Trying to find a GPS for my Dad. He is in his 80’s but still likes hunting and camping out. However, he is no longer able to hike much so mostly does a lot of road or close to road hunting. Anybody have a suggestion for an easy to use unit that he can use for both regular road navigation and for making easy wave point notes? (hope that is the term). Ideally he would be able to let us know his GPS location so we can track the old fart down.

 

guess your old man is a bit different than mine, all we gotta do if we need to find him is wait for the wind to change........ then we know where the old fart is ! A lot of the mobile gps / car units do not do well off road at all, smaller magellan units are more for what you want, Cabellas has a bunch of them, but for ease of use, go find them in a store and look for simplicity, they tend to cram in ever more features and they still only have a few buttons, can be frustrating to find what you want to do on the higher end models.

 

I like the Garmin units. Also don't forget you can usually locate someone by their cell phone in an emergency.

 

That’s funny. And after a week--its true.
Yeah, I am looking for something easy to use (for me also). Hadn’t thought of Cabellas even though I get their catalog

Hard to believe in this day but where he likes to go there is no cell phone coverage. We rely a lot on notes (paper plates) stapled to trees to communicate. And yes, we always take the notes down unlike some slobs.

Probably isn’t a perfect unit out there for both on/off road use.

 

May I suggest a locator beacon of some sort in case he gets into trouble. That way rescue personnel can track him down if something goes bad and he is out of cell phone coverage. As for a good GPS, probably an e-trek or something comparable would be fine, but no matter what he needs to learn how to access certain menus to give you position or mark the position of where he parked. And because you are in Alaska, he needs to understand that you have to keep the GPS warm, ie close to the body, so the batteries don't die. Many times out snow machining in some -20 to -30 temps and the GPS would die unless kept warm.

 

Thank you much for the tips. Should have mentioned that my Dad is in N Calif. However, it can get pretty nasty (remember the Donner Party). In fact last year when I met up with him it snowed and we got stranded for 3 days. Well, we had our trailers, lots of food and beer so stranded may be a little harsh. Anyway, good tips.

 

Construction flagging tape ( bright orange) is also a good marker.....I like snoyes's idea of the personal location beacon also.

 

Garmin has always been my favorite brand. The Oregon series looks to be the cream of the crop right now, but I can't justify spending that much on something that tells you where you are standing currently, and where you used to be.

 

This won't help with the GPS part but look into SPOT as a way to track him and give him the option to call for help if needed.

 

This may help http://www.gpsmagazine.com/reviews.php Or may me too much information and just confuse you

 

I second snoyes comments. Also having a unit you don't know how to use won't help you. You need to use it regularly like an avalanche transciever so the controls are familiar to you. If you don't know how to use it in the living room by the fire you sure aren't going to figure it out under stress!

The Garmins are pretty nice, but they are the only ones I have any familiarity with.

Kurt

 

Working on Digesting the info you guys have given me. Probably take another day or two than might have another question or 40. Thanks again for your time and info.

 

The Rino 530 from Garmin is the best way to go. i use it for hunting as well as hiway navigation. the best part is it is FRS radio as well and can comunicate its location with other Rino units. all of my hunting partners have them now and it works great for tracking everones location.

 

Garmin is the way to go. I have a 200W for my truck.

 

My garmin 200 will run about 4 to 5 hours on battery.
Its touch screen (typing may be an issue for fatter fingers) and the keyboard is layed out in ABC order but some offer QWERTY as an option.
Waypoints are set by touching the vehicle and entering a name or touch enter to just give it a sequential number.
The draw back is you cant load Topo maps on the 200 and directions back to a way point still require a compass since it only give you the overhead view and the direction the GPS gives you is the last direction traveled, not the direction your facing.
Some of the hand held GPSes offer a built in 5 mile two way radio and will send coordances to another like capable gps.
After that, there are the emergency locators like SPOT that will communicate to a satellite (given a decent view of the sky).