GPS devices are great because they allow you know figure out exactly where you are. But did you know that some GPS devices can help you find your friends too?

The Garmin Rino 520HCx GPS FRS/GMRS 2 Way Radio is a GPS device designed to do just that. This high-sensitivity GPS device is water resistant and it is able to pinpoint your position even in locations that would give other GPS devices trouble, like heavy cover or deep canyons.

The Rino 520HCx can not only find you, it can then tell others where you are. Its unique Position Reporting feature lets you send your exact location to your fellow Rino users. That way, all Rino users connected to your group can see your position on the map page. But the Rino does not have to do all of the talking, it will let you get a word in too. Besides being a great GPS device, the Rino 520HCx is also a standard FRS/GMRS radio. The Rino’s radio is able to communicate with other conventional FRS/GMRS radios.

The Rino 520 HCx:

-includes a built-in Americas autoroute basemap with automatic routing capabilities, including highways, exits, and tide data (U.S. only)

- has position formats including Lat/Lon, UTM, Loran TDs, Maidenhead, MGRS, a user grid, and more

-is equipped with a 10,000-point automatic track log; 20 saved tracks (500 points each) let you retrace your path in both directions

-has new high-sensitivity WAAS-Capable GPS receiver by SiRF

-has built-in quad-helix receiving antenna with remote antenna capability

-supports English, Spanish, Portugese, and French languages

-includes a large-numbers option for easy viewing

-give you the option of a dual-position display mode

-has a MicroSD card slot that allows for storage of optional MapSource detail

-comes with internal memory that is preloaded with a marine point database

-is illuminated by a LED backlit display and keypad

A visit to ActionGPS.com can keep you in the loop about the Rino 520HCx and other great GPS devices.

As you may know, Garmin and other GPS navigational devices come with all kinds of alerts. They not only keep you on course, they also let you know what you will experience as you go. You can get traffic alerts to let you know which areas you may want to avoid. Your GPS device can alert you to weather conditions. Since many GPS devices come pre-loaded with points of interest (POIs) and allow you to add your own favored destinations, a GPS device can let you know that you are near a restaurant you like. There are even some GPS devices that will inform you of where you can get the best deal on gas to fill your tank.

But did you know that some GPS devices can also alert you to the presence of wildlife? This may not mean much if you are traveling through the urban jungle, but if you are in some bodies of water it can make a big difference. More and more boaters are using GPS navigation devices to aid them with navigation.

Garmin entered into a partnership with the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC) and the Tampa Bay Estuary Program’s Manatee Awareness Coalition (MAC). Information about manatee zones is available on all new Garmin GPS chart plotters. Boaters can also buy navigation chips (SD cards) to update a GPS device that they already own.

Information about where the manatee zones are, and how far they extend is invaluable for boaters. This data empowers the boaters to do their part to help protect both manatees and the bay’s shallow-water sea grass meadows.

If you are looking for a Marine GPS device, look no further than ActionGPS.com. They have some great GPS devices like the Garmin GPSMAP 178C or the Garmin GPSMAP 76CSx Portable Handheld Outdoor Color GPS
that will take you through charted and uncharted waters.

Earlier today, I visited a museum where a guide proudly showed off the museum’s collection of fishing decoys. These decoys had a very practical use, but over time they had become collector’s items. According to the guide, these painted wooden lures were used for ice fishing. People would cut holes in the ice and lower these wooden lures into the holes. They’d wait for the fish to swim by and spear them.

While some of the lures were quite decorative, but it is still hard to imagine that people really got into bidding wars over them. Then again, they might as well be used as decoration because modern fisher hunters have much more sophisticated ways of getting to the fish they want.

The Garmin GPSMAP 178C need never sit on a shelf because you will be out using it to get those fish. It is so much more than a decoy. If you are a small-water angler, you’ll be glad to know that you can use the GPSMAP 178C with MapSource Recreational Lakes with Fishing Hot Spots. You will be ready to sail through some of the U.S. and Canada’s most-frequented lakes, marinas, and fishing areas.

