Oh, I forgot to mention one of the critical reasons for getting a new
GPS unit. Mountains. I'm definitely running into issues with getting
good solid location locks here in the mountains. Even our vehicle GPS
will jump around a bit in our valley. When hiking out at the nature
center, I'm lucky to get three satellites in view and it's not unusual
to get relocated by 1000 feet or more. It messes up people's activity
monitors!
I've got some hikes planned this year that will be GPS intensive. I'll
make do with what I have (printed out TOPO with eTrex and the Note3
with cached tiles), but it's definitely a multi-device solution to a
problem I would prefer not to have. One of the major hikes I'm going
to do is off-trail in a slide area. The routes change every year and
with the scree, the path going up may not be the path coming back
down. This one particular mountain has experienced multiple avalanches
this winter and everything is different than last year. But it's all
about the pictures. :)
Another issue that I've been running into with the repurposed Android
devices is elevation accuracy. It's rather interesting that the phones
are always off on GPS elevation. Sometimes by a few feet, sometimes by
a couple hundred feet. The old eTrex is usually good to about 15 feet
(5m), but will lose lock too easily. The Garmin will let you know what
the variance may be, but the Android devices will just jump around on
you--usually. Depends on settings. The Garmins are definitely better
behaved.
The GPS in the Canon 6D is even more easily deceived. I can take a set
of shots from a single location (tripod mounted) over a period of a
half hour and the image locations can be spread out all over the
place. I've even had it locate shots a mile away. It can take it near
forever to get a lock too.
Turns out that the Chugach Mountains in our area, and down on the
Kenai Peninsula are particularly rough on GPS accuracy. The valleys
are narrow, the mountains tall, and the steep slopes angled just right
to cause signal reflections. Down by Portage/Whittier, it's especially
bad. And the weather there is ALWAYS foul.
Just reading MikeL's note on the Montana. That's one that I'm looking
at. I like the feature set and the display size is definitely big for
hiking, but about right for multi-use (driving).
AG Schnozz
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