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Most handheld GPS devices out these days offer this functionality. You can dump raw NMEA data to a PDA/LAPTOP as well if the built-in speed logging isn't sufficient. Take a look around Garmin and Magellan's web sites for a starting point.

You can get that now with the Garmin iQue 3600. You don't even need to enter an address. Flip up the GPS antenna, lock on, search for "pizza" and it will show all pizza joints sorted by distance from you.

Small correction... The iQue is a PocketPC and a PalmOS PDA with GPS not just a PocketPC...

First, I'll grant that there is a dearth of information wrt the capabilities of this SATHI unit in that article.

But to claim that the capabilities of a unit like the Garmin Rino is sufficient coordinating actions of individual soldiers in the achievement of a specific object is to vastly understate the requirements of a useful battlefield computer.

The stated goals and capabilities of the SATHI is a bit more complex. Whether this unit accomplishes all those goal is yet to be determined, though. That can only be determined in field trials. But it is an interesting first step.

While Windows 2000 is adequate for my home computer to surf the web and read email (after proper precautions are taken) it is absolutely NOT adequate for flying an airplane.

While there are no aircraft I am aware of that have their flight controls "controlled" by Windows, I am aware of at least one cockpit installed piece of avionics that does use Windows...

Garmin MX-20

It's called an MX-20, and it's an MFD (multifunction display) that runs off of Windows NT 4(SP5)... first time I ever saw one of these powered up, I saw the blue screen (not of death) with "Windows NT 4.0 Single Processor (Build whatever)" displayed as the device was booting.

It's updated from a PC, using a flash memory card. Could some type of malware get into it via that method? I don't know... Very cool piece of avionics though.

This "quest" for a Linux mapping solution reminded me of my own; I've recently been thinking about (rather procrastinating) over buying a Garmin IQUE 3600. In my reading and comp'ing of pdas with GPS/Mapping software, I looked at the Linux-OS-based Sharp Zaurus which gets a lot of (well earned) attention here.

I was looking for more than the Zaurus was offering, but here's what I found and bookmarked. I'm sure others here using the Zaurus will be able to fill in the blanks and share other gps mapping OSS projects out there, if they exist, which I wasn't able to find, other than three below. Zaurus Users Group might have some info as well. Bill Kendrick is also a good resource about these.

SOFTWARE:
GPSGaugeLite
MFG: Serialio
http://www.serialio.com/products/GPSGaugeLite.htm

SOFTWARE:
qpeGPS
http://qpegps.sourceforge.net/

Screenshots | Tested GPS Units

SOFTWARE:
zGPS
http://www.handango.com/sharp/PlatformProductDetai l.jsp?siteId=423.............
http://tinyurl.com/6lau7

HARDWARE:
Model Name: CF Card -GPS Navigation Receiver
Manufacturer: AmbiCom
http://myzaurus.com/acc_Comm10.asp

HARDWARE:
Serial GPS Receiver
Model Name:GPS-U2-Z9
Manufacturer:Serialio.com
http://myzaurus.com/acc_Serial10.asp

Then again, check out the prices on the Garmin StreetPilot series. About $1200 for the cheap one. I wonder how this new one stacks up?

I have the Geko 201. It's a superb little device. It speaks a Garmin protocol that Garmin published here. There are a number of utilities for Linux that implement this protocol; I use gpspoint. The only hurdle is the proprietary serial connector which costs a low double digits $$$; I hacked mine together with a glue gun from a couple of wires.

For laptop-side work I use viking, a very nice GUI based program for managing waypoints and tracks. It's not so much useful for street navigation as it is for trips and geocaching; it can overlay recorded tracks over satellite photos, or create waypoints to be transferred to the GPS for a future trip.

Look here for the 'Simple Text protocol'. Hell, When I was cutting my teath on a VIC20, I could have used this to interface the GPS with that, using Commodore BASIC. (assuming I had a RS232 Interface!). This is very simple stuff!

it's probably safe to assume that the good folks over at Garmin would say something along the lines of "Lih-what?".

This may be the case, however, they are very open with the interface/communications protocols for their GPS's - If you go here you can download documents detailing the protocols in a platform neutral format, meaning that anyone with just a little programming experience can easily make programs to interface with their GPS's, on any platform, Linux included. To be quite honest, I can't think of another hardware vendor, that is so open with the specs. Usually, Companies require you to jump through hoops (NDA agreements/ etc) to get hold of this information, or have to resort to reverse engineering, etc. And, if you can't/dont want to program, then there's a few projects already made for you on sourceforge!