Most importantly, the 178C is equipped with a built-in sounder. This sounder has Garmin’s exclusive See-Thru fish targeting technology and features adjustable range, gain, zoom and bottom loc. It’s easy-to-read, semi-transparent digital readout lets you see sonar images.

The 178C has a worldwide marine basemap and will accept BlueChart offshore map cartography. The GPSMAP 178C is ready for inter-tidal zones, wrecks, navaids and many of the other exciting points of interest found in various bodies of water.

The 178C comes with:
-Garmin GPSMAP 178C Sounder
-Basemap: Worldwide Marine
-Internal Antenna (featuring Single Frequency Transducer w/ Depth & Temperature)
-Swivel Mount Bracket
-Protective Front Cover
-Power/Data  Cable
-Owner’s Manual
-Handy Quick Reference Guide

Check out the GPSMAP 178C and other Marine GPS devices at ActionGPS.com.

Some years ago, on probably the hottest, most sweltering week of the summer, we visited Cumberland Gap National Park. In history class that year  the kids had read about the Cumberland Gap, the first great gateway to the west; and I thought it would be interesting to show them the real deal. Through this dip in the Appalachian Mountains that straddles Kentucky, Tennessee and Virginia, settlers struggled westward to tame the American wilderness centuries ago.

The guidebook lured us up a steep trail with promises of “magnificent views of three states.” And I’m sure the views would have been magnificent, if anyone had bothered to trim the brush. After a long, hot, sweaty climb we arrived at the end of the trail to a less than spectacular 360-degree view of tangled green brush clogging the space between tall trees. Disappointment doesn’t come close to describing the family mood at that moment.

However, all was not lost. In the clearing at the top of the trail was what looked like a wood gazebo. Walking inside we saw an impressive bronze plaque set into the ground. It was about the size of a manhole cover and was elaborately engraved with the four compass points. What was amazing was that in the middle of the plaque was a square, palm-sized stone. The numbers and letters chiseled into its face had been worn nearly smooth by time, but a sign indicated that it was the original geologic survey marker placed by George Washington!

I don’t know that the kids were all that impressed, but I was. It’s that memory that sparked my interest in benchmark hunting, a specialized type of geocaching. Plugging coordinates found on the National Geodetic Survey website into your handheld GPS unit, you can hunt down and “discover” geologic survey markers. We’ve found markers in front of the courthouse in our town square and on the tops of local hills. They’ve led us to old pioneer roads and river fords, to long abandoned towns and old highways. It’s like discovering little bits of history everywhere we go.

Geocaching.com has an excellent guide to benchmark hunting and provides instructions for finding benchmarks both on geocaching.com and on the National Geodetic Survey site. If you want to get into benchmark hunting, check out the great selection of handheld GPS devices at ActionGPS.

We’ve mentioned before how a GPS navigation device can get you ready for competition. Looking for further proof? Look no further than Olympic cyclist Kristin Armstrong. Armstrong is a gold medal winner and top notch athlete. She and her coach went to Beijing ahead of time to check out the terrain and train for what they had heard would be unbearable air pollution.

Now it is one thing to train, but it is another thing to train and also capture and analyze data from the experience. Armstrong did this using a GPS device. Without the GPS device, she would have had to rely solely on her memory of training in Beijing for the many months she had between her trip and the actual Olympics. Her husband urged her to take on of his GPS devices with her to China to get an elevation profile as she rode and this advice proved to be invaluable.

Once she was back in the U.S., Armstrong was able to export the data from the GPS device. She used this information to search out a course that would approximate the one she’d be competing on as part of the Olympics. The ability to find a similar trail combined with the elevation data gleaned on her trip to China definitely helped Armstrong and gave her the edge she needed to capture a gold medal.

A GPS device like the Garmin Edge 605 Cycling Fitness Training Navigator GPS will automatically measures your speed, distance, time, calories burned and altitude.  The customizable cycle computer shows up to eight different data fields for continuous feedback With a simple connection to your computer, you can join a worldwide network of cyclists and outdoor enthusiasts through Garmin Connect our new, one-stop site for data analysis and sharing. You can also upload the optional Garmin Training Software for further analysis.

ActionGPS.com has the Garmin Edge 605 and other great GPS devices designed for cycling.

