Hi,

I am off to Marocco in Spring of next year to travel some of the off road trails amongst other things.

I am usually a map only kind of navigator, but, as I have Chris Scotts book and it gives GPS waypoints for the pistes, I would like to back up my decisions on some known GPS fixes.

I am trying to revive a 16 year old Magellen GPS at the moment, but as it hasn't been switched on for over 10 years, I think it considers itself to be on Mars. (been on the roof for a day and it isn't finding any satelites).

So I might have to buy a GPS. Not wanting to spend anything big, but I would like something very simple that just gives me a position.

I know I can do thsi with my android phone, but I could do with something seperate and wetherproof.

Is there something cheap out there that does deg, mins and secs?

Cheers Dudes

Dave

a used garmin nuvi will be sufficient. You can find them on ebay for cheap. They are durable and have a full suite of features. Their satellite sensitivity is very good. Combine the nuvi with the free Garmin Basecamp software and you will be able to preload all the waypoints into the nuvi.

Dave:

You might as well toss that 1998 GPS in the trash, or confine yourself to using it as a paperweight.

There was a GPS 'Week Number Rollover' in 1999 that required a software update for GPS receivers to continue working past 1999. If that software update has not been applied to your device, it is rather unlikely that you will be able to find and download the update. It is rare for an electronics company to continue to provide support for devices beyond 10 years or so.

Even if your device has the week number update applied, the battery is probably shot. Hence it would be much cheaper and far less troublesome for you to go and buy a used device off of eBay or some similar place. If all you want is display of latitude and longitude, almost any device would serve the purpose.

If you have a smartphone, you might find that it also has a GPS device inside it and can display latitude and longitude for you (it won't need a cell phone connection to do this).

As for formatting of the lat/long (degrees, minutes, seconds, etc.), you can usually configure the formatting on the device to display in the notation you want to use. See post number 4 in this discussion for more information about notation display:

Changing N xxx W xxx into x.xxx,-xx.xxxx ?

Michael

I never knew about the rollover thing in 99 but my Garmin GPS2+, bought in 97 and never updated, worked perfectly until I filled it full of water in a rainstorm about three years ago.

About ten yrs ago I used it for waypoint navigation across various bits of West Africa, something it did very well, but loading the waypoints in was awkward (to say the least - it would have been quicker to get lost and ride around at random trying to find the route). Plus it took quite a while to find the satellites from cold. Anything modern will be much better.

A smartphone (with some means of charging it) will do the job a lot better if you find a suitable Lat/Lon app. My iPad mini nav app usually locates itself in 20-30 secs even if its not been used for weeks whereas the old Garmin could sometimes take hours.

Never followed any of Chris's waypoints in Maroc but a few of them in Mauri were not where they were supposed to be (if that makes sense). Probably a map datum error on my part.

My 2 pence if I may. There are many choices out there including second hand units but at a risk-
For a modern unit which should serve you a long long time, have a look at Garmin's Etrex 10- Part Number: 010-00970-00specs here
A nice simple unit, rugged, waterproof, with twin gps and glonass receiver.
It does not have micro sd card facility, nor maps aside (from a pretty useless basemap), nor any internal memory. For £99 it is a good deal remembering that it very limited in its capability- Only you can decide if these are enough.

But for the little extra- I'd chose the Etrex 20- specs here as it offers micro sd capability so you could load Olaf's free Morocco map on there ( ands others like OSM etc) and 1.7GB internal storage capabilitity for maps/waypoints etc.
Don't underestimate the usefulness of some useable memory and ability to add maps and other data files.

Thanks for all of your advice.

Funnily enough after a day on the roof, the Magellen did manage to get a fix and was tracking 5 satelites. I thought I was in there, but then remembered why I sentenced it to life in the drawn after waiting 10 minutes to get a lock the next time I switched it on.

given the GPS on my smart phone will lock on to a good 14 satelites in less than an minute. I think the old fellow can go back in his draw.

