A Comprehensive Guide to Land Navigation with GPS (Paperback)

by Noel J. Hotchkiss (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description
This is a practical hands-on guide, written for the novice and experienced navigator alike, who wish to fully apply the advantages and experience the enjoyment of using the Global Positioning System (GPS) technology. Whether you are considering the first purchase of a GPS receiver, already using GPS for outdoor sports and recreational activities or would like to start using GPS in your car, this book will provide you will the knowledge and skills required to get the most out of this exciting new technology. Included with the book is a free CD ROM featuring MAPTECH's digital map software and a sample topographic map. With this software you can interpret, manipulate, and customize USGS topographic maps; determine distances and elevation changes; profile areas to be navigated; upload and download coordinates, waypoints, and routes between a PC and compatible GPS units; and print customized maps to carry along during treks in the woods.

From the Publisher
Originally published in 1994, this book was the first to recognize the tremendous potential of GPS navigation to the outdoor recreational user. It has become a widely used text for GPS instruction and is a popularly quoted reference in a rapidly expanding field of GPS training and education. This new Edition represents the most extensive revision and expansion of the book since its initial release over 5 years ago. The all new Third Edition has been expanded from 187 to 331 pages and remains the only full color publication of its kind, with hundreds of illustrations that help bring teaching points to life.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 316 pages
• Publisher: Alexis Pub; 3rd edition (March 1999)
• ISBN-10: 189268800X
• ISBN-13: 978-1892688002
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #512,083 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

24 of 26 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Less selling, more information, September 14, 2001

By	George Berman (Boca Raton, FL United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This is, as billed, a comprehensive book. So much so that it becomes repetitive. Nevertheless, it omits some important information, and IMHO gets other information wrong. It is also a blatant, and oft-repeated commercial for the author's GPS road map series and more.

The book spends a great deal of time describing the MGRS (old) Grid, but fails to prove that it's better than the far more widely used UTM grid. It also never explains what the MGRS (new) Grid is, why it was developed, or why one should use the (old) system. One gets the impression that the author developed the grid at the time of the Gulf War, built it into his road map series, and doesn't want us to know about its successor.

It's hard to trust an author who recommends the lensatic compass over the modern protractor compass (e.g., Silva). The lensatic requires the user to orient the map in order to to use the compass, and to carry a protractor to transfer azimuths from the compass to the map and vice versa. This is exactly what the protractor compass was designed to avoid!

If you don't know how to use a map and compass, there are better books than this to learn it from.

There is no discussion of GPS problems and how to cope with them. It's not unusual for a GPS receiver to report that you are 2 feet from a waypoint, and then report the waypoint 100 feet away. This is probably the result of another problem with the book: it was written before the government increased the precision of GPS from 100 meters to 10 meters.

The book contains a great many illustrations, most of which are of no use at all. Photos of many different GPS receivers, all now obsolete; photos of outdoor scenes, etc. Many are in full color, and increase the cost of publication.

Finally, one misses a clear, organized description of each feature that can be found on a modern GPS receiver, and what is desireable in each. What screen options do you need? How good must the screen resolution be? What will you need to transfer information to and from a PC? How can one maximize battery life? How does a track differ from a route? When should you use one or the other?

One might be better off to find a compact, more recent reference that is well organized.

12 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent land nav. review with unbiased GPS information, March 22, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Comprehensive Guide to Land Navigation With Gps (Paperback)

Excellent land nav. review for the trained navigator. Concise unbiased info regarding the use of GPS with land nav. skills. Highly recommended.

1 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great Book for Learning about GPS Tracking and Navigation, December 29, 2003

By A Customer

This is a great book to read if you plan on developing any type of GPS tracking or navigation system. While the book covers the the basics, you'll need some further resources on interfacing GPS receivers and such hardware to real-world devices.

An interesting article entitled "Tracking a Vehicle With GPS" can be read at www.closerworlds.com

A lot of mobile solutions are soon to hit the market such as mobile phones using GSM or GPRS to track a person. This book will help to understand how it all fits together. It would have been nice if the book could have touched on how older communication systems like VHF radios can transmit GPS data. For that you'll have to visit www.closerworlds.com or some other website with such resources.