Customer Reviews

Outdoor Navigation with GPS

5 star:		(32)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

It's a great book geared towards navigating in the outdoors in particular, rather than autonavigation, marine navigation, etc. It goes in depth into how to use bearings, orienting yourself, direction finding, and a substantial amount of info in navigating without a GPS by using a compass, paper topo maps, the sun, the stars, and so forth.

It is, by design, not an outdoor survival guide, but it does cover the basics for hiking and points to more detailed sources when necessary.

I really enjoyed how well the author taught the concepts of latitude, longitude, bearings, datums, declination, and so forth.

Towards the end of the book, the author even includes some fun GPS-based games you can organize, discusses geocaching, and compares different GPS receiver models.

This book goes beyond the receiver's manual and actually teaches you how to navigate. One of the big points it makes is to find what direction you need to go, find an intermediate waypoint, PUT YOUR RECEIVER AWAY, and head off in the proper direction. This keeps you from walking over poison ivy, off of cliffs, into trees, and generally aware of your surroundings. Once you get to your intermediate destination, pull the receiver out and find your next step. I'm new to wilderness navigation and this was certainly an "aha" moment. Who wants to be focusing on the GPS device the whole time when you could be taking in the beauty of your surroundings instead!

Manuals are sorely incomplete and other books I checked out didn't get to the point. This book does while providing all the information anyone could ever want without overwhelming the reader. This book is very well written, enjoyable to read and a great teacher of what any GPS owner really wants to know. Of all the titles out there, this is the one.

This is the best book I've found for learning how to use GPS in the outdoors. It is well organized, easy to understand, and has lots of useful illustrations. I also like the fact that it is more than just a book on GPS. It also includes detailed chapters on map and compass navigation and primitive navigation techniques for use in emergencies. It is organized into 5 parts, starting with the simplist techniques and building from there. In Part 1, you learn the concepts of waypoints and bearings. Some people may never need to know more than this. Part 2 teaches you about latitude and longitude, as well as a chapter on geocaching. Part 3 covers advanced navigation using topographic maps. Part 4, titled "Recovering from Disaster" shows you what to do if your GPS fails. Part 5 describes fun ways to use your GPS and includes a GPS selection guide. As usual with electronics, this chapter is a little dated now, but the rest of the book is still relevant if even you have a newer GPS. There is also an interesting final chapter called GPS FAQs that answers a number of unusual questions.
The only negative, and it's a minor one, is that most of the GPS screen shots show Garmin receivers. But the explanations in the text are general enough that I had no problem applying them to my Magellan eXplorist.

I just opened my new copy of Stephen Hinch's book Outdoor Navigation with GPS. It's great, exactly what I was looking for; I just devoured the first 39 pages. Even better, I was able to explain some terminology and how the GPS works to my husband, who uses one all the time for work but didn't know about almanac data, ephemeris data, and PRN codes.

I would highly recommend this book for anyone interested in learning how to use a GPS.

I have belonged to a search and rescue team for 2 years. Before reading this book, never really felt that I had learned what I needed to know.

This book is full of practical tips and technical information and the writing style is very straightforward. Since reading this book, I'm using my GPS correctly, I understand all the features and setup, plus I learned some safety tips for hiking. I'm new to GPS so every word of this book was informative for me, but I think even experienced hikers and GPSers will find facts they didn't know and appreciate the writing style and the author's enthusiasm for the outdoors.

I use the Garmin GPS Map60CSx. As other reviewers have noted, this book (or one like it) is a critical accessory for new, recreational GPS owners like me. The manual tells you what buttons to push to activate the different functions of your receiver. But the manual doesn't tell you how to combine your receiver's various functions in order to actually accomplish something useful. This book filled in that gap for me. If you're new to GPS navigation, I strongly recommend it. It is easy to understand, and covers just enough technical detail so that you know what's going on behind the scenes without getting lost in it.

It would be nice if every piece of electronics a person buys didn't require hours of reading and studying to use. And the fact is, if you just want to do the basics, you don't need to read much. But to really make use of all the features of a good GPS, and understand the basics of how it works, you do need to read more than the manual that comes with it. This book does the job quite nicely. I can now do things with the GPS that I couldn't do before, and I even know a bit about how it works.

I agree with the other reviews.

Once I started reading this book, I had a hard time putting it down. The author
presents a lot of (useful) information in a clear and easily understandable format.
I'm new to navigation, so most of the material was new to me. But now I'm hooked
and can hardly wait to apply my newly acquired knowledge.

I also liked the references mentioned in the book. He doesn't overwhelm the reader
with too many of them. But the ones he mentions appear highly useful.

There are several books on GPS navigation, but I'm fortunate that this is the one
I picked.

I've been a basic-feature gps user for several years, but decided it was time to figure out the 80% of the buttons/features which were greek to me. This book was perfect for the task. I read it cover to cover (simultaneous with testing features on my newly aquired rino) in just a few hours -- time well spent. Text is sufficiently technical and detailed to fully capture the information, but written in an interesting and simple manner. I especially appreciated the correlation with compass and paper mapping techniques and the information on what to do if/when the gps unit fails (batteries dead, dropped and broken, etc.). Also agree with the reminder to "put away the electronic toy" and watch where you're going! After all, we go into the wild in order to see the wild -- not view it on a 2 inch screen.

Only suggestion for future editions: some of the illustrations were too small to be maximally helpful. Since "the big picture" plus small details are both necessary to truly follow the examples related to paper mapping techniques, I would have preferred seeing the full map view (as is) plus a "blow up" illustration of the details.

Very easy and understandable reading. I like to read and time is valuable: much is saved with this book, without sacrificing information conveyance. Well illustrated, the examples are clear and I was able to grasp concepts quickly and thoroughly which had eluded me previously. I have six other "map & compass" books which I reviewed as I was reading this one, and this one was the standout for basics and somewhat beyond.