Posts Tagged ‘handheld’
Garmin Unveils Custom Maps for Oregon, Dakota, and Colorado GPS Handhelds
Got a Garmin Oregon, Dakota, or Colorado handheld unit? Now Garmin is offering the means to upload your own maps to the device. Garmin Custom Maps provides users the opportunity to transform either paper or digital maps into downloadable maps compatible with the aforementioned Garmin units. It sounds like a relatively simple process according to the Garmin press release, although it does require you to be reasonably computer savvy — and in the case of converting paper maps, to have access to a scanner.
¿Dónde Están las Setas? The Garmin Oregon 300 Mushroom Edition Has the Answer
Gee, where was this Garmin unit when I was in college? … *cough* *cough* … Moving on, yes, this is just what it sounds like: Garmin is offering a mushroom edition of the Garmin Oregon handheld unit in Spain. The Oregon series is the company’s line of mod, high-end, rugged handheld devices, all of which feature touchscreen displays, color base maps with shaded contours, and compatibility with GPX file formats, and all are IPX7 rated for waterproofness. So what’s with the Mushroom edition? As Garmin says, it offers: “El mundo de las setas al alcance de tu mano con este GPS multifunción.” Or as Google translation has it (I took French in high school): “The world of mushrooms at your fingertips with this multifunction GPS.”
EGNOS, the European SBAS, Up and Running
The European Commission declared EGNOS officially operational today — the Commission serving as the executive branch of the European Union, and that is your GPS Maniac civics lesson for the day — potentially good news for GPS users in Europe. Why do I say potentially? Well, among civilian users, whether or not EGNOS and its companion SBAS system in the United States, WAAS, actually helps or hinders consumer GPS receivers has been a subject of some debate among the user community for several years now. There are just as many opinions (and we all know what those are like) as there are users. Now, for the benefit of readers who are looking at this alphabet soup of acronyms and scratching their heads in bewilderment, let me back up do some ’splainin’.
Review: Apisphere’s Geomate jr. Is a Lean, Mean GPS and Geocaching Handheld Machine
Well, I was beginning to think that the fates were conspiring against me. Right after my Geomate jr. review unit arrived, I took it outside and it guided me to a couple urban geocaches within walking distance of my house — but these I had found before. A true test, I figured, should involve at least one cache I had never found or tried to find before. But this would involve a car trip out of the city, and every time I planned a day for it, something would happen: a meeting I couldn’t skip would get scheduled for that day, a torrential downpour would occur, things like that. As you can see from one of the photos below, one time I decided to hell with the rain and went out anyway, improvising a rain cover for the unit. Another time, I stubbed my middle toe — how does anyone stub their middle toe? — so bad it swelled up to twice its size and turned the most amazing shades of purple and red. Finally, I got to take the Geomate jr. out for some real caching. The quick and dirty verdict? I love this little guy.
Space Machine's PND-428A