Answering an email today from William Heath about how to collect GPS data, I thought it a good idea to once and for all, write out what I do, as much for my own reference as for anyone else who comes across this dusty corner of the Internet, so here goes.
Equipment
GPS on a van window in Brazil
The GPSs that Soph and I carry around every day are both old Garmin Etrex. These are NOT the modern ones, called Garmin Etrex H (for High sensitivity?) These have a newer chip in and the track wanders about (must post about this more) so we prefer the old, low-sensitivity ones but you can’t get them any more. Lord knows what we’ll do when they break.
Serial cable – I bought this for too much money for a piece of wire (about £30 I think) when I didn’t know anything and then I bought a usb-serial adapter as well. There are great DIY versions here.
Software
Open/Free/Linux
GPSBabel
gebabbel
QGIS
Proprietary / Windoze
Gartrip (shareware)
AutoCAD Map 3D
Method:
Download the tracks from the GPSs regularly (how often?) using GPSBabel through a gui (gebabbel), which saves me remembering the terminal commands
Save these as GPX (verbose but transferable)
tbc