Basic GPS Skills

GPS receivers are amazing gadgets. They do so much cool stuff with every model, that it can get overwhelming. To keep it under control, when you first get your GPS, concentrate on the following three skills. The details of what button to push when vary with the GPS model, so we won't go into that here. When you get your GPS, look through the manual to learn these three tasks. If you can do at least these three, then you will have gotten your money's worth. And once you have these down, you can build upon them as you explore the other neat things your GPS can do.

1. Learn how to enter a waypoint
   This gives you some place to go.
2. Learn how to determine your position
   You might use the internal map in the GPS, or record a waypoint for use with an external map or software, or some variation.
3. Learn how to navigate
   That is, get from where you are to where you want to go. A key thing for a new person to remember is that most basic GPS units do not work well as a traditional compass, where you stand and orient yourself. You must be moving for the GPS to figure out which way to point. So, once you have your destination waypoint chosen, START WALKING to get the GPS navigation feature fired up. There are models that have an internal compass, but they are more expensive at this time.

Another useful feature of most GPS units is their ability to calculate other interesting things for you:

About Software

Entering waypoints with the little buttons on the unit is doable, but it gets tedious fast. With software, you enter them in your computer or copy them from a website, then with the touch of a key upload them to your GPS. And you can upload detailed maps into your GPS receiver for use in the field. Your GPS may come with maps loaded, but they are often limited in detail.

To get the most out of your GPS receiver, you may want to purchase software to go with it. You do NOT NEED to buy software to use you GPS receiver if it did not come with any. It will work just fine right out of the box. The software gives you an easy way to enter and extract information. Most imoprtantly, software will help you do two things to unlock the potential of your GPS equipment:

1. Upload and download waypoints between your GPS and your computer.
Adding long list of waypoints manually with those little buttons and dinky screen menus gets tedious fast. It's a lot nicer to use a full keyboard, or just copy paste from a website, then hit "upload." Conversely, getting tracking waypoints back out is easier, too. You can also extract or download waypoints you have recorded on your journey to print them directly on a map. This will require software specific to your GPS. For Garmin units, you will need Garmin's MapSource.

2. Upload detailed maps into your GPS.
If you GPS can show maps, it may have simple maps already loaded into it. These maps do not have much detail, especially for hiking, geocaching or exploring back roads. If you want highly detailed maps for a particular area, you will need to purchase and upload them with software specific to your brand of GPS. Again, in the case of Garmin, this is MapSource. And remember that the size of detailed maps you can save in your GPS is limited by the memory of the GPS. If you want lots of maps along with you, get a unit with plenty of memory.

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