I'm in the market for a GPS unit that I can use on my laptop.  Does anyone have any experience with these or would I be better off with a hand held unit?  I do alot of traveling and need good mapping capabilities and accuracy.  Is there anyway to connect a hand held unit to my  laptop so I can use the laptop screen?  Which company makes the best ones?  Thanks.

Sydwaiz

I have a magellan it works good for me but is old .i'm going to a garmin next they are really good and they (gps)has come a long way in the past couple of years.

Anybody else?  How is the Garmin Etrex Vista?  

hey check out [url]www.geocaching.com[/url]
its a website devoted to GPS using, they got a msg board with people who will know more.
the website is all about treasure hunting with the GPS, or planting a "cache" for other GPS people to find via the GPS.
a lot of fun, look for the "silver and gold" cache which we set up last month. theres some caches only a few miles away.

what kind of computer are you using? If it's a Mac(or even a lowly PC), go here for more info.
[url]www.vancouver-webpages.com/peter/index.html[/url]
[url]joe.mehaffey.com[/url]
[url]www.macgpspro.com[/url]
[url]www.geocache.org[/url]
[url]www.geocaching.com[/url]

I've got the Vista.  Very cool.  It has a built in altimeter (the good version), as well as all the standard stuff.  I'm not going to list all the features here.  It's really nice, and it's pretty much loaded.  There's software out there if you want to download streetmaps, geo-maps etc..

The best place to buy (that I've found) is....

[url]http://www.gpscity.com/[/url]

Have them E-mail you their prices, you'll be impressed.

And yes, I'm VERY happy with the Vista.  It's about got it all.

Stealth, can you tell what they quoted you for the vista? How long ago was that? Thanks
WSmac

Thanks for the links.  I'll check them out.

$309.95 is the price now.  Look around though, you may find it cheaper.  I didn't 4 months ago.  I forwarded you todays price list.

Garmin GPS III Plus. It has about EVERY function you could want. uploadable maps of all kinds. Every street in the USA with the addon CD.  Check it out

Will any of the global positioning satellite codes or access be altered during the military operations by the US?

In other words, over the next several weeks will the system remain up as it now is, or do you think the Dept of Defense will restrict transmissions in order to frustrate any of Bin Laden's GPS units?

Eric The(Inquisitive)Hun[>]:)]

Post from Paul -

Thanks for your response! Do you know of any reason why the GPS system wasn't 'toggled' in Desert Storm, and why it wouldn't be reconfigured (I suppose a simple code change) to prevent it from being used by Bin Laden.

Bin Laden and his cronies are probably the only folks in Afghanistan with GPS units, so why not just disable them?

Eric The(IfThereIsAnyWayItCouldBeDone!)Hun[>]:)]

Your talking about [b]SA, Selective Availability[/b], a process by which the military can switch and shift the positional readings of GPS units. There are different levels up to 300 meters if I recall correctly.
Early on when the DOD used SA, corrections had to be provided to planes, ships and survey/ engineering companies (which I work for). Mr. Paul is correct and the DOD is no longer allowed to make use of this feature.

As a general rule Trimble makes most of the GPS equipment used by the military and Scouts and Explorers are some of the finest handheld units available on the market. All our survey units are Trimbles and survey units are capable of sub-centimeter accuracy. Top line hand-held units will, with a 6-9 satelite hook up, produce about 3-5 meter accuracy and run from 300-800 dollars.

FYI
Mike