GPS Path Recording – The Cheap Solution

Mircea — Fri, 25 Jun 2010 05:07:37 +0000

One of the first thing that I did when I arrived in the US was to buy a GPS unit. I did it because I found it kind of intimidating to drive on the highways in the US without having some sort of guidance. It may sound stupid, but if you miss an exit you usually have a couple of miles to go until you reach the next one. Figuring out how to continue from the next exit or taking the highway in the opposite direction to reach original exit is not a fun experience. After I got lost a couple of times (and lost a good chuck of time in the process too) trying to figure out where I was (no, I don’t ask for directions ) the GPS seemed like the logical thing.

Not really being a fan of spending big buck (I might have been Scottish in a previous life if this reincarnation crap is true), I’ve looked for the most basic unit that I could find and could successfully fulfill my needs.

I ended up buying a Tom Tom One 3rd edition. It was overall a good decision and I was very happy with the prince: 120$ (not the outrageous 184$ that Amazon wants for it right now). I started using it and almost never got lost again

Now, having the unit, the natural question (after I started going hiking) was: how can I record and later plot a path that I walk on? The unit does know exactly where I am (with a certain error of course) and should be able to do that. Well, it turns out it cannot do that with out-of-the box software installed on it. Turns out some wise-guys decided to add this capability (among other cool ones) to Tom Tom based devices. The extra software that they build and you need to put on your device is called Tripmaster. You can read about it and download it here: http://www.webazar.org/tomtom/tripmaster.php?lang=uk

Now that I had the GPS unit and the path recording software I decided to take it for a ride. Everything went perfect until about 1 hour into the test. At that moment the internal battery of the GPS unit got depleted. The recording stopped. Now I don’t know what kind of hikes people usually do, but my hikes take anywhere from 2 hours to 6-7 hours. So this solution wasn’t going to work.

I though about building an USB charger: http://theromaniandream.com/blog/2009/06/28/the-usb-charger-project. In the end I ended up buying it (call me lazy). You can see it here: http://www.amazon.com/Tekkeon-TekCharge-Mobile-Battery-Charger/dp/B0014KLX9C/ The unit runs with either 2 or 4 AA batteries and acts as an USB charger for the GPS unit.

So right now, with added autonomy, my 3 part cheap GPS path recording solution was ready. You can see the first recorded path in the map section of my latest hike: http://theromaniandream.com/blog/2010/06/20/hiking-bridal-veil-fallslake-serene-trail/

When the GPS Unit Takes Over…

Mircea — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 00:53:31 +0000

I don’t know how traveling by car was done in the past. I mean I imagine the simple question “where I am?’ was difficult to answer at some times. I guess that some planning before went a long way. This and asking often about location and directions. Must have worked. Not for me though, who have the orientation skills of a closet door [I can easily get lost in a large,badly signaled, parking garage - if that's possible] and the social skills of a rug [don't talk to strangers unless asked and keep it to a minimum].

So, naturally I see the GPS as an exceptional answer to being able to travel, see things and keep the “getting lost” stress level to a minimum. Sure, it can be distracting while driving, it can make you take a longer road, may loose signal, etc. But overall the advantages outweigh the disadvantages.

One thing though that you’ll learn the hard way is to carefully check the direction the GPS unit gives you for every road that is longer than 5 minutes. When the GPS unit says it will take 2 hours in spite of the fact that the road in 60 miles and the speed limit should be 50+ all the way there is something wrong. When it tries to make you go on a road that is unpaved and a sign gently indicates that 4×4 is recommended something is wrong. When you are tired and it’s nighttime take 5 goddamn minutes to carefully check all portions of the road it suggests.

Here is a very unhappy itinerary my GPS unit, a Tom Tom One 3rd, made me take recently:

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=d&source=s_d&saddr=CA-41%2FWawona+Rd&daddr=Merced,+Ca&hl=en&geocode=FWuTPgId9Xfd-A%3B&mra=ls&sll=37.489706,-120.127773&sspn=0.10161,0.222988&ie=UTF8&ll=37.561997,-119.884186&spn=0.812093,1.783905&z=10

This happened when visiting Yosemite Park, and was trying to get back to where I stayed over the night (Merced, CA).

Yup, right through the middle of the forest, through the famous road (at least for me now) Chowchilla Mountain Rd.

Same road suggested by TomTom and followed blindly by me The road through forest (5 miles) took around 1 hour, it was around 9 pm, pitch black.

The irony is the “good’ road takes only 7 minutes more:

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=d&source=s_d&saddr=CA-41%2FWawona+Rd&daddr=37.646859,-119.895172+to:Merced,+Ca&hl=en&geocode=FWuTPgId9Xfd-A%3B%3B&mra=dme&mrcr=0&mrsp=1&sz=10&via=1&sll=37.492294,-119.685059&sspn=0.812852,1.783905&ie=UTF8&z=10

Being dumb enough to rely on the GPS unit itself… Priceless

The Romanian Dream » TomTom

GPS Path Recording – The Cheap Solution

When the GPS Unit Takes Over…