The day is coming when paper maps will be no more than antique shop curiosities. Like cassette tapes, VHS movies and (soon) analog TV, roadmaps and street directories are becoming modern day dinosaurs. Maps have gone digital and GPS devices are now the preferred method of getting from point A to point B. In fact, incoming college freshman, most born in 1990, have never known a world without GPS — or caller ID, Harry Potter, Nintendo Game Boy, karaoke, plastic soda bottles, and late night TV with Leno and Letterman, according to the Beloit College Mindset List, an annually published list of common collegiate references geared to help college professors update their teaching references and make the rest of us feel old.

GPS technology was developed by the military and honed to deadly accuracy during the Gulf War. (They bragged about hitting targets the size of a 50-cent piece.) When they first hit the consumer market, GPS devices were a bit unwieldy and exorbitantly priced, kind of like early mobile phones. But like phones, which have gone from the size of a hefty brick to not much bigger than a credit card, advances in electronic circuitry have trimmed the size and price of GPS units each year. Today, you can buy a GPS unit that fits in your pocket or purse for less than the cost of your monthly cell phone bill, particularly if you live with teenagers.

GPS devices have become so popular that sales topped $4.1 billion last year, according to the Consumer Electronics Association. In a CEA survey, 18% of online adults already owned a GPS device and 24% wanted one. With online suppliers like ActionGPS offering GPS devices at highly affordable prices, there’s no reason to live with envy. Owning a GPS is within the financial grasp of even the most budget conscious, particularly if you buy one of ActionGPS’ very affordable factory refurbished models. To view our full line of GPS devices, visit the ActionGPS website.

What does cooking have to do with GPS navigation? A whole lot actually. If you want to get to a restaurant you’ve heard got rave reviews and you don’t know where it is, a GPS navigation device can help you get there quickly, before your stomach starts growling.

Alton Brown, chef extraordinaire and star of several shows that can be seen on the Food Network has found a GPS device to be essential to his mission. He has a new show where he is traveling around, tasting and sampling foods in restaurants, farmer’s markets, and even people’s homes. In the episodes that are airing now, he is traveling through the Caribbean. He and his crew don’t have time to wander around (as fun as that might be) so I have it on good authority that they are using Garmin products to help them find their way to their various destinations.

Since it is Alton Brown, you know he is likely wandering off the beaten path in his destination and his culinary choices. And the great thing about having a GPS device along for the journey is that you can veer away from downtown or well-used roads and still stay right on course. In one interview, Brown mentioned that is was good to have a GPS device to navigate on some of the islands that didn’t have roads.

Brown also said that his GPS device of choice is the Garmin Colorado. The Colorado is waterproof, making it perfect since Brown will be taking trips arounf 15 Caribbean islands for his current show. He also said that he like all if its marine functions and found the Colorado helpful because it calculates distance.

Even if you are not trekking around as many islands as Alton Brown, you will still find that your travels will be that much easier if you take along an Outdoor GPS device, like the Garmin Colorado. Visit ActionGPS.com to get one of your own.

Field & Stream, a publication whose tagline indicates that it is “The World’s Best Leading Outdoor Magazine,” has named the Garmin Colorado 400t on its list for the “Best of the Best: Top New Outdoor Gadgets of 2008.”  For Field & Stream to recommend a GPS device, it has to be really be able to go the distance.This is quite an honor and if you are looking for a GPS device to accompany you on your outdoor treks and journeys, consider the Garmin’s Colorado.

The Colorado has what you need for serious climbing or hiking. It’s map detail includes national, state and local parks and forests. The Colorado will keep you abreast of elevation, trails, rivers, lakes and other points of interest. The 3-D map view will make it possible for you to really get a feel for your surroundings. Plus, the sunlight-readable display will make it simple for you to get a good read on map details.

The Colorado’s trip computer provides odometer, stopped time, moving average, overall average, total time, max speed and more relevant information that you need.

It also has an electronic compass to keep you on track. It will give you bearing information, whether you’re moving or not.  Plus, its high-sensitivity, WAAS-enabled GPS receiver allows you to locate your position quickly and precisely. Dense foliage and deep canyons are no match for the Colorado 400t: it maintains its GPS location in some of very hard-to-reach locations. The reliable Colorado is made to keep you from losing your way.

