As you can tell through recent emails, I bought a GPS in April and extensively
used it through my Queensland trip in May. I
originally asked for guidance so that I would know how to use ALL of the GPS
functions rather than spending the money on a
GPS just to use it for lat/long readings. I have now come into contact with
many people who have bought a GPS in the last 3
years to do bird atlas sheets, and only use their GPS for lat/long.
What a shame!! These gadgets can be great fun, and useful in many other ways.
Some examples are:
* Can be used to clock speed - either of the vehicle you are travelling in, or
the speed you are walking at. So if you're
trying to get to a particular walking destination by a particular time, this
will tell you whether you're keeping up the
pace. I clocked budgies flying next to our vehicle at 62 km ph. There's a
total trip odometer plus "short" trip odometer in
GPS also so you can track how far you've gone.
* Can tell you distance from your current location to a place. Though remember
this is GPS distance (ie straight line as the
crow flies) as it can't work out whether you have to walk around a lake to get
to your destination. Nevertheless this can be
useful. Using routes can also tell you GPS distance between two points (which
I have used now to tell some people, eg, how
far Mitakoodi Gorge is from Cloncurry, being reasonably accurate as the road
was reasonably straight). If you've broken down
and are wondering how close it is to town ......
* Plotting where you've been can be interesting and fun. On the tracks
(laughingly called roads on the maps) near
Urandangie, we went too far and had to do a bit of a loop to get to where we
wanted - the plot screen clearly showed our
roundabout route. This plot can also show your own wanderings in case you want
to backtrack.
* GPS even calculates the time of sunrise and sunset. So if you want to get
somewhere and set up tents before dark, the GPS
will tell you sunset at the location. Want to know when to get up in the
morning to chase the birds, well there it is. This
is very useful if you are moving large distances in a day.
* On one road, the map showed the road going pretty due east. Sure enough, the
GPS showed that for many many kilometres, we
remained on a strictly due east heading.
* One night we were discussing whether we were on a line with Alice Springs -
no problem, get out the GPS, check latitude
(because my GPS has the lat/long of several places pre-keyed in) and we were
able to answer this question. And at one stage
in Queensland I could see that I was almost exactly due north from home.
* And yes, even though you shouldn't totally depend on GPS for navigation and
to get you out of a jam if you get lost, using
the highway, compass and plot screens can be useful and interesting.
So, for anyone out there who has a GPS but doesn't use it much, or for those
people contemplating the purchase of one, I'd
recommend you "get into it" as these gadgets can be great fun.
Irene Denton
Concord West, 12 km from Sydney city, NSW, Australia
33 50' 17" S 151 05' 25" E
Birding-Aus is on the Web at
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