[Taxacom] GPS units that record the time a waypoint was taken

[James Heaney]

At the Florida Natural Areas Inventory we used various Trimble  
(Windows Mobile) units with Terrasync, and Pathfinder Office to  
process data before and after field collection. This system is more  
expensive, but data processing is significantly enhanced including  
time. Many universities have GIS licenses and a few of these programs  
try to leave some sort of legacy.  ESRI has Arcpad for any handheld or  
windows mobile capable device with internal or Btooth GPS receiver. I  
now have it on my phone with Btooth, because the phone/windows is  
subsidized and has a protection plan. This is actually cheaper (if you  
have the GIS software license) than a GARMIN. You never know when you  
may want to collect more data, and then you can't without buying  
something else. What is the next version GARMIN weakness going to be?  
Unless you have the services of an informatics person, and even then,  
I'd rather not spend the time finding out.
Mike

On Mar 17, 2009, at 10:20 AM, Frederick W Schueler wrote:

> Fieldworkers,
>
> Our original Garmin 45 GPS units (1996) recorded the time a waypoint  
> was
> taken, and stored waypoints as a simple text file, from which we were
> able to extract locations for entry into our database.
>
> In 2004 the displays on these units began to fail, and we bought  
> Garmin
> eTrex units, which stored the waypoints in an inaccessible format, and
> didn't record the time they were taken. We've worked around the
> inaccessible format, but Garmin technical staff assured us that the  
> time
> a waypoint was taken isn't recorded anywhere by the units.
>
> Since we use use GPS for drive-by recording of roadkills and  
> colonies of
> invasive plants, this failure to record the time is a real hardship,  
> but
> we've borne up under it. Now the eTrex units are failing, and we  
> wonder
> if others have advice about GPS units that would record both time and
> location. We don't need maps or civic addresses or any of the  
> currently
> fashionable GPS features, just waypoints and the capability to go back
> to them.
>
> thanks,
>
> fred.
> ------------------------------------------------------------
>             Bishops Mills Natural History Centre
>           Frederick W. Schueler & Aleta Karstad
>        RR#2 Bishops Mills, Ontario, Canada K0G 1T0
>     on the Smiths Falls Limestone Plain 44* 52'N 75* 42'W
>       (613)258-3107 <bckcdb at istar.ca> http://pinicola.ca
> ------------------------------------------------------------
>
> _______________________________________________
>
> Taxacom Mailing List
> Taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu
> http://mailman.nhm.ku.edu/mailman/listinfo/taxacom
>
> The Taxacom archive going back to 1992 may be searched with either  
> of these methods:
>
> (1) http://taxacom.markmail.org
>
> Or (2) a Google search specified as:  site:mailman.nhm.ku.edu/ 
> pipermail/taxacom  your search terms here
>

J Michael Heaney
PhD Student
University of Florida
Florida Museum of Natural History
and Department of Biology
357 Dickinson Hall
Gainesville, FL 32611
jheaney at ufl.edu
352-273-1976
352-682-4187