Frank's Blog

I went to Egypt for roundabout one week, of course, not just to try out my Garmin Dakota 20 but it was a good possibility to see how it works and helps.
First step, prepare the device with map(s) and waypoints about Egypt.
There are no commercial maps about Egypt so I went to GPS MapSearch, found some maps, downloaded them and load them on the Dakota directly via drag’n drop in the Finder (did I mentioned already that I use Mac ?). The Garmin software don’t accept these free maps, so I had to go this way.
Next step, place some points of interests (POI). I went to GPS Waypoints chose the country and downloaded the file (*.gpx, xml format). I started the Garmin POI Loader but it expects some other format and didn’t let me choose the downloaded file. I switched to the Basecamp and there I was able to import the file and upload the data to the device.
So, what’s the POI Loader for ?

I dunno right know, need some time to investigate the Gamin apps.

Anyway, I had some rudimentary maps and some waypoints on the Dakota. With this I went to Egypt. Whenever I was outside I switched it on to let it track my ways.
First I let it run without organizing much, therefore the track contained up to 3 days. Not the best, I thought and change the usage to save every day seperately to not get confused by all the waypoints/tracks.
It was quite helpful for various situations:

Check if the taxi driver takes a reasonable route.

When docking with the ship in Luxor, the Dakota told me we were 10 km before Luxor. First I though about a malfunction/error but it was right. The taxi brought us to Luxor and also back later. If we hadn’t booked the same taxi to go back, how could we have explained were to go ? There was no address of these piers outside the city.

In Cairo we were “exploring” downtown by going through the streets which seemed interesting. After some time we wanted to take the same way to a famous bazar as the day before. With the Garmin it was easy to view the track from the day before and find it.

Overall it worked very well and helped a lot during vacations although I didn’t use routable maps or know all tricks/functions of the device right now.

After coming back I loaded the tracking data from the device to the Basecamp. As there isn’t any official Garmin map about Egypt the tracks aren’t good to view in there. But there is Google Earth and the Basecamp has a function “View in Google Earth” which I used to have it more visual. Another way is to open the track data directly in Google Earth.
All tracks in Egypt:

A detailled view, visiting the island Philae:

Also I tried to unite the GPS coordinates and the photos. I used the application GPSPhotoLinker. Alhough the software has a function to load tracks directly from a gps device it failed with an error of GPSBabel.
Never mind, it’s also possible to get the data manually via filesystem and choose them via “Load Tracks”.
After that I loaded the photo folder and did the tagging by hitting “Batch save to photos” from the “Auto” tab. The result was that ca. 50 photos from 830 have no coordinates, reasonable as I’m not having tracks from every single minute e. g. inside the ship.
Now I imported the tagged photos to iPhoto. I checked the locations of some, but didn’t see always the expected places. Maybe it’s because of I don’t know how every area in Egypt is called, maybe there are errors in my tagging process.
Another thing to investigate another day, for the moment I’m satisfied with the overall result of my new toy.

I tried out the Dakota 20 some days on my way to work. As the instructions say, it could take some minutes till the receiving of satellite signals is established. Well, on my way to the subway station, which was 5 minutes away, the GPS didn’t get any signal, but later on leaving the subway and going to work (12 minutes) it did, finally.

On the way back I decided to go without any transportation. Again it took some time till the device knew where we were. I recorded these tracks and imported it later with the basecamp. I added also some way points of my “frequent places”, like work, home, etc.
Here’s a screen shot of the bascamp, as you can see it has a kindda “raw flavour” due to just having the base map installed.

The next day I followed another strategy to start using the Dakota. I went out to the next place with more sight to the sky, not with huge buildings all around. There I started the Garmin and stood still and waited. It took just two minutes till it got enough satellite signals. Maybe this is the best way to use it. Afterwards, while going through the streets it didn’t loose the signals and was able to record the track.

I’ll figure it out with some more testings soon.

Hi there,
I’m going ahead with getting more experiences within the GPS area.
Although I know, I’m surely neither the first, nor the second (or the thousandth) who plays around with this stuff, I like to write it down so it may be helpful for someone who searches for information and is able to find this.

On vacations in Iceland I tried to use my Nokia N95 as a GPS logger. As this wasn’t that satisfying I decided to go one step further and buy not just a dedicated GPS logger but a real handheld GPS from Garmin called Dakota 20.

It’s a rather new model and therefore (hopefully) more future-proof.
Some more infos about the Dakota 20:
Website Garmin
This device seemed to have the best price-performance-ratio for me, it’s small enough to carry it ervery day like a cellphone, it has a touchscreen so there is no space lost for buttons.

So, what usage have I in mind ?

First, of course, the tracking of ways to see later where I have been and to tag photos, the same was my plan with my Nokia N95, but I expect more reliability and stability.

Next, the Nokia Maps application likes (needs ?) to connect to internet to get … what ? More detailled maps ? Point of interest ? I tried it out one weekend in London for a short period of time and it cost 10 Euros. I didn’t checked it in detail.
So, I don’t want to take care about any additional costs, I want an (mostly) independent device, of course, not satellite independent.

To be more flexible on longer trips, the device shouldn’t consume much energy. The N95 I had to connect to the power outlet in the car we rent, otherwise it took just 2 or 3 hours to empty the battery. Not useful for longer tracks away from civilization.

Btw, travelling. Before any kind of travelling (may it be private or for business) I would like to prepare the device with the according map with points of interests, also with own marks (e. g. the hotel, places to visit, etc.).

Another use I have in mind is during excursions in the surroundings by bike or feet. This could also include canoe trips.
Therefore the device should be somewhat waterproof or at least ruggedized.

Later on some more usage came to my mind like connecting the device as an GPS data source to my MacBook.

Although I heard about geocaching I’m not sure if I’ll do this, maybe one or two times to just try it out, we’ll see.

Anyway, I bought the Dakota 20 and started to play.

Next post coming soon…