Hi Guys - There are so many good (outstanding) Hand Held GPS's out there now, that it really is a matter of personal preference. I got into GPS's the first year they came out from underneath the military's domain, and started using them for Search and Rescut in NW Wyoming. The company I work for finally listened to me tell why GPS's could be of use to them during anything from an Emergency Response to what ended up becoming my last position as GIS Coordinator.

We started having a lot of our folks just going out and buying different GPS's, and so I was given the envious job of getting to test all of the latest HH GPS's made, and trying to come up with a Standard HH GPS package for the Company.

After much fussing and testing, I finally ended up choosing the Magellan Meridian Color. It just seemed easier to use, had more internal memory, could put the largest SD card in them, and the different software packages for our application were great for uploading detailed road and topo info. Looking back, the only thing I wish I had changed earlier was to go to the Meridian Gold vs the Color. The reason for this was the color screen was difficult to see in daylight lit cabs or cockpits. I also got to supply our Pipeline Aerial Patrol pilots with data out of our GIS database which made it pretty accurate and quick.

Now this has been several years ago, and I need to visit updating our Standard HH GPS Package again. I am about to try out one of Magellans new eXplorist XL North America units to see if the color screen has been improved along with the larger size screen.

On a side note, as a personal project, I started collecting the center of the RC runways for as many RC Fields as I could visit or determine using some of my GIS software. I presently have collected over 980 fields across the US. I have it in an Excel file that can easily be uploaded to software such as MSN's Streets and Trips. The Excel file includes of course the coordinates, city and state names, the club name, club web link and weather link. It also has links to on-line aerial and satillite images. If anyone is interested in it I have the files on my little MSN web site broke out by AMA Dist. Go to [link=http://groups.msn.com/PuttsRCHomePage]Putt's RC Home Page[/link], click on the Documents tab, and either download it or open it from there. If anyone would rather have the whole file let me know in a PM and I can e-mail it to you. You can also see part of the data using Bill Lee's [link=http://www.ama-dist-8.org/Clubs/Locator.php]AMA Club Locator[/link]. Look for a link in the upper right of some of the results that way GPS and Aerial Imagery link.

On a side note, if anyone is looking for some good info from someone who knows GPS inside and out, check out Joe Mehaffey's site out for [link=http://gpsinformation.net/]GPS and software reviews and comparisons[/link]