I’ve been toying with the idea of getting a GPS for some time, but my main objections have been “Too expensive, and I can navigate, so why bother?” However, Maplin were selling these fellas Lowrance IFinderGO2?half price, so I bought one. They do look a bit like the should have been sold in Lidel rather than Maplin, but still, for ?49,? I thought it was worth seeing what all the fuss was about.

My initial impression of using a GPS was 7 or?8 years ago on Lochnager before?Bill Clinton switched off the selective availability (I wonder if Dubbya would have??), and quite frankly is was shockingly bad, so I was?quite impressed that a modern unit gave a 10 figure OS grid reference that was actually near where I was stood. A still sceptical me used it for a whole afternoon at the weekend, and yes, once it “warmed up” it seemed pretty accurate, but a monumental pain-in-the-proverbial keying in way-points and pressing combinations of buttons in the rain.

There’s a good amount of error?transferring 10/8/6 figure grid references?to/from OS 1:25,000, and even more from a 1:50,000 – so you’re always going to be estimating where you are. So even with a receiver – you need good awareness and map/contour interpretation skills if you’re on mountainous terrain.

My view – I think a GPS is a good toy to have with you if need to re-locate and you’re?not confident relocating.?If you’re visiting a region many times, it may be a good tool to programme in way-points, say for the bottom of a climb – but if you’re going there often, you’ll know where you’re going!

But as to whether I’d use it day-to-day? No – I don’t think I would. It’s slower to use than a map and compass, and you still need to interpret a grid-ref and say “am I here, or is there an error that puts me off?”.

I do think it’s a good teaching tool – track your day out nav. training and add a quick way point to see “were we where we thought we were?”, and display them on?a?screen?once you get back by uploading to a computer.

At the end of the day, we’re always falling back to a map and compass – so why not just stick with them?

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