Well I said I would post when I got my new GPS receiver and I’m only getting around to it now. I had a bit of time to play with it so I can post a few pictures of tracks I’ve done with it. First off, here is the actual unit:
As you can see, it fits nicely into the palm of your hand. Meant to be held in the left hand but can easily be operated with either hand.
It got delivered litterally 15 to 20 minutes before Amy and I headed out the door on our way to NB. As a result, I had to read up on it while we drove. I did manage to figure out how to reset the trip computer before leaving though.
Here is the track I recorded for our trip down:
The trip computer was cool. It will give you current speed, heading, distance travelled (odometer), moving time, stopped time, and a whole bunch of other stuff. One of my favourites is Max Speed…we recorded 148 kph on the way down. It’ll also give you a moving average speed as well as an overall average speed. I think our moving average was something like 107 kph and our overall was 101 kph. I’m not sure if you can save the trip computer data or not, I haven’t figured out how if it is possible.
The trip down took us just over 10 hours. The manual that I got with the unit said that batteries should last around 18 hours if operated in ‘battery saver’ mode, which is what I had it in the whole way down. I didn’t expect it to last the entire way back, but I was hoping it would.
As you can see, it died right around the Louis H Lafontaine tunnel in Montreal on the way back, which was right around the 18 hour mark for total operating time so I can’t complain about that. I don’t think we made as good time on the way back as we did on the way there. I know our Max Speed was lower. :)
Just for the sake of some more pictures, I took the receiver with me today when I went into work. here is the track:
and here is the way home, which is pretty much identical:
Take a look, the tracks don’t match up very well with the highway that is on the map I imported my data to. I tend to think that the map is less than perfect even though I know the accuracy with the receiver is just under 3m at its best. Take a look at this one which is a close up of me going into and then leaving work. Look how far off the highway it shows me:
There is a setting in the GPS which says ‘Lock on Road’ which I currently have turned off, but I don’t think that would have made much difference. That would have probably made the track point lock onto the road on the basemap that is on the unit itself…but that map isn’t the same as the one I downloaded my track data to. I did take a look at the map on the unit itself and the track matches up pretty damn close to the road – definitely not as far off as what is shown in the pictures above.
I’m looking forward to trying this baby out on my next flight. I have to decide where to go first though.