GPS Devices Life

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If you’re out hiking in the wilderness, trailblazing through rarely traveled wilderness, it’s always nice to know where you are and where you’re going. For the longest time I just used my military compass and a topographic map. Now I use my Magellan SporTrak GPS Receiver as my primary method of navigation. Of course, I keep my compass and a topo map, with my intended route marked, just in case. You never know what might happen to electronics out in the field. Better safe than sorry.

The Magellan SporTrak was my choice because of the size, features, and durability. I paid $319.99, on sale, but I’ve seen it priced as high as $399.99. The SporTrak arms you with a lot of information. The SporTrak can tell you direction, elevation and even your speed (w/ the speedometer). It comes with 108MB of built-in maps, 8MB are cities, highways, airports, waterways and parks, the remaining 100MB are dedicated to a huge U.S. topographic map. The maps are pretty dang detailed, they show highways, major roads, contour and much more!

Get A Fix - It can take anywhere from 15 seconds to about 2 minutes to get the first position reading. After that it updates about once every second. It does a great job of tracking your position.

Display Size - The display is only about 2.25″ x 1.5″, so it’s not huge. It’s also not color, but it gets you where you need to be. Resolution is 160×104. It does have a backlit which is helpful in dim situations, same with the keypad. I think the screen is easy to read.

Tough Stuff - The SporTrak is made of high quality, impact-resistant plastic with rubber armour. It’s pretty tough, but I wouldn’t be rough with it intentionally. I’ve dropped mine twice and it still works great. Luckily, it didn’t land on the screen. And check this - it’s waterproof! So you could take it boating or jet skiing (it floats)! You can take it skiing/snowboarding or snowmobiling too! Take the SporTrak with you and save tax payer money by keeping Search & Rescue and the Air National Guard at home!

Accuracy - Because Magellan equips the SporTrak with WAAS (Wide Area Augmentation System), you will know your exact position to +/- 3 meters. This is pretty good for a civilian GPS system. As for elevation, it’s accurate to about +/- 10 meters. But elevation is a little less important than your position.

What Points? - No, no, waypoints. These are places you designate along your intended route. Kind of like checkpoints to make sure you’re following the correct course. You can designate up to 500 waypoints! You can store up to 20 routes and 2,000 track points!

Reception - The SporTrak has 12-channels (tracks off of up to 12 satellites) and features WAAS which increases accuracy. The SporTrak works great even in mountainous and densely wooded areas. This was an important feature for me because, obviously, there are lots of trees and mountains in the Northwest.

Additional Memory - If you need to you can load up to 16MB of additional maps. You can load these from Magellan map CDs, you can probably buy these at the same place you get your SporTrak. I haven’t needed to load additional maps yet, but it’s good to know I can.

Navigation Screens - There’s lots of options here. There are 9 customizable screens that can show the map, a compass, and/or speedometer. In addition to that there are readouts that keep track of heading, bearing, speed & estimated time of arrival (cool!), elevation and direction! Oh yeah, that’s not all. There are 12 coordinate systems and 76 datums. These include things like Latitude/Longitude, Universal Transverse Mercator, and the Military Grid Reference System. I mostly use the Military Grid because it coordinates best with my traditional back-up map.

Routes - If you need to save routes you can transfer them to your home PC with the MapSend software (included in box). It’s simple to convert complicated track files to simple routes with this software. By transfering routes to your PC you can save them for later use or reference. You can also leave a copy at home in case for some reason you do get lost, it’d be a great reference for Search & Rescue or the Air National Guard to follow.

Features:

* 12-Channels

* Topographical Map Database

* +/- 3 Meters Accuracy (WAAS)

* 16MB Memory

* Store 20 Routes, 500 Waypoints, 2,000 Track-Points

* NorthFinder Technology

* Impact-Resistant With Rubber Armour

* Waterproof

Additional Info:

Size: 5.5″ x 2″ x 1.25″

Weight: 6 oz

Battery Usage: approx. 8-10 hours (says 14 on box…but that hasn’t been my experience)

Comes With: Computer Cable, Owner’s Manual, MapSend Topographic CD-ROM, 2 AA batteries

Great For: Hunters, Hikers, Mountain Climbers, Campers, Mountain Bikers, Fishermen, Snowmobilers, Skiiers/Snowboarders, Boaters, Survival Nuts

Final Comments:

There’s not a whole lot more you could ask for from a handheld GPS system. The SporTrak pretty much covers all bases. It’s a great machine. If you’re unfamiliar with GPS systems you’ll have to read the Owner’s Manual. It’s just not simple enough to pick up and use correctly. I’ve used the Army’s “plugger” (handheld GPS unit) a lot and I still had to read the instructions. The SporTrak is somewhat expensive, but I think it was $320 well spent! It would be nice if the screen was bigger and in color, but I can’t really complain. I like that it’s waterproof because it rains alot up here. I’m going to have to try it out when I go snowboarding or jet skiing! It’s kind of fun to use. I think it’s pretty interesting to look at the info you get from the SporTrak! But I guess I’m just a nerd like that…

GPS systems are great and there’s one for nearly every price range. There’s really no excuse for you to get your 15 minutes of fame because you were lost for 6 days and Search & Rescue finds you with hypothermia curled up between two pine trees sucking your thumb and….um, anyway…

I highly recommend the Magellan SporTrak!

No Need For Search & Rescue!

Thanks For Reading!

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