Cheap GPS of sorts

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PhilD
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Cheap GPS of sorts

Post by PhilD »

I'm a sucker for gadgets, just bought one of these cheap GPS's to play with. Going to check out how accurate it is & if it's possible to save 5 find spots :D

GPS Director at Maplin
http://www.maplin.co.uk/Module.aspx?ModuleNo=265957

GPS Director
http://www.buygpsnow.com/img/products2/gd101_um.pdf
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Re: Cheap GPS of sorts

Post by PhilD »

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Re: Cheap GPS of sorts

Post by the barnacle »

interesting bit of kit phil, cheers for showing,

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Re: Cheap GPS of sorts

Post by PaulR »

Been having a bit of a read on this Phil, do you know if you can use this for Geocaching?

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Re: Cheap GPS of sorts

Post by PhilD »

Hi paul, I haven't done any geocaching but I think you would be better off using a sat nav as the arrow on the Director will point directly to the destination irrespective of the road system.

Also I dont know how accurate a destination figure you need. The director shows seconds to 2 decimal places wheras a Garmin GPS shows 3 decimal places.

I'm going to record 5 spots when I get the chance and measure how far out they are on Google Earth, will post the results on here.
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Re: Cheap GPS of sorts

Post by PaulR »

Cheerz Phil i actually have a garmin but i know someone short of cash that needed a gps unit for geocaching. Would be good to see your results.

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Re: Cheap GPS of sorts

Post by PhilD »

Good news & bad news with the results.

The device was accurate to 2 to 5 metres (like the Garmin) on a test round the block when the reading was noted direct from the screen and written down.

I then tried saving 5 different places and turning the machine off, I then switched the machine back on and noted what it had saved as the co ordinates for each of the 5 places (having done the same with my Garmin for comparison).

The Northing readings were similar to those on my Garmin.

The Westing readings however were quite different, so much so that Google Earth could not recognise them.

Ie where the Westing reading on the Garmin read 1 29 40.2 W, the corresponding reading on the Director was 1 69 80.89 W, why I do not know. So the device would be good for displaying the find spot to write down but unsuitable for saving it to retrieve later.
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Re: Cheap GPS of sorts

Post by PaulR »

Oh thats a shame and it says it will get you back to start destination lol, just dont turn it off. :g41:

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Re: Cheap GPS of sorts

Post by PhilD »

Yes just turn it on and it will guide to any of 5 destinations no problem. It works on the basis that you go somewhere, park up press a button and it records where you are. Then during the day you can press a button and it will guide you back to your car.

It's just that if you want to mark a find spot as a destination on site to record later with PAS the number it stores is unrecognisable to Google Earth.
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Re: Cheap GPS of sorts

Post by Deetektor »

I keep meaning to look in at our new Southend maplin.
Southend is where the first maplin shop used to be, those were the days.
Queues of people wanting to buy electrical components on a Saturday morning, and staff
who knew their stuff.
They started out as a mail order business, based in Rayleigh.
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Re: Cheap GPS of sorts

Post by PhilD »

I ordered it at lunch time and it arrived the following morning, nice! :shock:
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Re: Cheap GPS of sorts

Post by PhilD »

PhilD wrote:The Northing readings were similar to those on my Garmin.

The Westing readings however were quite different, so much so that Google Earth could not recognise them.

Ie where the Westing reading on the Garmin read 1 29 40.2 W, the corresponding reading on the Director was 1 69 80.89 W, why I do not know. So the device would be good for displaying the find spot to write down but unsuitable for saving it to retrieve later.
I'm wondering if mine is faulty re it showing 1deg 69mins 80.89sec W.

69mins is more than a degree so mins should only go upto 59.

Re typing a location in manually to go to, it won't let you type a number of mins in greater than 59, which is correct, but when I ask it to take me there it shows the location 44 kilometres away from where it should be.

Has anyone got one of these and is the above a problem on there's?

Even so it displays an accurate lat/long GPS reading on the scale for £20 which is a lot cheaper than buying O/S maps of various counties.
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Re: Cheap GPS of sorts

Post by Donnydave »

How long do the batteries last? carrying a notepad is not a problem I do that anyway, its got to be easier than striding it out in two directions especially on large fields :g43:

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Re: Cheap GPS of sorts

Post by PhilD »

It says up to 18 hours Dave in the pdf.

I suppose it depends how you use it. I would imagine if you switch it off between finds they will last a very long time, this is how I use my GPS;

When you first boot it up on a new site it does what they call a cold start (42 seconds), during this time I re fill the hole and detect a circular area around the hole to see if anything else was lost with the same find. I then switch it off until needed again.

The reading it gives can be written down & then typed directly into Google Earth to show the find spot.

If you go to the Nearby Website http://www.nearby.org.uk/coord.cgi , click on lat/long & type the co ordinates into the box & click on convert it will convert them to NGR.

I would imagine the FLO would accept a decimal lat/long reading & do the conversion for you but haven't tried myself.
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Re: Cheap GPS of sorts

Post by Donnydave »

I,ve tried my Tom Tom and it was far to inaccurate, my Nokia phone as GPS built in it was a bit more accurate it put me according to google earth two gardens away from my own :g43: I got the cheapy delivered this morning from Maplins one day delivery :g50: I tried it on my front drive again and it was only a few feet out it actually put me in the middle of my carport 10 to 15 feet away that is quite impressive it will put you in the correct corner of a field :g50:

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