Can someone advise me on the availability of a hand held GPS unit that will locate my brushpiles, and what accuracy can I expect for the money?? I'm told there are restrictions on the accuracy, but what is the accuracy that most guides and fisherman use to find their hot spots?

Any info is greatly appreciated.

marko

The Lowrance H2O works good for $160 range---check eBay. Also, just to locate brushpiles, the Garmin eTrex will do just fine. Most all "advertise" they are accurate to about 20'---depends on the clouds, satellites, .....

Nice thing about the H2O, is that Lowrance offers some free lake maps you can downloaf to the unit. They cover big part of Texas lakes.

Send me your brushpile locations and I will see how accurate the information is on my GPS...

Avoid Magellan. Their units are junk.

H20 and forget it ,it is the only way to go.
Johnny

You can find the H2O on the net for about 140 bucks.

the h20 color is really a nice unit for 50 bucks more

I just purchased a H2Oc and map create 7. Downloaded RC in-hance map from there web page and went last Sat night. I noticed that my position was off by 75' to 100' in reference to the map I downloaded. Anybody else having this problem? However when I set my waypoints, I could go back to the same location every time. My spot light went out and the there was no moon. I used my GPS and followed my trail back to the ramp. I'm glad I had that sucker....Theres a lot of trees out there.

If you have a WAAS enabled GPS, which the HT0 has, as long as your WAAS is enabled and you are able to pick up WAAS satelites you can get closer than the 75-100 feet. WAAS is the system that was originally designed for the military and the last administration opened it up to everyone unless they need to encrypt it again to only be used for military functions. I second or third the HT0, another nice feature it has, if you use Energizer "e" Lithium batteries the unit will float if it happens to go overboard.

You can go to Lowrance's website, under the downloads section you can download or view the owners manual and also get an emulator that will allow you to "test drive" one before you buy it. I got mine for Christmas and really like it so far.

I have the H20c, used it last Sat. It showed that it was in the WAAS mode. I downloaded the enhance lake version from Lowrance web site. When I was approaching 286 bridge at RC, I was 100' from the bridge and it showed that I was at the bridge. I mostly got it to set my waypoints on areas that I find structure holding fish, and eventually I plan on setting out some crappie condos.
Just wondering if I'm doing something wrong...

All GPS's are off some for security reasons. Also check your refresh rate.

I have the H2O and the only thing i wish is that I had spent $50 more and got the color unit.

Is the refresh rate in the Advance section?
Also I thought about getting the Fishing Hot spots from Lowrance. Has anybody used it, if so what do you think about it?

If your waypoints your loading from maps or are punching in manually are off by 75-100 feet, you probably need to check you map datums. I know, sounds like technical jargon but it make a difference. Check the map you're reading for the marking NAD27, NAD83, or WGS84. If you're waypoints are coming from a map using NAD27, you need to input them into a unit set using the NAD27 datum. More information about datums and such can be found at http://www.towermaps.com/nad.htm

Here's an easy coordinate/waypoint converter if you're dealing with different datums: http://www.jeeep.com/details/coord/

Being off 75-100' could a problem with the map coordinates and not your unit. I have noticed that coordinates I get from Google Earth are off, but they get me close enough to then find what I am looking for. Also, some maps from Mapcreate and the Enhanced maps are off in places, streets out of place when I am driving. Not sure the source of the map data, but probably depends on where you are and who mapped the area.