"Capt. Geoffrey Thorpe" The Sea Hawk @See My Sig.com wrote:
"brian whatcott" wrote in message
...
I'm out of touch.
I'd like advice on selecting the
1) cheapest GPS that
2) can enter waypoints and
3) can display cross track error, time and distance to go.

It would also be pleasant to
4) dump track made good coordinates in a form that Google Earth could
handle, directly or indirectly.



That would be a used non-aviation GPS on Ebay...

I'd put some cavets on some older GPS models one might find for sale:

For example, I have an "old" Lowrance iFinder Pro that can determine
latitude, longitude, altitude, and time - but when it records a track to
flash memory, it appears it only records latitude and longitude. I wish it
would record all four space-time coordinates. Otherwise a nice model.

I have an old Garmin GSMAP-76 that does all that. I suspect that just
about any GPS will also.

Some are harder to transfer data to Google Earth than others. I had to
track down software that could translate the Lowrance file format to a
format that Google Earth could understand. Track format conversion issues
are also something to keep in mind.

Also, in the case of the iFinder, getting the track files into your
computer involves pulling the flash card out - which requires removal of
the batteries first (not that hard, actually) - and plugging the card into
a Flash USB card reader from whence I then tansfer the file to my computer
using regular file copy operations. Other models no doubt use other
mechanisms (I have a very old Magellan unit that used an RS-232 serial
cable specific to that unit for transfering data.)