To sum up, Don't knock Garmin, They might not produce Linux drivers, but at the same time, they do go out of their way to make it easy for others to do so should they want to.

I hand-built serial cables using plugs I got from this guy (Elsewhere on that site there's links to folks all over the world selling the same plugs for a range of different GPS receivers). Apparently even the tiny little Garmin Geko 201 and Geko 301 (but not the 101 model) also speak serial - and they're tiny cute little things they are!!!

My little eTrex has a menu with a whole bunch of different 'languages' that it will speak (and/or receive) via the serial port. According to the manual (warning: pdf) (page 45) it speaks NMEA 0183, a bunch of proprietary Garmin stuff and a couple of flavours suitable for differential work. I know from fiddling with mine that it also speaks a 'plain text' (they're all plain text, but this one is more so) format that is quite human readable and probably quite easily parseable with some perl.

Another imporant point about GPS and Linux (*nix in general is time). GPS requires incredibly accurate time to operate, so by implication GPS receivers make excellent clocks. Last time I checked xntp had support for NMEA (GPS) as a time source.

A quick freshmeat (if 'google' is a verb, then surely 'freshmeat' can be one too!) will tell you that GPS on *nix is nothing new!!! (Not all of those returns are gps nav related, but there's a lot of stuff to parse gps sentences, moving maps, program receivers, all kinds of goodies!

I hand-built serial cables using plugs I got from this guy (Elsewhere on that site there's links to folks all over the world selling the same plugs for a range of different GPS receivers). Apparently even the tiny little Garmin Geko 201 and Geko 301 (but not the 101 model) also speak serial - and they're tiny cute little things they are!!!

My little eTrex has a menu with a whole bunch of different 'languages' that it will speak (and/or receive) via the serial port. According to the manual (warning: pdf) (page 45) it speaks NMEA 0183, a bunch of proprietary Garmin stuff and a couple of flavours suitable for differential work. I know from fiddling with mine that it also speaks a 'plain text' (they're all plain text, but this one is more so) format that is quite human readable and probably quite easily parseable with some perl.

Another imporant point about GPS and Linux (*nix in general is time). GPS requires incredibly accurate time to operate, so by implication GPS receivers make excellent clocks. Last time I checked xntp had support for NMEA (GPS) as a time source.

A quick freshmeat (if 'google' is a verb, then surely 'freshmeat' can be one too!) will tell you that GPS on *nix is nothing new!!! (Not all of those returns are gps nav related, but there's a lot of stuff to parse gps sentences, moving maps, program receivers, all kinds of goodies!

I hand-built serial cables using plugs I got from this guy (Elsewhere on that site there's links to folks all over the world selling the same plugs for a range of different GPS receivers). Apparently even the tiny little Garmin Geko 201 and Geko 301 (but not the 101 model) also speak serial - and they're tiny cute little things they are!!!

My little eTrex has a menu with a whole bunch of different 'languages' that it will speak (and/or receive) via the serial port. According to the manual (warning: pdf) (page 45) it speaks NMEA 0183, a bunch of proprietary Garmin stuff and a couple of flavours suitable for differential work. I know from fiddling with mine that it also speaks a 'plain text' (they're all plain text, but this one is more so) format that is quite human readable and probably quite easily parseable with some perl.

Another imporant point about GPS and Linux (*nix in general is time). GPS requires incredibly accurate time to operate, so by implication GPS receivers make excellent clocks. Last time I checked xntp had support for NMEA (GPS) as a time source.

A quick freshmeat (if 'google' is a verb, then surely 'freshmeat' can be one too!) will tell you that GPS on *nix is nothing new!!! (Not all of those returns are gps nav related, but there's a lot of stuff to parse gps sentences, moving maps, program receivers, all kinds of goodies!

I hand-built serial cables using plugs I got from this guy (Elsewhere on that site there's links to folks all over the world selling the same plugs for a range of different GPS receivers). Apparently even the tiny little Garmin Geko 201 and Geko 301 (but not the 101 model) also speak serial - and they're tiny cute little things they are!!!

My little eTrex has a menu with a whole bunch of different 'languages' that it will speak (and/or receive) via the serial port. According to the manual (warning: pdf) (page 45) it speaks NMEA 0183, a bunch of proprietary Garmin stuff and a couple of flavours suitable for differential work. I know from fiddling with mine that it also speaks a 'plain text' (they're all plain text, but this one is more so) format that is quite human readable and probably quite easily parseable with some perl.

