Description and Photographs of Magellan™
hand-held Global Positioning Satellite (GPS) Receivers
Official Magellan Website: Magellan Systems Corporation.
Magellan has always been associated with adventure and exploration.
The offerings include a wide variety of GPS receivers with emphasis
on exploration, adventure and survival. One model offers combined
GPS and INMARSAT satellite email!
Southeastern Utah, USA
Southeaster Utah. A desolate, yet fascinating land covered by range
roads, mining roads, surveying roads, prospecting roads, fire lanes,
and hundreds of "dead ends". Which is which? Using detailed maps
and GPS, it is much easier to select roads that actually
go somewhere interesting! Bonus: no road at all -- some of the
roads traverse "slickrock" (sandstone usually) which lack any sort
of roadway marking at all. Prior to GPS, travelers would either
get lost, wandering all over the place, or leave unsightly markers.
Now, with GPS, it is possible to stay on course without physical
markers.
Warning: it is not foolproof, some maps are
wrong, and some roads have been "erased" by the Bureau of Land
Management's restoration efforts.
- Hooray -- success at last! The GPS in the mode of displaying the direction and distance to the
next waypoint across an otherwise trackless piece of sandstone.
- Southwest from Hanksville in the "Blue Hills Badlands". Summertime is not only hot, but potentially dangerous.
Summer thunderstorms can cause serious flash floods. GPS and a
good map will help keep you out of the flood zones and washes.
- Where is it? Without GPS, it would be difficult to describe
adequately. But with GPS, you can declare exactly where something
is. Of course, any travelog should give both -- this is an escarpment
southwest of Hanksville, Utah, USA.
- Colorful rocks by the million. In the unlikely event that you wish
to return to a particular rock, GPS is ideal. Buried treasure, anyone?
Description of Magellan 2000 XL
It has a more elegant look and feel compared to the model 2000. It
fits solidly and snugly in your hand and it has an aura of sophisticated
technology, which for a long time has been typical of Magellan products.
It has a "12 channel receiver" (Geek alert: actually, a single receiver
and a single frequency since all satellites transmit on the same
frequency, but each transmits a low-speed digital signature which can
be matched and phase-locked by one of 12 digital signal processors).
Benefit: It can lock and track satellites while it is moving with
dramatically improved performance compared to single channel sequential
receivers (as found in most older GPS receivers).
The Magellan 2000 XL GPS is my favorite for camping, hiking, and
marking a spot. It's large
latitude/longitude/altitude/time/date display is ideal for including
in a photograph.
Its long battery life, sturdy simplicity of a permanent antenna hidden
inside the waterproof case, the inexpensive cost and long battery
life, all contribute to my choice. The glamorous moving maps of the
fancier Magellan and Garmin units are not particularly useful on a
hike in the mountains.
It offers a nice variety of navigation screens giving you
location (with choices of large digits or small digits), altitude,
time and date, compass (when moving), cross track error, speed,
velocity-made-good, moving track plot, and a somewhat simple road
display that does not move to show cross track error or drift from
the specified course -- but this is made up by a superior tracking
screen which shows velocity along course, velocity made good (velocity
towards the destination), estimated time of arrival and cross track
error, all in large, easy-to-read digits..
Photographs from the Pacific Northwest of the USA, From left to right:
- Marking a location that has no landmarks in case one wishes to return.
- A fantastic fishing spot -- a more likely return spot..
- Marking the location of the good fishing spot.
- Marking the location of a marina prior to taking a boat out.
This particular lake (Crescent Lake in Washington State) is like a
fjord, long, narrow, deep, and bends around Storm King and other mountains.
If you were on the lake, and a fog came up, a compass is NOT sufficient --
you may be able to point your boat at the marina and crash on an islet or
rock. GPS can remember the exact path (sampled at 5 minute intervals) you
took to arrive at your current location, and let you reverse it.
- Biologists may find it useful to use a high-resolution GPS to mark
the location of species or survey areas. Additionally, the download
capability of some GPS receivers will allow you to later copy the track to
computer mapping software (such as DeLorme
products).
Description of Magellan 2000 GPS
This was my first GPS receiver. I'd seen them during my Navy service,
and they were very expensive, finicky, and did not like to be moving
even though that is what the Navy needed most of all. I was amazed to
find the Magellan 2000 at a bargain price. Setting it on the dashboard
of my truck, driving along the freeway toward Boise, Idaho, it took
a long time to initialize and get a satellite lock. But it was
fantastic and I took it everywhere. It did not like the forest
cover of the Pacific Northwest, however. The newer models remedy
both of these problems; they acquire satellite lock much more
quickly and work better under heavy forest cover.
What:
- A personal or mobile navigation device that uses satellites to obtain its position.
- Tells you where you are.
- Can guide you to a spot, not merely in a straight line (direct path) but
optionally via waypoints that take you around obstacles.
- Records a track of where you have been.
Back to the GPS page
Southeastern Utah, USA
Southeaster Utah. A desolate, yet fascinating land covered by range
roads, mining roads, surveying roads, prospecting roads, fire lanes,
and hundreds of "dead ends". Which is which? Using detailed maps
and GPS, it is much easier to select roads that actually
go somewhere interesting! Bonus: no road at all -- some of the
roads traverse "slickrock" (sandstone usually) which lack any sort
of roadway marking at all. Prior to GPS, travelers would either
get lost, wandering all over the place, or leave unsightly markers.
Now, with GPS, it is possible to stay on course without physical
markers.