[Talk-us] Currently available good GPS for use with OSM mapping in the USA?

[Chris Lawrence]

A few options I have experience with:

- The AMOD AGL3080 is pretty bare-bones, but it works well and interfaces
easily with a computer even without any special software (basically, it
works like a flash drive; the files are stored in NMEA format, which you
can convert to OSM's GPX format with gpsbabel). SirfStar III chipset, which
was the state of the art a couple of years ago and still pretty good.
Supports GPS and WAAS (satellite corrections).

- The eTrex series from Garmin support GPS and GLONASS; also pretty easy to
work with, since it converts tracks and waypoints to GPX when you connect
to a PC. You can load OSM maps on the model 20 and model 30.  Supports
WAAS. From a "geek" perspective the logging isn't very thorough; there's no
speed, accuracy, or satellite data kept on the GPX log.

- A few weeks ago I picked up a Blackvue DR500-GW dash camera off of
Amazon.com; this device logs audio and video, along with GPS. The GPS log
appears to be a slightly-modified version of NMEA with timestamps. I'm not
sure if it supports WAAS or GLONASS offhand. I really haven't tried to do
much with its logs yet.

FWIW I think GPS is still pretty important, particularly since NAIP is
always behind ground truth (there's a 3-year cycle on collection, plus
about another year of processing time before we get our hands on it) and
there's no guarantee our corporate benefactors will continue to provide
newer imagery.


Chris
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