Another imporant point about GPS and Linux (*nix in general is time). GPS requires incredibly accurate time to operate, so by implication GPS receivers make excellent clocks. Last time I checked xntp had support for NMEA (GPS) as a time source.

A quick freshmeat (if 'google' is a verb, then surely 'freshmeat' can be one too!) will tell you that GPS on *nix is nothing new!!! (Not all of those returns are gps nav related, but there's a lot of stuff to parse gps sentences, moving maps, program receivers, all kinds of goodies!

The GPS side is the one that matters - it seems that Garmin GPS that I have provides a choice of protocols to use over the serial cable, but insists on using their proprietary protocol over the USB cable.

Well, they have at least made the protocol specs available.

I use Garmin's Mapsource quite a bit which, whilst not being the prettiest, turns detail off as you zoom out and adds it as you zoom in, which sounds like it could be helpful.

It isn't cheap, but, I am sure if you contacted their PR department and explained what you wanted to do with it, they would have a hard time coming off as anything other than heartless and moneygrabbing should you they refuse to give you a gratis/cheap copy.

The North American web demo of their maps (link near the top right) does similar and may even do the trick, and, is free to use.

As for large screen helping, a cheap projector and a dark room would be a better logical alternative than a big screen it would seem to me, but then again, I hardly know whereof I speak.

I use Garmin's Mapsource quite a bit which, whilst not being the prettiest, turns detail off as you zoom out and adds it as you zoom in, which sounds like it could be helpful.

It isn't cheap, but, I am sure if you contacted their PR department and explained what you wanted to do with it, they would have a hard time coming off as anything other than heartless and moneygrabbing should you they refuse to give you a gratis/cheap copy.

The North American web demo of their maps (link near the top right) does similar and may even do the trick, and, is free to use.

As for large screen helping, a cheap projector and a dark room would be a better logical alternative than a big screen it would seem to me, but then again, I hardly know whereof I speak.

Which provides even my just-over-US$100 Garmin Foretrex 201 with a pretty good fix. While this is not DGPS, it appears even Garmin is getting ambiguous with its language in this regard. You will note at the bottom of page, they discriminate between WAAS and DGPS, but in the description of WAAS they say, "The corrected differential message is then broadcast through one of two geostationary satellites, or satellites with a fixed position over the equator."

I wonder if it would be possible to cluster 3 units together using the bluetooth or WiFi, then using the GPS on each one to use the differential algorithms to triangulate the position like more expensive professional GPS products do.

Um.....that's NOT how to more expensive units do it. They use WAAS. Getting three low-resolution positions and sharing them is hardly going to make for an overall more accutate position. Some math guy please do corret me if I'm wrong, but that should serve to make your calculated position even WORSE.

Yes, a transreflective LCD, such as what is on this Garmin GPS60CS. The brighter the sunlight, the brighter the screen. It really works well. From now on, I'll never buy a device made for outdoor use that has a regular LCD.

Well GPS is GPS whether you're on a road or a lake. And GPS was big with boaters long before they could make them small enough to fit in your hand. The only question is if there are map products for that area. Browse around the marine sections of Garmin and Magellan. You'll probably find something that will work for him.

A GPS enabled Palm, now that's a different story.

I guess they already have them.

Cheap, too, at ~US$450, compared to what you'd have to pay to assemble this yourself.

When I was building the GPS receiver module for the 'Techmobile,' I was working with an old Trimble six-channel unit that was originally part of a system they made for the military. Said receiver was built into a very nice machined-aluminum housing, designed explicitly for mobile use, and I really wanted to make use of at least the housing and its connectors.

I ended up doing a little more than that, as the web page mentions. There were two original circuit boards inside the Trimble receiver, one for the power supply side and the second for the actual receiver and logic. It took me about two hours to literally slice all the original PLCC surface-mount chips off the old board, clip off some through-hole components, drill mounting holes for the new board, and get everything mounted. In essence, the old board became nothing more than a physical substrate to mount the new module.

Since the upper board had such a nice, heavily-filtered, ready-made DC/DC converter on it (9-32V in, 5V out), I wanted to use it. The challenge I faced was to cut enough traces to isolate the converter's output side from the original circuitry (which was now presenting a solid short, thanks to the mounting screws punched through a four-layer PC board), but not enough to disable it.

The challenge was met, and the new receiver still works like a champ. In fact, last year, I upgraded the original GPS-25 module to a WAAS-enabled module, the GPS-15LV.

Like I said in the 'Subject' line: I'm not sure if this counts as "abuse" or simply "modification" (probably a bit of both), but I had fun doing it.