The only thing about using the smarth phone gps is that I don't want the phone out and about getting rattled to death.

I am kind of half sold on Bertrands thoughts about getting something to download maps onto but I still feel it is a little cheating.

Over may years I have learnt to read maps, contours, the sun/light/my watch and part of the journey to me is the map, but I may just have a gps running along in the background. As first said.... Old-ish school navigation!!!

Go for it. There is to me at least a real interest and satisfaction in getting across a landscape using "natural" things like the sun and the earths magnetism. When my skills are lacking the GPS avoids pain. In a city centre the phone let's you get to the bar in time.

Andy

Hi Andy:

Yeah, I agree with you about that satisfaction. My experience has been that the nice warm glow of accomplishment lasts until about 30 seconds after I realize I am lost. At that point, I revert to technology.

(just kidding you)

Michael

Well, I bought myself a cheap Garmin nuvi 250 for £25 and after a lot of internet learning I have got the OSM Morocco map and the Olaf map loaded on card and internal memory so I can switch between the two.

I've got the Garmin Base camp on my computer and am going to start planning a few routes. I see OSM is great for towns and Olaf is great for the trails but I seem to remember that someone was talking about getting fuel points and accomadation on Olaf's map.

Is that an add on or am I missing something.

I can't beleive how far I have got over the past few weeks thanks to everyones help. I can't say I am proficient, but I'm no longer terrified by Sat Navs!

I keep telling myslef that this is only for back up, but I have soon realsied it is going to take a lot of guess work out of the journey and hopefuly prevent me from a brain overheat whilst working out the pistes. I really do the use of it now.

Cheers Dudes

Agreed. When all is said and done, GPS navigators are basically 'stress relievers'. We can certainly live without them (the whole world did until about the late 1990s), but life is easier with them.

Enjoy Morocco!

Michael

I'll be interested to read how you get on with it all -- all in due course.

I've been along this road, figuratively speaking, with an old Nuvi 205W.


Quite a few people prefer mapsource to basecamp, even though the latter is newer.
There are lots of posts about such things elsewhere in here.

__________________
Dave

All you really need is a magnetic personality! and you'll be fine-
Just look how far the Vikings got!

Olaf doesn't have an add on for POIs but it does have some already loaded. Use it with the OSM and you'll have everything you'll need for Morocco, I've just got back using the same combination

Osm is getting better with pistes and tracks and where it has them they are much more accurate than Olaf which is getting old

If you need any advice on Morocco , routes or otherwise ask away

It doesn't look like you can get mapsource any more from garmin and even if you can, I've just spent 2 hours reading the insturctions for basecamp, so basecamp it is!!! I can allow computer things only so much of my time

It seem useful enough and will do the job. I really don't want to be tied to itienry or the route, and I am concerned that I will tie myself to a route I am plotting now which I know is so wrong. I am going to need a little more time to work out how to change tracks on the hoof.

20 years ago I spent 3 months going coast to coast and back in N America taking what looked like the most interesting road at many a junction. It was only at night I would get out the road atlas to get going in the right direction.

Now I have time constraints, so I need a bit of a better idea of where I am and how I can get back. So htere is another challenge, but so far so good, we're getting there on my miserley budget.

I'm hoping Grant will give me space to write a blog when I go in April next year. Not that I am going anywhere where no-one else has ever gone but because I like to write about travelling and things just seem to happen to me. my last blog to Sarajevo was really enjoyable to write and was full of 'events'!

I'll keep you informed on the joys of the nuvi 250!

go easy dudes

I look forward to hearing of your experiences.
And genuinely, I have walked this road, a little ahead of you and I am with you in everything you have said in your last post.

Apart from that bit about Mapsource: somewhere I found advice about how to get a workable copy of it - the most recent versions issued right up until Garmin sacked it were not good apparently.
I may have found that in here, I just can't remember but no worries, you have base camp.

__________________
Dave