GPS pucks

[Richard Weait]

I've had a couple of GPS pucks like the one mentioned for a couple of
years.  They are a great, cheap, way to play with GPS for the first time
but are not useful for long term, or general purpose data collection.  

When collecting data ( surveying ) for OpenStreetMap, the combined GPS
puck, plus laptop is large, heavy and too awkward.  Would I set it up in
the back seat and drive a quick grid survey?  Sure.  I've done that.
But it is much more convenient to use a handheld GPS to collect GPS
tracks.  Would I use a puck plus in-dash PC to run a complete F/LOSS
stack for my car computer?  Oh yes.  But neither of those are really
general purpose use, from an OpenStreetMap perspective.  

A handheld unit is smaller and lighter than the combined GPS and laptop
or netbook.  The handheld will have longer battery life, a dozen or more
hours.  And the handheld will be more resistant to water- or
shock-resistant if you are doing a bike-survey, or tracing a park
boundary in the snow.  

Even in driving a residential survey, you'll often see a pedestrian
walkway between houses.  It's dead-easy to park, grab the handheld, walk
the length of the walkway and back then continue the driving survey.
The same things applies for adding a park or baseball diamond outline
while driving the local roads.  A little velcro on the dashboard and GPS
can keep the handheld in place on the dashboard.  

Some handheld GPSes, though closed hardware and often crippled by
proprietary formats, can even have OpenStreetMap data loaded on them for
map display and navigation.  Recently even turn-by-turn routing became
possible on some units.  

http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/OSM_Map_On_Garmin 

OpenStreetMap
It's fun.  It's free.  You can help.  


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