You can also keep track of your friends too. With the Colorado 400t you can share your waypoints, tracks, routes and geocaches wirelessly with other Colorado users.

The rugged Colorado is jam-packed full of great features. Visit ActionGPS.com to learn more about how one of the outdoor GPS devices from Garmin can give you a boost on all your hiking adventures.

GPS geocaching has added a new dimension to Flat Fred. If you have an elementary school aged child in your house, you’re probably familiar with Flat Fred. Flat Fred is a popular school program where children mail a cardboard person on a journey. Aunt Sue and cousin Sam cart Flat Fred off to the local sights, take a few snapshots and write about his adventures in a logbook, then mail him to another friend or relative. Eventually Flat Fred returns home and the children get to see and read about all the amazing places he has visited on his journeys.

Bellevue High School students have put a modern techno spin on Flat Fred by turning him into a geocache travel bug. Travel bugs are special “dog tags” printed with a unique PIN that is registered on an internet site. Often travel bugs are attached to an object like a small figurine or toy. When a geocacher finds a travel bug, he logs onto the designated website and enters the PIN to access an online log. There he posts the position where he found the bug, adds a comment, and receives instructions on where to take the bug next. Some travel bugs have missions to travel to a specific location. For others, the goal is to see how far and to how many different places the bug can travel. 

“Most travel bugs have a goal, like, ‘I want to get to the Indianapolis Speedway,’ so it will eventually work its way over to Indiana, get its photo taken at the racetrack, and work its way back home,” explained Seth Leary, founder of the Washington State Geocaching Association, who helped guide the Bellevue project. “The process can take something like two years, but if they get back home, the owner can keep it on his desk, knowing all the places it went to.” The fun, said Leary, is in seeing where the bugs end up.

In connection with a community sculpture project, Bellevue High School students created small papier mache sculptures, registered them as travel bugs and sent them on journeys in the nearby Seattle, Washington area. One travel bug directed finders to take it to the Seattle Space Needle. Another, dubbed Larry the Loch Ness Monster, asked finders to photograph it at local lakes. A sealife sculpture was photographed with fish at the Seattle Aquarium before finding its way home.

If you want to start your own travel bug on a trip, you can register your bug on geocaching.com. For a great selection of geocaching GPS devices, visit ActionGPS.

Call me a worrywart, but when my daughter and her roommate decided to hike the Vermont Trail, I insisted they take along the Garmin Rino GPS FRS/GMRS 2-way radio. They were planning a rugged week backpacking in the mountains of Vermont where the weather can change in an instant. It’s not unusual for afternoons to turn stormy and nights to drop to 40 degrees even in the dog days of August. But I was more concerned about the rugged terrain and my daughter’s relative lack of primitive camping experience. With a Garmin Rino GPS 2-way radio along, I figured they’d have a better chance of calling for help in an emergency.

The Vermont Trail is an ongoing volunteer project to build a multi-purpose four-season trail across Vermont. When completed it will make for comfortable hiking in the Vermont mountains. But it’s still a work in progress and, like the Appalachian Trail, in many places is no more than a deer path through the wild brush. My daughter had done some wilderness camping back in her college days and her roomie, a Vermont native, had hiked the Trail with friends as a teen; but that was years ago. Despite their assurances that they had everything under control, mom that I am, I envisioned crumbling rock ledges and vicious bear attacks. I felt much happier when they agreed to take the Rino along for the trip.

Weight is a big issue when you’re carrying all your supplies on your back, but at just 10.3 ounces, the Garmin Rino 520 HCx GPS 2-way radio didn’t weigh them down. They were able to add topographic and trail maps and plot their route to leave with friends. With the capacity to store 500 waypoints it was easy to mark overnight shelters, dangerous water areas and paths to nearby towns. With conservative use, the 14-hour battery life would see them through the mountains and safely home. The highly sensitive GPS receiver on the Rino 520 provides a whopping 5 watts of transmitting power, enough to locate your position even in heavy cover or deep canyons — and provide a 14-mile line-of-sight contact capability. In an emergency situation, I felt confident they’d be able to pinpoint their location and contact rescue teams.

