
> search first and found not much.
>
> I'm thinking about buying a new GPS and have a few questions-
>
> I use my GPS (currently a Mag Meridian Gold) for tracking routes for
> Dirt Biking.
>
> 1) As I'm going a wee bit fast to want to stop and make waypoint notes
> (e.g. left turn) every few 100 feet I'm wondering if any of the
> outdoor GPSs have a voice recorder in them yet?
I don't know of any that record voice dubs. But if you get one like the
Garmin 60/76 Cx/CSx handhelds you can record tracks with a pretty high
density of trackpoints (up to one per second or 100 points per mile).
If you download the tracks to the Garmin MapSource PC applications ( or
any of a number of third party applications) you can use the track to
place waypoints, edit their names, and add comments. If you then create
a route from those waypoints and upload it back to the GPS receiver
you'll have a route that you can follow from the GPS.
> 2) are any of the new GPS units allowing you to upload your own maps
> as basemaps yet or are they still pretty much proprietal to their own
> software? I want my local forestry maps as well as local Baja maps and
> the currently available topos don't do it for me.
There aren't really any that have an open architecture for mapping. It
is practical to make your own maps for the Garmins, they are about and
user-friendly as it gets as far as making your own maps. But making
your own maps will be moderately technical and require some investment
in software and time to do a good job at it.
Jack
--
Jack Erbes in Ellsworth, Maine, USA - jackerbes at adelphia dot net
(also receiving email at jacker at midmaine.com)
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