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Posted: Mon Feb 18, 2008 12:59 am Post subject: PLEASE HELP: Looking for a simple GPS that displays LAT/LONG
Hi folks,
I am looking for a GPS device that will need to do the following thing only:
Display (or even store) the latitude and longitude whenever I choose so. I am gathering latitude/longitude information for Google Maps related projects so it is essential that this GPS device will display the latitude/longitudes pretty accurately, like:
53.960933558166715
-2.01873779296875
It would be a plus if I could hook it up to a computer or phone but it's not a must.
I am completely lost in which direction I need to look. Can anybody help me out or point me towards a brand? What price range do I need to look for?
Joined: 24/06/2003 00:22:12 Posts: 2946 Location: Escaped to the Antipodies! 36.83°S 174.75°E
Posted: Mon Feb 18, 2008 8:59 am Post subject: Re: PLEASE HELP: Looking for a simple GPS that displays LAT/
complete_newb wrote:
Display (or even store) the latitude and longitude whenever
Have a look at the Garmin range. Even the cheapest hand held units will do what you want and more. https://buy.garmin.com/shop/shop.do?cID=144 They are rugged, waterproof and have pretty good battery life too.
Double check that the unit you buy can be connected to a PC to download waypoints and tracklogs though. Most of them can but the very bottom of the range ones can't.
Also, be aware that consumer GPS units are only accurate to about 30-50 feet/10-15 meters or perhaps 6 feet/2 meters with WAAS enabled. Google are having a laugh when they report co-ordinates like:
53.960933558166715
-2.01873779296875
5 decimal places is about 1 meter, the other 9 decimal places are NOT significant....
Joined: Jun 04, 2005 Posts: 19991 Location: West and Southwest London
Posted: Mon Feb 18, 2008 4:33 pm Post subject:
Equally, even the simplest TomTom model will show you the Lat/Long of your current position or any point on the map, and it stores its "Favourites" and "Points of Interest" in Lat/Long format which can be read by external programs.
Be aware though, that any "car" satnav (of any brand, I think) will attempt to hide errors by "snapping2 to a road, if you are positioned slightly off one.
Also thanks for pointing out the last 4 decimals as outlined by Google are pretty much useless, unless I'm after locating my organs.
The device I am looking for will need to be at least 5 meters accurate (for accurately locating bus stops and what not). How much will this affect my budget? As mentioned, it will only have to display (and preferrably store) coordinates. A GPS such as TomTom will already be too advanced as I do not need any sort of mapping GUI.
Joined: 24/06/2003 00:22:12 Posts: 2946 Location: Escaped to the Antipodies! 36.83°S 174.75°E
Posted: Mon Feb 18, 2008 11:54 pm Post subject:
complete_newb wrote:
The device I am looking for will need to be at least 5 meters accurate (for accurately locating bus stops and what not). How much will this affect my budget?
The accuracy of GPS units is much of a muchness in my opinion but it is often difficult to verify how accurate your fix is. One thing you have to watch out for is that you have a good view of the sky or your position can be wildly inaccurate. Being surrounded by tall buildings can cause problems but mostly it should be 5 meters or better. Have a look at http://www.gpspassion.com/ if you want to see some really geeky comparisons of different GPS chipsets but bit might be more information than you want. ;)
"SiRF Star III" chipsets seem to be highly rated for accuracy and ability to get an accurate position fix in difficult conditions.
complete_newb wrote:
As mentioned, it will only have to display (and preferrably store) coordinates. A GPS such as TomTom will already be too advanced as I do not need any sort of mapping GUI.
Are you sure? Andy_P2002 has a good point. There are some real nice units out there which could double as a sat nav for about 120 quid. The main trouble is that compared to the "Outdoors" oriented Garmin units, they are not as robust or waterproof and the battery life won't be very good.
Are these complete rubbish or worth spending £30 on?
These are receivers only. They probably don't have any option to store locations that you mark, tracklogs or anything like that. What they do is transmit the data to your bluetooth enabled PDA or phone and you can get software to display and record your position information. Not sure if this is what you want...
Do you already have a PDA type phone running Windows Mobile or Symbian? If not, then you probably want a cheap Garmin or TomTom unit. _________________ Gone fishing!
To ensure you are getting accurate positions, make sure the unit you get has a way of viewing HDOP (Horizontal Dilution of Prescision), this is often not displayed as it's to much technobable for mass consumer products.
HDOP gives a good guide as to how accurate the fix is. Between HDOP and the number of satalites used for the fix calculation (also reported on many units), you will have a very good idea if the data is useable for your purpose.
Street navigation based units usually "lock" onto a road, as they assume you are in a car, on the road, and GPS and mapping errors are "corrected". These position reports are fine for a consumer level car navigation product, but would not be useful to you.
All modern GPS receivers have similar performance calculating the fix. The SiRF gets a good name because of it's good RF front end perfomance, meaning it often has more satalites to work with than older GPS receivers (SiRF II for instance) . Despite what the marketing will have you believe, SiRF are not the only ones who make good GPS receivers. Like all consumer goods, once the product is better than needed for consumer goods, they spend the rest of the money on sales and marketing. That said, if you don't know much about GPS, get a SiRF III unit, you cannot go wrong.
A common way to get a more accurate fix is to stay on the same point for a long time - minutes, hours or even days, and average the reported fixes. Some software can do this out the box.
An alternate is to go to Survey quaility equipement, if your budget allows it, but that is only needed if you want sub 1 meter accuracy.
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