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September 15, 2009 : GPS bakeoff

I've had a garmin Etrex (RS232 interface, takes AA batteries) and it's noticeably bad in woodlands so I've been wanting to get a new GPS for ages.

Since my Pandora should be here soon i've been looking for a Bluetooth gps. I found the iBlue 747A+ on ebay and it's rather nice, if a bit of a fiddle to get working. The Usb interface is a bit off standard and corrupts data on win2k.

There is a nice java front end for it. It's also supported by gpsbabel with the 'mtk' input thing.

Here's an picture of the difference in accuracy compared to the Etrex:

Notice the track that zooms off the road down towards the bottom left and then sharply turns to rejoin the road - that's the etrex loosing lock in the wood, interpolating and then jumping back to the road when it regains a lock.

The other nice thing about the 747A+ is that you can specify how and when it should log - every n seconds or every n meters etc...

tags: usb gps

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