73 de KC7GR

When I was building the GPS receiver module for the 'Techmobile,' I was working with an old Trimble six-channel unit that was originally part of a system they made for the military. Said receiver was built into a very nice machined-aluminum housing, designed explicitly for mobile use, and I really wanted to make use of at least the housing and its connectors.

I ended up doing a little more than that, as the web page mentions. There were two original circuit boards inside the Trimble receiver, one for the power supply side and the second for the actual receiver and logic. It took me about two hours to literally slice all the original PLCC surface-mount chips off the old board, clip off some through-hole components, drill mounting holes for the new board, and get everything mounted. In essence, the old board became nothing more than a physical substrate to mount the new module.

Since the upper board had such a nice, heavily-filtered, ready-made DC/DC converter on it (9-32V in, 5V out), I wanted to use it. The challenge I faced was to cut enough traces to isolate the converter's output side from the original circuitry (which was now presenting a solid short, thanks to the mounting screws punched through a four-layer PC board), but not enough to disable it.

The challenge was met, and the new receiver still works like a champ. In fact, last year, I upgraded the original GPS-25 module to a WAAS-enabled module, the GPS-15LV.

Like I said in the 'Subject' line: I'm not sure if this counts as "abuse" or simply "modification" (probably a bit of both), but I had fun doing it.

73 de KC7GR

Maybe you should take a look at this:

http://www.garmin.com/products/iQue3200/

No idea what OS it runs, tho, but I'd be interested if anybody knows.

Bluetooth is pretty nifty, but it can be hard to get the compatibility you are looking for. Indeed, I am typing this post on my laptop running Fedora Core 2 over a bluetooth connection using GPRS through a mobile phone. However, serial ports and serial cables are reliable, prevalant, and are your best shot at compatibility. A GPS connection is not going to move (relatively) much data over whatever interface you choose. Serial is easy.

I recently received a Garmin Rino 130 as a present. It's pretty nifty. It's hand-held, with a built-in digital compass along with the GPS, and it has a built-in FRS/GMRS radio. Something like 54MB of RAM for maps. There's plenty more stuff in there that I haven't even scratched yet.

I don't really have much recent experience with GPS equipment, but within 15 minutes I had it talking via its included serial cable to my laptop via NMEA protocol, and started plotting my location on freely-downloadable maps with the awesome GPSDrive software.

The process was as easy and about as seamless as I could have imagined for such stuff.

My flying club just dropped $14k for a Garmin 430 GPS/NAV/COM radio we put in our Archer. There's absolutely no way that what's in that box is $14k worth of value. Try more like $2k of value as $12k of FAA red tape.

Only fair that you'd get PDAs on the brain, as the iQue is also Garmin's GPS/PocketPC PDA. In fact, that's probably where your neurons got crosswired.

One more use, beside the many already mentioned, would be storing maps for satellite navigation devices such as the many Pocket PC / TomTom combo's, or my Garmin iQue. 2 GB would allow me store the whole of Europe (at street level, with points of interest) on it.

this available to terrorists thing is such a farce. A GPS receiver is available for as little as $90. And one with WAAS one can achieve accuracy of about 3ft 95% of the time if they are in an area served by the ground based error correction stations (which is pretty much all of the USA). This is currently available to terrorists if they want it anyhow. And anyone can set up their own Differential beacon... to improve accuracy even more. Hell they used to do it when the fuzz factor was still on with GPS.

Modern receivers get better than 3 meters with WAAS.

I found the Garmin GPS systems, like that in the Garmin Forerunner 201 and Timex Bodylink (which also uses Garmin's GPS technology) to be unsatisfactorily inaccurate at speed and distance measurement.

Just recently, I had the opportunity to field test the Forerunner 201 (fully charged) vs. the FitSense FS-1 Speedometer at an outdoor 12K run across the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco. The Forerunner repeatedly kept losing satellite signal, and in the end had over calculated the travelled distance by well over a quarter of a mile. On the other hand, literally, the FitSense watch was right on the mark, off by only 0.01 miles.

If the Forerunner or Bodylink don't have the luxury of a perfectly clear and cloudless day, with abosolutely no tree coverage or tall buildings near by, they're excellent. But that's not a realistic surrounding for most runners. The FitSense uses advanced pedometer technology instead of relying on a GPS signal and throughout my testing has proven to be a much more accurate device. Other noteworthy advanced speed distance monitors include the sleek Nike Triax Elite, it's predecessor the Nike Triax SDM 100, and the ultra lightweight SportBrain pod.

