Whats your opion? I.am looking for a GPS the preforms well in heavy woods. I.ve had sevreal And all fall short when I get in the cover of trees. Does anyone own one that really works. Please no car GPS s they are useless in the woods.
I've got several Garmin Map76cs units (bought on EBay!) that work great under canopy. I'm a geologist, so I spend a fair bit of time in the woods. My Trimbles barely leave the office anymore (make good paperweights though!).
Garmin is coming out with the new Colarado series which is the newest in Technology. The won't be available for awhile but are worth the wait. www.Garmin.com for more info.
Leica Geosystems produces a model named the GS20 (2nd generation). It has features called Max Trac and Hyper Trac that were designed for using the unit in heavy forested areas. I believe it was beta tested in Canada by a gentleman who used it quite a bit doing just what you are considering. You might contact Leica and see if you can get more details.
The garmin colorado 400T would be perfect. It comes loaded with topo maps and has a high sensitivity receiver that keeps your fix in heavy forested areas and canyons. They are now available at www.theoutfittersgeneralstore.com
I work for a logging company in Canada and lay out block boundaries to be cut at later dates. Conifer range as tall as 65 meters and the deciduous 60 meters. I use the Garmin 76CSx and the Alberta topo maps from Garmin. I have never lost signal yet, however I have had to send the unit in for warranty as the unit blacked out and would not start up. A word of caution about Garmin warranty, if you need to send in an item for warrranty you also need to send in a bill of sale. An Ebay transaction reciept will not suffice!!! They will still fix your unit, but they will want a credit card number up front and you will have to pay for the repair.
The Garmin HCX series has incredible signal pull. The etrex legend or vista HCX will work in heavy tree cover, and add many great features for under $250!
I've had a Garmin III+ for years and used it for hunting in mountainous regions. It works fine in the fall, worse after the trees have leaves on them, but, hey, I've always found the truck. It is a very old model with very few of the new whiz bang features, but lasts forever on 4 AA batteries. Mine has over 30,000 hours on it and still works fine even after being left in the sun on the dashboard of my car many times. They should be real cheap by now.
Garmin 76cx/csx work well under canopy, so does Holux. Any GPS with SiRF III chips work well under canopy.
Other posters say wait for the Garmin Colorado (or Oregon?), I say, do these have newer and better chips than SiRF III, if not, I doubt they will provide much better results.
If you want to spend $2k, try the GeneQ SXBLUE II, which will maintain WAAS corrections under canopy even when a good fix cannot be obtained, but this only works for an hour or so, and degrades over time.
I have been using two Garmin GPSMap60CSx's for almost two years now and have never had a problem with them. I have used them in the middle of the wide open Mojave desert and up in the high sierra mountains with no signal trouble. Obviously in the desert you get great signal, but even up in the sierras under plenty of tree cover I am able to get a +/- of 15ft!!! Never have they let me down and they will run all day on just two AA batteries. I use rechargeable batteries now and even after many, many charges still get all day use out of a pair.
I have the same question, but let me add some background. I live in Costa Rica, I used to have a garmin 12 and tried using it in Braulio Carrillo National Park, near Barva Volcano. The Canopy here is not only the tree leaves, but also all the parasite plants. Humidity is very high. The GPS was useless, it never got more than 1 satellite and with a very weak signal. I am looking to buy a unit that can perform under those conditions. So I would like to know if those conditions match what was reffered to as tropical forest by rlopeztiqui, it would help me a lot to make a buying decision.
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