Handheld GPS Buyers Guide

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Correspondence: karin@nature.berkeley.edu. Handheld GPS Buyer’s Guide:. What you need to know to buy the best handheld GPS unit for your field work …

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7/5/2007 Tuxen & Kelly, 2007
Image credits: Garmin.com Correspondence: karin@nature.berkeley.edu
Handheld GPS Buyer’s Guide:
What you need to know to buy the best handheld GPS unit for your field work
Global Positioning Systems (GPS) is a common way to collect location data for agricultural, urban,
and natural resources. It is made up of a constellation of 24 satellites used for civilian GPS, which
accurately determine your location (X,Y,Z) in any weather, day or night, anywhere on Earth.
There are several choices of GPS units, all of which differ in features and capability. Overall, GPS
units are separated into three categories: recreation-grade, mapping-grade, and survey-grade. This
guide is for recreational and basic mapping units only (with horizontal accuracies of approximately
2-30m). For more information about higher-grade mapping and survey-grade, please visit
http://giif.cnr.berkeley.edu/gps.html.
There are several things you should consider when buying a GPS unit for your fieldwork and
research:
Waypoint capacity
How many waypoints, or GPS points, will the unit need to
hold for the duration of the field visit?
Many Garmin units hold 1,000 waypoints, but some…