Also, I'm a geocacher and used to have a Garmin eTrex GPS. I found that it cut out WAY too often and therefore was inaccurate with distance calculations. Since switching to the Magellan Meridian Platinum, I've never looked back at the Garmin. So, how does the Garmin GPS for jogging fare?

I've been moutain biking with my Garmin eTrex Vista for a couple of years now. The best way to create trail maps with your GPS is to bike after the leaves have fallen to get good reception. I upload my tracks to TopoMap 4.0. (Worst. UI. Ever.) Get a GPS with plenty of memory!

The experience is fun and challenging.

Set your GPS to collect current position every 1 sec if biking and every 5 seconds if walking/running. You can get going pretty fast on a mountain bike and long collection intervals make the track on your map seem jagged.

There are helmet cams you can buy from pricepoint for about $200.00(US) as well as lighting systems to light your way in the dark.

I already have a full GPS system on my motorcycle - complete with autorouting etc.

You guys are living in the past! :-)

There would be several ways to disable this system. The easiest way would be to just turn it off. All you'd have to do is reach behind you to that big breaker panel and pull the right one. Or disable a system that it relies on, like the autopilot, the GPS, etc. In order for a system like this to be safe, it has to have safe failure modes, which means it has to relinquish control under certain situations.

I'd love to have a PDA ... that'd give me directions in my car when I got lost

One problem solved.

Jack

• Color screen
  
• USB interface (map uploads are VERY slow over a serial interface)
  
• 56Meg of map memory (vs 24 for the 76S)
  
• Longer battery life
  
• Auto-routing with appropriate maps
  

-- Mitch

• not

BTW, the readout of current coordinates was not affected and was within the expected margin of error.

[tengwar]

I've been issued a Rino 120 at work, and I've been really happy with it's features. It has built-in mapping (not especially detailed, but it does have almost all cities, interstate, and primary highways. It is also gaining support from the freeware GPS software writers.

It includes WAAS support for ~10ft accuracy (or so it says), and even if you don't need the FRS radio now, you'll come up with uses for it.

Garmin's information page for it is here It also comes with an RS-232 cable, and can stream data in both Garmin's format, as well as NEMA, so that it's easy to interface with just about any off-the-shelf GPS enabled hardware. I've hooked mine up to an iPaq running ArcPad, and it worked like a champ. It also states that it can recieve Garmin DGPS corrector vectors for ~10cm accuracy, but I've never tried that.

• Etrex Venture
• Pro: Small, lightweight
• Pro: Easy to use
• Con: Does not work indoors
• Con: Put it in your pocket or walk under tree cover, *poof*, no more signal.
• Con: Almost too small of a display to read.
• Con: Joystick can be fragile.

• Magellan Meridian Platinum
• Pro: Can insert MMC cards to store maps, uncluding roads and topo maps
• Pro: Works indoors to some degree and works very well under treecover and in your pocket/backpack.
• Con: A bit larger/bulkier to carry around.
• Pro: Comes with an initial U.S. Map installed.
• Con: Doesn't have a neat "range ring" based on your satellite reception.

YMMV, but those are my observations. My father got an ETrex for Christmas from someone this year, and I told him not to even open the package, return it and get the Meridian. The Etrex's patch antennae works for sh*t in my experience.

Also be sure to check the forums over on Geocaching.com -- this subject has been talked to death there.

There have been a lot of advances in other areas of aviation, such as safety, navigation, and understanding of weather. No, they're not as sexy as some of the physical airplane designs, but they are important. GPS has had a huge impact on flying, especially in general aviation (that is, non-commercial flight).

Garmin is about to release the G1000, the first affordable glass cockpit for smaller airplanes. It includes GPS navigation but also replaces just about every other instrument typically found in a cockpit. It also adds features such as weather radar and terrain awareness that until now have been uncommon in smaller planes. The cool part is that it's about the same price as all of the equipment that it replaces, so it doesn't increase the cost of the airplane.

I wonder if Garmin even sells the iQue in China. Chances are good they don't, and they probably don't have a trademark for the name there. Even if they did, the devices are in two seperate markets, and could easily coexist with the same name.

-Adam

I wonder what Garmin will have to say about Nintendo ripping off the name of their existing product...

I wonder what Garmin will have to say about Nintendo ripping off the name of their existing product...

I hope that Nintendo considered the folks at Garmin when considering its naming scheme. Be original. Copy someone else.

They'll probably have to change the name though...

~Lake