Handheld GPS units

[Chief800]

I will be purchasing several new handheld GPS units for my department. Any information anyone can share about, what they like or dislike about the models they use would be useful in assisting me with my purchase.

[Sprague]

I like the Garmin Etrex series GPS units. They are small and light, and can be carried in a belt hoster not much bigger than a cell phone. They are also waterproof (or at least pretty water resistant). Operation is fairly simple for new users to learn, and they have excelent topo maps available that can be purchased and loaded into the units. Higher end models can also be used for street navigation if you install the streets and highways maps, and from what I've read on garmins website, are also now capable of routing using dirt roads if you were out in the mountains. Higher end models also accept the Micro SD cards, making it easy to switch between topo maps and street maps. I've been using the basic Etrex Legend for the past 7 years, but this year I wil be upgrading to the Etrex Vista HCx. https://buy.garmin.com/shop/shop.do?pID=8703

[Old Guy]

I have a Garmin etrex Legend HCx that while it does work fine, the maps you can down load are not the same as the USGS Quads. If I had it to do over I would purchase one of the Magellen units that I understand use the Quads.

This would make info easier to pass along with those that do have the Quads, but not a GPS unit.

[Captain225]

Chief 800,
After doing many months of research and using several different models in geocaching for the last 4 years, I have put all my eggs in the basket for the Garmin gpsmap 60csx for the fire service. The reasons, the GIS people, which I have run into, use Garmin which makes downloading and uploading easier. The 60cxs seems to have the technology that will be sticking around for the five years or so which is great. The 60cxs also has the best internal antenna that will pick up satellites under heavy cover, which comes into play when mapping fire perimeter lines. It is also user friendly with a little training and practice, it is a breeze to figure acres, distance from point A to point B, marking waypoints such as water sources, drop points, access roads, etc. Hope this helps in making your decision; you will not be disappointed with Garmin 60cxs.
Also, if you are in southern California, Los Angeles County Fire has a great training class on GPS/Land Navigation in which they use the Garmin 60cxs gps exclusively.

[Captain225]

The Garmin 60cxs can also accommodate a 4 GB removable micro SD card, which will hold all of California and Nevada 1:24,000 Quad maps and have left over space for tracks and routes.

[Mod-Green]

There is further discussion on GPS units here: Link

Also remember several of our sponsors have GPS units available. Check them out.

[Captain225]

Thanks Mod-Green for the link, as I am new here too. The link you sent has great info for the Chief 800

[kevlar]

I have a 60CSX that I bought on line with the CA & NV maps preloaded on a 2gb card and it works great. The only issue I have had is trying to transfer over the maps to my computer from the sd card. If you can get them with the topo disk that will eliminate that problem.

I picked mine up with the unit, loaded sd card with 1:24,000 topos and shipping for under $400

[Chief800]

Everyone,
Thank you very much for the information each of you shared. It appears there is definitely a popular model, this should make my decision an easy one. Please be safe this year.
Chief800

[larso]

While we're on the topics of Garmins, I have to share this Archive for the 'Garmin' Category from Free Geography Tools. The author has 8 pages (to date) of posts tagged 'garmin' & there are some really good ones...everyone likes free right?