Digressing for a moment, is anyone else fascinated at how many coincidental phenomena exist that aid in navigation? I mean, it isn't like someone stuck a bunch of arrows all around and little monuments, but I find it beyond coincidence and intriguing that, with a little mental effort on our part, virtually all the answers are there for us. It just seems like someone created this system where the answers weren't obvious, but if we sat and thought about it and applied our reasoning ability some, we could solve the equations that help us get around. It is almost like someone wanted us to go explore and discover and figure it all out, but they made it so we had to earn it. Everything from the magnetic pole, to the starfield, to time, to trigonometry, to rf propogation, it is all there, but had to be figured out first before we could see it.

It reminds me of handing a kid a paper with a bunch of numbered dots, telling him to connect them in order, then to color the resulting geometric shapes a certain way, based on certain rules. Only after doing it all can the kid see that he has made a picture of a sailboat on the water. This is just way too cool.

Now we have GPS, and so all those skills we had to develop along the way aren't so necessary anymore; just push a button and all the answers are there. At least until the button breaks, in which case we get to re-learn all those great methods again.

The only thing that saved them was, when they reached the edge of the cliff, the GPS announced "You have arrived".

If you own a car GPS you know its true!

I have the Garmin etrex vista but never uploaded the after market North American City Navigator CD. Is it worth the 75-$100 for this purchase?

I do all my trip planning using Garmin/Mapsource software, North American City Navigator being a big part of the app.

I was working in the bush today and tested my Garmin Nuvi off-road. If you are on a track and drive off the road it says "Re-calculating" then it shows you driving on a blank screen; the directions in the headliner say "navigate to unpaved road" or to named highway if you are close to one. I was in an area of old overgrown roads and very new roads, the GPS gave me bad information for most of the day. I find it works well on main establihed roads and in towns/cities.

Mike

Great feedback SwampDonkey.

For you folks who have had problems getting a GPS lock in vegitative cover or in canyons, I'll second the recommendation to try out the Garmin high senstivity receivers. Their ability to lock is amazing compared to older units.

Ken

You can buy a GPS, but you can't buy common sense.

If the GPS isn't working correctly, or you don't know how to read it, or don't know how to figure, or don't know how to read a map, or don't know how to think, you're still stuck, even if you're holding a GPS in your hand.

Electronics are no replacement for brains.

Sue

That's what PLB's are for