I have been contemplating buying a GPS for the up coming hunting season. There are a few models out there, but seem to be stuck with the Garmin Etrex Summit , any ideas on this one, and what do you use? I was also looking at the Garmin 120 or 130. The one with the radio/GPS all in one, but am not to sure on this as I feel the batteries will not last and the radio will kill the batteries?

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I use a Garmin Summit for work. I have found at times it has alot of error in its position. It does give good elevations though but I have never really had much use for those for anything other than work. Another down fall I have with it is it does not tell you the bearing of the object/waypoint you are heading to until you take the unit and point it at it. I would like a read out of the bearing to the waypoint and then use my own compass to navigate there. It in a sense almost forces you to use the GPS unit as your compass and I have had problems with the internal compass needing to be calibrated every hour or so it seems.

In short I am not an Etrex summit fan.

My personnal preference is the Garmin GPS II Plus or the Garmin GPS 12 or 12 XL.

In my experience all GPS units are cappable of very high error. It doesn't matter if it is a 100, 300 or 20,000 dollar back pack unit it can still get error and give you improper coordinantes leaving you out by a kilometer or more from where you are trying to go.

I'm using a Garmin II+, and planning to buy a Garmin V in the next week or so.

I've literally almost worn the II+ out; it's been dropped, drowned, bashed and run over with a quad. I use it in my work, almost every day.

I have never had errors like the previous poster mentioned, unless I input the wrong data to begin with. Put the right data in and you'll be within 10 m., even in heavy timber. From what I've been reading I think the 76 series is pretty good as well, but I already have all the bases, cords, handlebar grippers and external antennas for the II+, so I'll stick with the same external size V. They're tough, accurate, and reliable.

Thanx for the feedback gys....

Just one thing, I ordered the summit from Nikka Industries in Steveston, $ 245.00 not a bad price. Marcus I checked the site I posted, and they are a little more expensive. I will "play a little first before taking it out.

My Whoops. I should have checked your site out first. I have been past that place dozens of times in the past few weeks but I had no idea they sold GPS equipment. I think I will stop and have a looksee next week.

The biggest error I have had on the GPS II plus was when we were dropped off in the bush on a helipad and set our coordinantes and then ran a grid off the helipad looking for timber. When we ended our day the Map showed hand drawn map showed the Helipad being 1100 meters different in location than the GPS did. The Map was right. It could have been a simple case of not paying attention to what the error was when we set the way point at the start of the day. That was an annomoly for that machine it is normally very good in accuracy. I guess I came across as overly negative about them all. I'm just not an Etrex based unit fan.

FWIW, Garmin is coming out this month with the new GPS Map60CS. It's expensive, so it depends on what you want.

Top features include tons more memory ((256M?), and much longer battery life.

It also has a colour screen, but I don't really care about that.

kk

I have geko 201. for it's size, weight and...price.

I only have one concern...the battery life. Under normal condition, it will last 8 hrs, but I have no idea how it perform under COLD(-20C) condition?

Do you guys have any problem with any GPS in COLD condition?