Fall Newsletter Photo Contest Winners

WAYPOINTS! GPS NEWS - OCTOBER 2008

WINNERS OF GPS CENTRAL'S 3RD ANNUAL SUMMER PHOTO CONTEST!

Thanksgiving Day. We've been absolutely delighted and inundated with entries this year. Unbelievable! There are so many interesting places, comical stories, serious jobs, even one very romantic geocache. Judges also published a Shortlist entries 'Highlights' that morphed into The B Side Contest! ... Thanks & Congratulations. [Prizes & Rules]

CATEGORY A: ROAD (RAIL & WATERWAY) TRIPPER

1st Prize: Dave Lefebvre

I'm a Locomotive Engineer for Ottawa Valley Railway based out of North Bay Ontario. I own a "Garmin Vista HCx" which I received for last Christmas. My wife & I are avid ATV'ers and use the GPS all the time. When were not ATV'in we're geocaching which we find a lot of fun. I also bring my GPS to work to check locomotive speedometers to make sure they're accurate, and if the speedometer is off the Locomotive Foreman makes the proper adjustments. The picture over the bridge is of my Conductor Chris holding my Garmin Vista HCx. (That picture was taken over the Ottawa River at Mattawa Ontario.) [Prize: ZUMO 550]

2nd Prize: Casey Macaulay

This was another day at work with me and my trusty GPSmap 60Cx (I don't go anywhere without it!) In this case it was attached to my equally trusty motorcycle and I was spending the day looking at timber stands West of Kamloops, BC. The photos are taken in the hat creek valley, on the Cornwall Hills fire lookout and near the three sisters peaks. There is an old forest service road that rattles up about 10km to the fire lookout. It's a steep and rocky little trek, but well worth the effort. It's great to see the weathered building and imagine the good old days of being a lonely fire warden, atop the highest mountain around. The fall colors were just starting to get into swing and the roads were in great condition for riding. What more could you ask for? [Prize: NUVI 750]

3rd Prize: Johanne Matte

Our great trip through Georgian Bay was guided by Martin and his GPS. We paddled from beautiful islands to even more beautiful islands. During that trip we were intiated to geocaching. The thrill to get to the treasure was exciting for everyone. [We got here by car.]

Notre voyage à travers la Baie Georgienne a été guidé par Martin et son GPS. Nous avons pagayé de belles îles à d’autres îles encore plus belles. Durant ce voyage le groupe a été initié au géocaching. Le défi de trouver le trésor a été excitant pour tout le monde. [Nous sommes arrivé ici par auto.] [Prize: NUVI 250]

Honorable Mention: John McCoy

This past January 2008 a group consisting of myself and nine other off road riders arrived in northern Baja Mexico near Tecate. We set off on an eight day GPS tour “From the Top to the Bottom” of the Baja peninsula.

The trip was organized by Warren Thaxter and Barry Ferguson. Warren had set GPS tracks with a variety of options. At the end of eight days we had traveled through desert, mountains, up the Pacific Beaches then the Sea of Cortes ending up in Las Paz and covering 2400 km.

Some of the guys had been there 3 times before and this was my second trip. On the one picture you can see my Garmin GPSMAP60CSX on It’s RAM Mount with our track coming out of the mountains and the Sea of Cortes in front of us. This was our first view of this coast and we had come across the mountain paths from the other coast that day. Surprisingly we seldom had to double back because the trails were impassable but often they were a real challenge to get through.

The GPS gives you a confidence that “there should be a way through this mess” when the route looks a little crazy. The scenery was incredible and the places we found would be next to impossible to see in any other way. By the end of the trip we only had one rider that couldn’t finish and one bike that gave up but we have memories for a lifetime.

CATEGORY B: FITNESS FREAK

1st Prize: Danger Dan

Before purchasing our first GPSr (an eTrex Legend) in 2003, my wife and I were real couch potatoes. Now, thanks to our GPSr and hobbies like Geocaching, we're out hiking most weekends. This is me adding to my collection of "Stupid Places I Have Stood" photos (Mount Burke).

All below: 1- This picture shows what happens when you forget to wear sunscreen when hiking in the Bull Creek Hills.
2-Another "Stupid Places I Have Stood" photo, this time on "Gun Sight Hill", as Geocacher BVPete calls it.
3- My wife "recovers" from our hike up Grass Pass.
4- My friends and I show off our GPSr units prior to a hike on Mount Yamnuska. [Prize: FORERUNNER 405]

2nd Prize: BK Thompson

Having TOPO Hawaii paid off with a list of all the beaches in Kauai. This was a great time saver - to spend our vacation enjoying ourselves instead of driving around. This was my parents' first trip to Hawaii and mom's first time snorkeling. For someone who is not a fan of water, she seems to be enjoying herself!!

Planning routes, using friend's waypoints, marking sweet play holes, good fishing holes... [Prize: EDGE 305-HRM]

Third Prize: Marty Christian

Paddling on Kalamalka Lake in Vernon, BC. Always take the Garmin GPSMAP 76Cx, it's nice to know how far, how fast etc. It's mounted to the deck bag with a Ram mount and cradle. Below - (left) Kayaking the 50 kms. from Enderby to Mara Lake on the slow moving Shuswap River.

