I would like to make maps of ATV trails.Can you take the info gathered from a GPS and make a map out of it...and print it out from your computer,with way points and would it be to scale...
Thanks

 

You will have some trouble there.

First is accuracy, all the commercial GPS have a built in error, this allows them to be accurate only about 100 foot radius. The error is sent from the Sats. this keeps any knuckle heads from using a GPS to guide bombs. The military ones are the super accurate ones. They filter that error and are accuracte to a couple of foot radius. The only way would be the combination of GPS with differantal LORAN.

100 radius could put you over a cliff or miss a trail by up to 200 feet. That's a pretty big distance if your in the woods.

That's the last I heard on these things anyway.

Smitty

 

The military has taken these error codes out, you can get accuracy of ~15ft. I don't have the software to do this but I know there are several packages available to do this if your GPS has a download port to connect to you computer....MJSTX

 

One such program is "Topo!" distributed by national geographic. It works really well. Here is a link

 

What are the best working GPS units for Atving..thanks for the info...

 

The most popular is the Garmin eTrex Vista for what you want to do. The next step up is the Garmin GPSMAP 76S($375)

Check out garmin's website Link
A good atv/gps discussion can be found here

 

BTW WAAS-equipped GPS devices can often give you an accuracy that is less than 3 meters. Pretty close. The GPSMAP 76/76S is waas equiped

 

GPS's are far more accurate that what the one dude said. With WAAS enabling I have had accuracy to 8 feet. If you have a Garmin model that does mapping you can use the Garmin MapSource to download your routes. I done tons and I post them on my site.

Here are a few:
http://www.ansley.net/pic.php?image=...01/gps_map.jpg
http://www.ansley.net/pic.php?image=...02/gps_map.jpg

 

Those are great Tex. which GPS are you using?

MX

 

I have a Lawrence GPS with a computer program called maptech which allows me to over lay topo maps with a bread crumb trail of any ride I take. The program also allows me to upload it from my GPS to my PC and then download it back to my GPS when I want to use it. The accuracy is fantastic. Another nice thing about the gps is it tells you how far you've traveled, the speed your traveling at and a great way to keep track of exactly were you’re at, when your in the middle of no where, in case of an emergency.