Monday 22 November 2010

Making the most of our Satmap GPS

Earlier this year, the kind folks at Satmap offered an Active 10+ bundled with a couple of memory cards at cost price.  Jane has been using it over the summer months and we took it on our intermediate navigation course over Kinder Scout last saturday, where it really came into it's own.

The course navigates over the Kinder plateau, seeking out some of the well hidden aircraft wreckage in order to practice a range of navigation techniques.  The Satmap is perfect for checking out bearings and distances, which it does with ease and speed.

I can't claim that I have plumbed the depths of the Satmap, but I have grown to like it very much.  One of the reasons we opted for the Satmap were the extensive range of maps, however my only reall quibble is the need to change memory cards when moving around the country.  We still use Viewranger on our mobile phones, and it is extremely easy to add mapping on this device - almost too easy, if you have an iphone and itunes account!  With Satmap you have to buy the map on a  memory card, wait for it's delivery and swop them around.  However a small price to pay for a gadget which does it's job very well, is much more robust than the phone, and easy to use when outdoors on a cold winter's day.

There is more information and the chance to try out the Satmap, Viewranger enabled phones and a couple of Garmin GPS machines on our Making the most of your GPS course in the new year.