Jerry Mohlman wrote:
Is GPS really as good as it
sounds or are there things you don't like about it?


With all brands, have a backup plan for the day. You never know when the
satellites will stop cooperating with your unit. It is especially frustrating
when doing a large, complicated traverse to have the thing stop taking points
when you are almost done. Even the expensive Trimbles with software predicting
prime satellite reception seems mostly fiction.

I'd highly recommend lurking on the sci.geo.satelite-nav group for a
while. It's a bit garmin-centric but well stocked with gps pros. It's a
complex field. Just finding out if you're where WAAS reception is good
makes a big difference.

Until you get into the high-end of gps, you'll probably still be working
in the 3 meter uncertainty range. NOT good enough for a traverse but OK
for finding most features which would make it onto a quad and definitely
good enough to locate yourself on an orthophoto. The mapping part of
gps is a bit of a misnomer. Very few units are any good at making maps,
though most of the new ones have a map in them with varying degrees of
usefulness. They're best at street locations, even driving directions.
There not worth much off the road. The better ones are based on Tiger
line files and aren't well suited for foresters needs.

And location of babes was left out of all the models I'm familiar with.