Today is day 2 of their trek in the mountains and knowing they have the Garmin Rino GPS 2-way radio with them, I’m not really worried. (Well, not much anyway.)

The Garmin GPSMAP 60CSx Portable Handheld Outdoor Color GPS is an exciting update of the GPSMAP 60CS. The GPSMAP 60CS was one of Garmin’s most sought-after GPS devices for outdoor and marine use and the 60CSx is just as popular.

The sturdy GPSMAP 60CSx is ready to go when you are. Garmin’s GPS devices for outdoor use are constructed to go with you wherever you go. When taking on Mother Nature, you need a GPS device that is to weather the elements.With its waterproof battery compartment, LED backlit display and built-in quad-helix receiving antenna, this unit is more than adequate for all of your outdoor and marine adventures.

Here are some of its great features:

-Built-in Americas autoroute basemap with automatic routing capabilities, including highways, exits, and tide data (U.S. only)
-Position formats include Lat/Lon, UTM, Loran TDs, Maidenhead, MGRS, user grid, and more
-Trip computer that provides odometer, stopped time, moving average, overall average, total time, max speed, and more
-Navigation instructions that can be shared with repeaters, plotters, and autopilots using NMEA protocols through the dedicated serial port
-10,000-point automatic track log; 20 saved tracks (500 points each) let you retrace your path in both directions
-Electronic compass and barometric altimeter

The Garmin 60CSx is a must-have for serious outdoor enthusiasts. This unit has a large color TFT display, which makes for comprehensive viewing. Your Garmin 60CSx will arrive with a blank 64 MB microSD card and you have option of getting new microSD cards. You can get new cards that come pre-loaded with MapSource Topo, inland lake maps, BlueChart marine cartography and City Navigator street maps.

Go the ActionGPS.com to purchase the Garmin 60CSx or another outdoor GPS device to guide you in your travels.

Tech-savvy adventurers around the world are flocking to the sport of geocaching. It’s a sport the whole family can enjoy, and the technology is a snap to learn. (See our Aug. 5 & 7 posts.) Once you’ve mastered the basics though, real enthusiasts want more. When you’re ready to take geocaching to the next level, you’ll want to upgrade your portable handheld GPS unit. Naturally, you’ll still want the solid features found in basic handheld GPS models: lightweight, compact, long battery life, waypoint storage, and screen readability (see our Aug. 5 post for details). But you’ll want to upgrade to a GPS unit that also offers the following advanced features:

• A WAAS-enabled GPS unit provides superior accuracy and can pinpoint waypoints to within 10 feet 95% of the time.
• A built-in compass is particularly convenient in tracking the cache in the final critical 100 feet.
• An altimeter shows you how high up to search for vertically-hidden caches.
• Mapping capabilities give you the big picture and make navigation a snap. They allow you to download maps to your unit that give you a picture of the terrain.
• An external antenna improves signal reception in difficult terrains and under heavy tree cover.

ActionGPS carries superior portable handheld GPS devices for the serious geocacher. The Garmin Colorado 400i handheld outdoor color GPS can track waypoints from the city to deep backcountry trails. WAAS-enabled with a built-in electronic compass, barometric altimeter and mapping capabilities, the Garmin Colorado 400i keeps you on track when you’re searching out even the most difficult geocaches. Visit Action GPS for complete details on the Garmin Colorado and other excellent geocaching GPS devices.

Once you pinpoint the cache location as closely as you can using your geocache GPS (see our Tuesday post), it’s time to start searching. Geocachers are devious thinkers. When you’re hiding a cache, part of the fun is finding a hiding place that’s hard to spot. You want your cache to be found, but you want fellow cachers to work for it. So think sneaky as you start looking.

Cache containers can be any size but are usually smaller than a shoebox. Ammo boxes, plastic containers and tiny film canisters are prized for their waterproof and weather-resistant qualities. Any container that is or can be made weather-proof will work. Some people wrap old pill bottles in layers of plastic tape. Many geocachers cover containers with camouflage tape to make them harder to spot.

