GPS Recommendation

[RyanHinesley]

Can somebody recommend a moderately priced gps unit that I can download shapefiles and imagery (jpeg, tiff, and/or sid) to. I'm looking at the Garmin Montana but it looks like it will only accept kml/kmz, which is fine as I can easily convert my data, but I can't tell if it will accept the raw image types I listed. Thanks.

[DeniseKing]

Ryan,
Confirm the Garmin GPS model supports NMEA protocol, in addition to support for Garmin protocol. ArcGIS for Windows Mobile application and runtime SDK use the same API to communicate with GPS receivers supporting NMEA protocol. NMEA does not enable ArcGIS for Windows Mobile to control the settings of a GPS that supports it. To do this, a third-party tool must be used that uses a two-way protocol, such as Trimble or SiRF.

Cheers,
Denise

[michaelcollins1]

Try Garmin's BirdsEye satellite image service for the Montana, $29 per year per GPS, and DNR GPS to load shape files (http://www.dnr.state.mn.us/mis/gis/DNRGPS/DNRGPS.html).

This is very limited though as Garmin GPS units are geared towards recreational use. Polylines and polygons get stored as tracks, and they tend to not hold a lot of data.

A proper mapping GPS sounds good at about $1000 (Trimble Juno etc.) but then you need to buy mapping software on top of that.

In short, I haven't seen any sub-$1000 (CDN) GPS units that can do what you're asking. If anyone has, I'd like to know about it too.

[RyanHinesley]

Thank you both for your replies.