[Cdt-l] GPS & Battery Usage

Tue Mar 13 10:41:45 CDT 2012

Peanut Eater nailed it.  Leave it off unless you need it.  In confusing
situations you can turn it on and navigate to a waypoint.  Waypoint spacing
is generally always under 7/10 mile so unless you walk clear out of the area
you can get located again without too much pain.  (at least on the official
route)    A fresh set of batteries every week with a spare set just in case
should be enough.   Lithium batteries last much longer than alkalines and
weigh less. 

We carried a Spot 1, had it on continuously in tracking mode, and changed
the batteries every two weeks.  Never had it go dead.  If you are not using
tracking mode, there really is no reason to leave a Spot on all the time.
If you just turn it once a day and send a "OK" message they will go a really
long time on a set of batteries.   (If you do this, be sure to let the Spot
run for 5 minutes or so before you send the message or the gps position it
sends may be way off)

I think it a good idea to carry a lightweight compass other than the one
built into the GPS. (and know how to use it)   You won't have to run the GPS
as much which will extend battery life,  and  you will not be totally
disabled if for some reason it stops working.  

I carried a rechargeable Petzl headlamp last year and it worked great.  I
read every night for an hour or so and it would easily go 2 weeks between
charges.    

best wishes,

Jerry Brown

 <mailto:bcss at bresnan.net> mailto:bcss at bresnan.net

 <x-msg://217/www.bearcreeksurvey.com> www.bearcreeksurvey.com

From: cdt-l-bounces at backcountry.net [mailto:cdt-l-bounces at backcountry.net]
On Behalf Of Thomas Jamrog
Sent: Tuesday, March 13, 2012 8:39 AM
To: Peanut Eater
Cc: cdt-l at backcountry.net
Subject: Re: [Cdt-l] GPS & Battery Usage

Very useful details on battery strategy when carrying iPhone and GPS.
Thanks.  

Uncle Tom 

On Mar 13, 2012, at 10:13 AM, Peanut Eater wrote:

I didn't leave mine on - I just switched it on when I felt I needed it. With
the average period between resupplies of 5 days, I just didn't want the
challenge of carrying all of those batteries that would be needed if I had
it switched on for the 15 hours a day that I was walking. I carried a
DeLorme PN60W that comes with a SPOT. I also had an iGo charger that took a
couple of AA batteries and could recharge my phone if needed. That way I had
a spare pair of batteries should any one of the gps, Spot or phone need them
before the next resupply. At each resupply I would get another pair of
batteries - the 8X lithium version. I would only switch on the gps when I
needed to check my location. Occasionally, I'd leave it on but that would
typically only be in areas where there was lots of snow and lots of trees
where normal map reading was more challenging. As you point out, the
disadvantage of turning it off is that if you do go wrong there isn't a
track in the gps that you can follow back to where you went wrong. When that
happened to me I would just set a bearing back to the trail usually
somewhere ahead of me and that was sufficient to recover. Obviously you have
to weigh up the terrain and pick an appropriate route back . Overall, I
ended up with more batteries than I needed so typically I could go 5 days
with three devices and not run out of power. The Spot was only on to send
messages so that never needed new batteries. I carefully power managed the
phone so I didn't need to use the iGo very often. The gps was the biggest
power user, but with care I got on average about a week on a pair of lithium
AAs. I didn't experiment with rechargeable batteries because I didn't want
to have to carry anther charger.

Hope that helps.

Peanut Eater

From: cdt-l-bounces at backcountry.net [mailto:cdt-l-bounces at backcountry.net]
On Behalf Of Barbara Nash
Sent: Tuesday, March 13, 2012 6:10 AM
To: cdt-l at backcountry.net
Subject: [Cdt-l] GPS & Battery Usage

I have a couple questions about people's experience with GPS/battery usage
on the CDT. I have a Garmin 62S. 

1.  I have read a few folks saying that they keep their GPS on
continually/never turn it off while walking . . . so maybe 10 hours/day.  I
can see that this isuseful if you need to backtrack, might make it easier to
"find" yourself and keep in synch with a paper map.   But . . .  I am
wondering if folks generally do this or if they turn their GPS on and off .
. . which might conserve batteries.

2.  The best battery options seem to be the widely available lithium
batteries (disposable) or a rechargeable like Sanyo Eneloop.  Has anyone
used the Eneloops.  Did they hold up to the published stats . . . 15-20
hours and hold their charge (for practical purposes) forever when not in
use.  Did you have trouble dinding places to recharge your batteries on the
CDT.

3.  Anything else you would like to say about this topic?

Barb (aka Late Start)

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