OpenStreetMap
Canada hols gpx-ing (Alberta:Calgary, Lethbridge, Olds)
Posted by Breezer on 20 October 2008 in English.Spent 10 days on hols in south Alberta, and probably to slight annoyance of my relatives at times, made lots of notes and POI's; all main roads I could see were done already before - traced, I guess, but there's pretty much no POI's in the smaller towns and I guess some range roads missing so I tried to capture a few while driving past in the car and get more detailed info on areas I did much walking on - partly to help identify where I took some of my artistic pics of course too.
Filled up my logger (a Holux M-241) more than I've ever done before, a good 30000 points or so in total I suspect although a large range of frequencies, from 1Hz to 0.1Hz or less on some of the major roads. Well, when you're driving a straight line for miles and miles and there's little to no traffic to worry about, and the road is already on osm, why bother with any more frequent points?
I suspect it'll take me a while to coordinate all the hundreds of pics and traces and get it all in though (like, a few weeks probably). I'll submit the gpx's once they're cleaned a bit and less private.
Discussion
Comment from acrosscanadatrails on 21 October 2008 at 06:47
Awesome, i look forward to seeing the results. What are is it you were working on? .. i see the map shown to Calgary, so not sure what area your referring to.
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I might recommend for future trips to keep the device off until you get to say.. the main road where you want to start recording. then when your done your day or travel, remember to turn off the device before you head home. This way your home is not shown, and just shows a vague area.
I use mapsource for when i need to trim the tracks, if needed more loading it to OSM.
Im thinking of getting a new GPS. Would you recommend this device?
Sam
Across Canada Trails
Comment from Breezer on 21 October 2008 at 11:58
I recorded some notes and POIs for all the areas mentioned in the subject; had to pick one for the map so went for centre of Calgary.
Nowadays I generally turn the logging on and off some random time before/after I get to any home (or wherever I'm staying) I want to keep anonymous.
I've been using gpsbabel for all my gpx file conversion/filtering needs, haven't tried out mapsource or others yet. Maybe I will for this lot. Please be patient for the edits though, I am recovering from a cold I caught while out there, trying to get my body clock back to normal, catching up in my 9-5 and have a fairly busy social life this week too.
I love the Holux M-241, but it really does eat up AA batteries. They quote up to 9hours (IIRC) but if you're checking it and switching modes, changing the logging settings while in use then battery life can drop noticably - always carry a spare AA or two for a full day out. Rechargables work ok but I need to change them out often enough that it's a little annoying. At least they're cheap and easily available anywhere. The other option is leaving it plugged into a USB port of a laptop (I have an Eee with an extended battery pack just great for the task) as much as poss, as that can power it (but not charge any batteries) and means I can keep an extra copy of the log for resiliance/see the data right away.
Just make sure you upgrade the firmware to v1.11 or the latest as that doesn't suffer from losing all your track logs if it gets switched off while the log is running (like I've seen complained about in other reviews - I've never had that problem, but am wondering if its a "feature" of the provided software on Windows which I don't use). Read other reviews too (there are a few out there). I have had it switch off when knocked around by dropping/banging into something, am wondering if the battery spring needs bending a bit to make it more resiliant to tough treatment (I'm good at that :-). I bought mine already upgraded to 1.11 but it shouldn't be too hard with Holux's provided downloads to do it.
There are a couple of other gps's I considered, but having the LCD display on a unit this cheap is really handy and inspires confidence that its working well compared to the single on/off/flashing type indicator light you get on most others at the same sort of price range. Also lots of fun watching the speed and distance on those modes (as long as you're not the one driving obv.), or catching a glance when flying down a steep hill on your bike to see how fast it is!