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Hand Held GPS for Birding (1 Viewer)

Birdbrain

Birdbrain

"Birders do it in the Field"
United Kingdom
Sorry if this is in the wrong thread, but can someone put me straight, which is the best hand held GPS for out in the field?

I have a Garmin Legend and its ok but I am after one that has better maps and compass.

Been looking at this one,
http://www.uttings.co.uk/Product/491/100925/garmin-oregon-400t-handheld-gps-unit-ga92

Garmin Oregon 400t Handheld GPS Unit from Uttings for £249 so what do you lot think?

I only want to spend around £250

Any info would be fantastic :t:
 
Hi, I have a Garmin Oregon, which was dear enough, then had to buy my local National Park map which was another £100.
However I was out today and I could easy look up the area on the map where I was, and pick up the grid reference, I love the touch screen and the whole set up, but new batteries every time I use it? Perhaps there is something better?
 
GPS generally is heavy on battery use. Of course the touch screen may add to consumption. But my older Garmin Etrex unit (simple B/W screen) also uses off 1 AA Batteries in about 10 h of use.
 
An oldie, but still very good: Garmin 60CSx. I use it all the time, it is rugged and 2 rechargeable AAA's give it 10 - 12 hours of life.
 
dalat said:
THis one has all you need: http://www.uttings.co.uk/Product/491/100927/garmin-gpsmap-60cx-handheld-gps-unit-ga45 but the Dakota has a Touchscreen, which is nice to use of course.
I don not know what kind of reciever the iphone has, but the new Garmins have much better recievers than the older models. Now they work perfectly well under trees or inside cars.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the reply dalat, but will this unit work in the UK? Or will i have to buy the software for it?

The Garmin i have looked at is the model 400t which is the Europe model.

and thanks to you all for the response keep them coming :t:
 
The GPS unit can be used anywhere, the difference is the only the maps you upload. You're right, the one I linked mentions US maps, of course you would better buy a model with Europe maps (or one without pre-installed maps and buy maps separately). I think Garmin offers most models with or without certain preinstalled maps... so it's your choice.
 
Be wary of the built in compass. I've yet to see a GPSr that has a compass that doesn't need to be frequently re-calibrated. And then the calibration isn't always correct. If you need accurate compass readings, get a real magnetic compass.
 
You can also get open source maps for the Garmins - I'm using one on my Etrex venture hc. My brother has one of the Oregons and really likes it, plus as he has a lot of memory (my unit is limited, 24mb I think) he can add lots of big maps to it.

I can't remember where I got the ones I'm using but I think they're based on the openstreetmap maps, which are really pretty good. The ones for my area have bus stops, many of the streets and points of interest too. Not as detailed as the 1:25000 OS maps but very good for free!
 
Runaround said:
Be wary of the built in compass. I've yet to see a GPSr that has a compass that doesn't need to be frequently re-calibrated. And then the calibration isn't always correct. If you need accurate compass readings, get a real magnetic compass.
Click to expand...

The electronic compass DOES work well enough to be very useful, though. The need for recalibration of the electronic compass when changing locations is a very minor hassle. Having the compass pointer on the GPS map makes it far easier to sense which direction you're facing on the map, stay on tracks, and work your way to the displayed locations. For that purpose it is wonderful. If you need to lay a transect dead on 134 degrees, or have to triangulate a position, then of course you want to use a good magnetic compass.
 
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