Don’t expect finding the cache to be easy. Using your GPS to get to the location is only half the fun. The thrill of the hunt and exhilaration of discovery are what geocachers live for. You’re not going to find the cache sitting out in the open. Look under rocks or logs, inside hollow trees, on the undersides of fences and structures, behind rocks in rock walls and in the crooks of trees. Check tree branches and ledges. We once found a cache hanging inside a hollowed tree. A devious cacher had fashioned a 2-sided hook from a coat hanger. A tiny hook of metal was wedged in the tree bark with the cache hanging from the other hook inside the hollow tree. Ingenious!

Cachers are no less creative in cityscapes. Powerful magnet strips glued to thin metal slide boxes (like Sucrets boxes) can be attached to utility boxes or the undersides of metal guard rails. If your coordinates lead you to a parking lot light pole, carefully pop up the base cover that hides the screws. These covers slide up, making a perfect spot to hide a small cache. We’ve found micro-caches hidden inside the cone-shaped filials on top of metal fence posts. The filials pop off and the cache can either be stuffed into the cap or dangled on a string into the post.

As you’re searching, it’s important to replace items exactly as you find them. Not only do geocachers pride themselves on protecting the environment, but who wants to give away the cache site to the next guy? You worked to find the cache; he should, too. Geocachers live for the thrill of the hunt! ActionGPS has a full line of GPS units perfect for the sport of geocaching. Visit our website today and happy hunting!

So close, but yet so far! It’s the geocacher’s common lament. There’s nothing more frustrating than knowing you’re standing right on top of a cache but not being able to find it. Here are a few tips that can help:

• Research the cache location. Log the cache coordinates into your GPS unit. Print out any tips offered on the locator site. (You can choose to read them only if you’re stumped.) Check a map of the area to get the big picture. Some handheld GPS units come loaded with maps and high-end outdoor units even offer topographic maps. You can get a quick area-wide view by scaling out on your automotive GPS or checking www.GoogleMaps or another internet map site. It’s easier to pinpoint the cache location when you have a general idea of where things are in the area.
• Prepare for the trip. Make sure you take plenty of water and don’t forget sunscreen and insect repellent. Wear appropriate clothing for the weather and add a jacket and raincoat in case the weather changes if you are planning to geocache all day. If you’re hiking into the woods or back country to hunt truly remote caches, bring appropriate hiking/climbing gear and always take a friend along for safety. Make sure someone back home knows your plans.
• Get as close to the cache location as you can using your GPS. You shouldn’t have much trouble getting to the general location site. It’s finding the precise coordinates that can be tricky. You may have to walk back and forth a bit. Tree or cloud cover can sometimes interfere with GPS signals, and it may take a little experimentation to hone in on the cache.

On Thursday: Finding the cache!

There’s nothing hard about geocaching, except for sometimes finding that devilishly hidden cache. You go to www.geocaching.com or any of numerous geocaching websites to find cache sites. Download the site coordinates into your portable GPS unit — and the hunt is on!

It doesn’t take much to get started (see our Aug. 5 post), and geocaching is fun for the whole family. The goal is find the cache. You use your GPS to follow the coordinates to the cache site. Using your GPS to pinpoint the site location, you then have to scan the area (think deviously), poking around under stones and inside decayed tree trunks to find the hidden container. (Beginners may want to printout the “tips” provided for many cache sites when they download coordinates.)

The rules are simple:

• Fill out the logbook with your name (or cache name), hometown and home state. Make a comment if there’s room in the logbook. Take a look at the logbook. You may see other cachers who have found the site from across the country and even around the world.
• If the cache has prizes (odd trinkets or message slips), take one.
• Add a prize of your own to the cache.
• Carefully close the container to protect the contents from the weather and return the cache to the exact position in which you found it.
• Respect the environment and other cachers. Geocache responsibly. Obtain permission before caching on private property. (Unless placed by the property owner, nearly all caches are located on public property.)

You’ll meet a lot of friendly people geocaching and discover interesting and unusual sites you didn’t know existed. Visit ActionGPS for great deals on portable, handheld GPS units perfect for geocaching.