You still gotta have a map and compass though!
I really enjoy the thing. I save all the waypoints I might ever wanna find, if I'm out hunting, I hit MOB (man overboard, done by hitting goto twice) and walk away. Since I've saved the road junctions and campgrounds and other points already, after an hour or several of hunting, I can pull the thing out and turn it on and know where I am with respect to everything else. Most importantly, how to get back to the truck.
It seems to overwrite waypoints, so that if you re-use the same name your gonna lose the newer one. But if you have a bank of 100 to save and erase 50 from the Garmin, you can upload all 100 and overwrite the remaining 50.
When I get around to it I will install my waypoint files here:
I set the GPS in simulator mode to save batteries, I was not able to download current time. So the time on all the waypoints is screwed up.
A viewer wrote in and asked why do I like the gps-38 so much?
Here's how I responded:
I bought the GPS 38 at Popular last spring for $200 and considered it a bargain, now they're like $150.
It has like 250 "waypoints" which is basically a memory location.
It give sunrise and sunset at any location on any day, great when the hunting regs say 1/2 hour before sun rise...etc.
You can be driving along, or even walking if you hold the thing out in your hand (not nearly as uncomfortable in the desert as it seems it oughta be when you fondle it in the store) it'll show you direction and speed of travel.
It can give you location in various version of Lat and Long, i.e. deg, min, sec, or deg, min.0000 (this is what I use most of the time), or deg.0000, also UTM, which is one of the the texts alongside the edges of USGS topos, it seems to be easier to find a location using UTM, you can convert from one to another by stepping thru a few menus. You can set it up for odd-ball foreign survey systems too.
It'll tell you distance and bearing from any point (like where you currently are) to any other point, like the truck is 1.26 miles at 178 degrees.
If its on and locked, one button "marks" the point, its relatively simple to change the name of that point to "camp" or "elk-1", or "I17-69" (6 letters max)
Usually if I'm scouting an area, I mark every point of interest, like USFS road intersections, lakes, campsites, elk droppings, javelina sightings, what have you...
Later when I go hunting there, I have those waypoints and can find my way around, I DO carry a compass and a xerox sheet of the topo for the area (Mesa Library's got'em all, and a free xerox too!)
It always acquires in a few minutes standing out in the open, a little longer if obscured partially, sometimes, under heavy tree cover it cannot acquire or track, look for a clearing. It has a display showing what satellites should be in view in what area of the sky (satellite data is downloaded and stored and doesn't change much) So if you're down in a canyon, you can get an idea why its not working. Sometimes, if most satellites are to the south and you're driving north, sometimes it don't work so good sitting on the dash, other times it works great, you can be driving along and it displays your 75 mph speed, direction etc. When it first acquires, sometimes speed is off by 2 or so mph due to satellite nonsense, you can be standing still and it says you're moving.
It seems to get location within 100 yds or so, elevation is often way off, but with this unit, you are alway at ground level, so elevation's more of a curiosity. It seems to get better as it settles.
It draws a little map of where you've been while its been on, including nearby waypoints.
It'll last for like 10 or 12 hours on 4 AA alkalines, for several weekends, if you only turn it on occasionally. It has a battery meter and does NOT lose memory while replacing batteries. It will run with NiCads, or NiMH, although I have one set that is just a shade to fat to fit in, another set works fine.
A friend shot an elk near dark, quartered it by flashlight, and turned on his (another brand) GPS, determined camp to be 0.7 mile that way. He remembered that the place had lotsa curvy roads, but had no idea how to get his truck as close as possible. So he walked back to camp, got in the truck with Mr. GPS running and drove up and down roads watching the (stored, that's real important) waypoint of his elk, until he was 100 yds away. He never coulda pulled that stunt in the dark without the GPS.
I have heard that the Magellin hand-helds are more difficult to use, but I have never tried to use one. This took me an evening reading the book and a little playing, I have no trouble operating it.
Hope this helps, if I think of more info, I'll follow it up, I may even put notes like this up on my web site...(hunting - gps)
Eventually I'll get some photos up here....
More to come, visit again....