Thanks for ALL your suggestions regarding which inexpensive GPS unit to purchase- I took it all into consideration and looked at *numerous* models before deciding on the Garmin 12 which was $146 at WalMart (where incidently I can bring it back up to three months from now if I change my mind.) This unit is only $50 more than the units that track 2 satellites instead of 12 plus it has tons of features including a map of waypoints that I can store.
One nice thing about the G12 is that I can upload airport coordinates in from my PC and use them as waypoints (up to 500). It even has a feature that will even give me directions to one of 9 closest "proximity" waypoints which I can use if I need to find the closest airport in a hurry. I purchased a pc interface cable for $15 (including postage) and am going to download freeware for uploading waypoints. Compare this to the $90 that Garmin wants for their cable and software and its a pretty good deal. Now I just need to get a list of airport coordinates (I'm too lazy to input 500 coordinates by hand!) Would any of you folks happen to know of an electronic (on the net or perhaps a file you can send me) of airport gps coordinates for the west coast? Joa www.deschutes.net/~co291 "Vaircraft/CH-601 Building Page" _________________________ Oh ... if you think this is a nifty way to get a neat "aircraft" gps wait till you hear what I want to do with my gps and a palmtop. I found some software that will plot out *real time* my gps coordinates in a 3D topo picture. It will work on palm tops so basically I think I can hook my gps up to a WindowsCE palmtop and punch in my elevation (my gps doesn't have this feature- what do you expect for $150??!!! ;-) and I'll be able to have a 3D real time moving map. Pretty slick huh? Figure around $250 for the palmtop, $90 for the software, and $150 for the GPS and I've got myself a pretty nifty $500 GPS! Of course I haven't put this together yet so until I do don't quote me on any of this, and true to life it will never be as easy as I expect it to be! And then of course there's palmtops that have wireless internet access- real time satellite weather (doppler, visual, radar, temperature, local conditions, you name it) comes in handy when you're flying....
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