[OSM-newbies] What is wrong with my traces?

[Richard Fairhurst]

Roger Taylor wrote:

> I've put a couple of traces into the system as follows.
>
> http://www.openstreetmap.org/user/g4hza/traces/38350
> http://www.openstreetmap.org/user/g4hza/traces/38348
>
> The former is appears problematic as a download from the OSM server does
> not appear to be correct.  Comparing them to other traces I see that
> mine have less details recorded.

Looks fine to me.

As Robert said, quite a lot of people have their GPS set to "one  
trackpoint per second". This is handy in urban areas (though even  
then, it's probably overkill - 1pt/2sec is fine on a bike, 1pt/4sec ok  
on foot) but unnecessary in rural areas. If more people were  
conservative with their settings than maybe we wouldn't have such a  
problem with the database being slow. ;)

> Can anyone advise me if anything is wrong and if so what is wrong?  I
> have to say I cannot find my way around the wiki and have been unable to
> find any information about producing the trace for upload or settings I
> need for my gps.

What GPS do you have?

If it's a Garmin Geko or eTrex, go to the "Tracks" menu, go to "Setup"  
within that, and you'll find the options for setting how frequently  
points are recorded. For rural areas, I find "Auto", and "High" or  
"Highest" frequency are best. For urban areas, I use "Time" and "2  
seconds" as above.

cheers
Richard