New to GPS

I have no experience whatsoever with GPS or anything of the sort.
I know there are the car GPS navigation systems and i pretty much understand how they work. Now there are still many other GPS devices that I don't know about. I am interested in getting a device that I can put on an object to track where it is. Let's take a bike for example. Is there a GPS device that will let me put it on a bike and then with my computer I can track where the bike is b/c the GPS is on it.
You see what I mean? Is there something like this?

Thanks IN ADVANCE

 

If you are wanting to remotely track your bike's position then you will need a miniature version of a vehicle tracking solution. This will need to be able to transmit its position, probably via the cell phone network. It will cost more than the bike to buy and it will also cost money to run.

If you are on the bike then you have an overwhelming choice.

Many of the hand-held GPSs have bike mount options. I've currently got a Garmin eTrex Legend HCx which includes a slot for micro SD card. You can buy detailed maps separately and load onto the card (or there's the Legend HC with internal memory and without the slot).

Battery life is impressive - it claims up to 20 hours on a pair of AA batteries - and it comes with a cable to connect to your computer. Pay Google $20 for the Google Earth Plus licence and you can upload where you have been straight into Google Earth.

John

 

I was looking kind of for similar stuff.

Best GPS to use on your computer IMO is Microsoft Streets & Trips, its cheap now and comes with a usb GPS locator. Great for the car paired with a small laptop, or in my case I kind of want it just to play with it. Also the basic GPS service is free.

I was thinking of finding a way to rig power to the usb GPS tracker and see if it would work remotely. Im pretty sure it would and I know usb is 5v... I can easily get that from batteries or a car. I have some high powered bike lights that use Li-Ion batteries and powering a little 5v GPS tracker should last for a good long time. But in practice not so sure what it would be good for. I THINK Streets & Trips lets you view past traveled distance and see it on a map. If thats the case I could say go leave my house, bike down the road, onto my favorite trail and then back home and see what my route was, maybe see how far it was, and also know where my trail is on a topographic map. Thats about the best use I can think of for my experiment. It would not be a good anti-theft solution as you would have to keep the battery charged and unless well hidden a theif would see it and remove it. It also wouldn't make the best "kid tracker" if that was your plan.

If I had $100 to test my theory out tho I would gladly write a little tutorial on it and fill you in.

Me personally I am tryng to find a smaller tracing solution, like for a cell phone. Some phones have a service but you have to pay for it and trying to google it I cant find any good phones with it and all the ones I find just offer gpu service and you need the software installed. I need this to be covert op.

 

I've heard of Microsoft streets and tips with the GPS device. I have a few bucks laying around so I might get one in a few days That'd be cool if you could rig it to work remotely.

 

The simple recreational GPSs have a built-in track log that automatically stores where you have been. If you have a data connector then you can upload the tracklog into the computer and load into mapping software.

I don't know if the cheapest GPS receivers that connect via USB or Bluetooth have any built-in log. See this, for example.

If you are buying a GPS, make sure you get one with a high sensitivity receiver (such as the SiRF III). They can work with much weaker signals than the older GPSs.

John

 

Its not as fun as realtime live tracking.

Sounds like your trying to LoJack your bike.

Either that or an espionage mission

 

Streets and trips is realtime. Id would be perfect with a ultra portable l ike the MSI wind for traveling.

 

http://video.google.com/videoplay?d...rips+with+gps&ei=rgCTSN3gLomK4ALv09T4Bw&hl=en

It looks pretty nice

 

costco have(had?) a MS Street&Trips + usb gps ....

always get a SiRF III chip!

 

What's a sirfIII chip? And why get one?

 

its the best gps chip

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SiRFstar_III
http://www.gpslodge.com/archives/004566.php