California Surveyors Forums

Looking for suggestions for cheap, basic handheld GPS device to help recon and find mons in open rugged areas. No color screen, no maps loaded, no camera. no data collection, etc. Just something that I can enter SPC (or convert SPC to lat/long) and have device show me the way from current position. Hopefully within 20' or so in good conditions. 10' would be better. Any ideas?
Thanks
TIB

Garmin etrex is what I use.

I got away from buying handheld GPS units and now just use my smart phone, I simply pre print a sheet with the search lat and longs and then go searching. I've found when I get on site that it isn't difficult to know how far to go and in which direction just by comparing search lat and longs with my current position.

A phone works great, but battery life is poor compared with a small dedicated handheld unless you keep the phone in airplane mode, and who wants to carry around a phone in airplane mode?

I second the Garmin eTrex. I have the eTrex 20, and I can load quad sheets and other maps on it that make navigating easy. I don't really know how long a set of rechargeable batteries last as I've never run them out, but I it's denominated in days rather than hours.

Jim Frame wrote:A phone works great, but battery life is poor compared with a small dedicated handheld unless you keep the phone in airplane mode, and who wants to carry around a phone in airplane mode?

I second the Garmin eTrex. I have the eTrex 20, and I can load quad sheets and other maps on it that make navigating easy. I don't really know how long a set of rechargeable batteries last as I've never run them out, but I it's denominated in days rather than hours.

My iphone goes all day on a charge. There are settings I modified that help maximize battery life that don't affect its usability. Battery life is not an issue for me.

Another thing I have on the phone is a camera app that prints lat long, bearing, slope and tilt on the photo. Makes great evidence photos and for helping later identify locations of topo and boundary features.

etrex it is then
don't have smartphone
thanks for the help
tib