Bonus: Tulameen River valley that parallels the famous Kettle Valley Railway line northwest of Princeton, BC. It is also part of the Trans Canada Trail and one of the multi-use sections that allow motorized traffic. In case you're wondering, the famous shoe tree is beside the river, on the road between Coalmont and Tulameen. [Prize: FORERUNNER 305]

Honorable Mention: Brian Kennelly

My Garmin Edge 305 led me through many adventures this summer, some of which are captured here.

It helped me and my son navigate a route to and from the Lime Ridge above Big Bar Lake near Clinton, BC. It also helped my daughter and I navigate our mountain bikes up French Gulch above Breckenridge CO to an elevation over 12,000'. The first patch of snow is visible under our wheels, and the Garmin Edge is visible on my Mtn. bike's handlebar. It also kept me company on a loop trip around Dhillon Reservoir in CO on my road bike, and later it witnessed my view of Castle Mountain from the Bow Valley Parkway in Banff National Park back in Canada.

These pictures are but a sample of the places I have been with my Edge since its arrival in June of this year. My Edge has seen 950 km of bikes and hikes and thousands of meters of elevation. It has helped motivate me to do activities I may have avoided and gone places I would not have ventured to without it. Great summer! Great tool!

CATEGORY C: INNOVATOR (GET LOST!)

1st Prize: Rob Bryce

After flying my Remote control plane for a number of months I had the idea to see how high and how fast the plane would go. With no radar gun or altimeter I decided to attach my Garmin Forerunner 201 to the top of my plane. I was hoping that the weight and aerodynamics of the plane would not be effected by the GPS unit. The flight was a success so I then downloaded the data to OziExplorer and Google Earth. I produced some good graphs of the speed, altitude and a flight path as well. Overall a successful mission.

BONUS: This summer we made a trip to the United States to visit to the lowest point and the highest point in the continental United States. Amazingly both of these points are located within 120 km of each other. The first point was Badwater which is located in Death Valley California. The next point was the grueling 35 km rtn day hike to the top of Mt Whitney at 14494 ft above sea level. [Prize: Colorado 300]

2nd Prize: Fran Fowler

The photo depicts a trip into an old settler's homesite on the Kumdis Slough, in the center of Graham Island, of the Queen Charlotte Islands/Haida Gwaii. We went in to view the close to 100 year old rhododendrons and, possibly, harvest new ones from layering attempts two years before.

AS you can see, we used our GPS, as there are no real trails in this area. We did want to get home to plant our wonderful "new" old rhodos and simultaneously beautify the garden while helping keep our history alive.

Thanks for the opportunity to share this photo. [Prize: eTrex Vista HCx]

3rd Prize: Quinn Cornwell

On a three month trip to Australia [from Manitoba], my goal was to buy a hang glider and fly around the country enjoying the flying season. One of my stops was in the small town of Lennox Head in New South Wales. The launch area was easy, the ocean breezes were consistent and the flying was amazing. Being able to fly over the ocean while looking down at stingrays swimming by was unbelievable. I had the chance to fly over the highway and peer into the backyards of oceanside home-owners. [Prize: eTrex Legend]

Honorable Mention: Paul Bruch

My 60Cx not only gets me to the photo site, but as I walk along it records the track that I walk. Using software such as gpsPhoto, I am able to match the timestamps from my photos up with my location when I took the picture via the GPS tracklog and enter it into the digital photo's exif information. This then is automatically picked up by photo sites such as flikr or Picasa where I can browse my, and other photos, via a map interface. Software such as gpsPhoto will even create Google Earth ".kml" files so that I can not only fly the track I took, but look at the photos I took along the way.

Attached are some screenshots of the tracklogs in both mapsource and google earth with google earth showing the picture locations. I have also included 3 photos taken from this particular hike showing off the fall colors along this section of the Bruce trail north of Toronto.

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GPS SIGHTINGS: pop & celebrity, politics & natural sciences, life, TECHNO, skies, etc.

Oct 24
NAVTEQ Global LBS Challenge. The developers' deadline for US$5.25 million in cash and prizes, 2009 competition. read more

Oct 24
Video games turn 50. Go celebrate the anniversary at Brookhaven National Laboratory. On Oct 18, 1958, visitors lined up to play 'Tennis for Two' by Manhattan Project's William Higinbotham. read more

Oct 13
Trimble & Panasonic bundle products. Toughbook and GPS Pathfinder ProXT, ProXH, for utility field workers - mapping, GIS and CAD operations. read more

Oct 13
Navigon names LG exec, President of Americas. No, Mr. Roach is a Navigon President, not the other guy. read more

Oct 10
Be a spook for Halloween! The National Geospatial Intelligence Agency (NGA) is hiring. apply today!

Oct 10
New patents awarded to Mobile Satellite Ventures (MSV). Now work starts! - blending terrestrial and space based radio frequencies/ networks and eliminating co-frequency interference for handsets. read more

Oct 10
Expedition 18 crew launches. New crew goes up until April, 2009 - and #17 comes down Oct. 23. Docking scheduled for Tues Oct14. International Space Station tourist among crew for a few weeks. read more | The Famous Tourist? | Richard in Space

Oct 9
Mozilla unveils location-aware web browser. GEODE is new extension to Firefox that uses Skyhook Wireless Wi-Fi positioning. read more

Oct 8
SiRF debuts chip: SiRFlinkIII. Combo bluetooth RF GPS is cost effective solution for mobile navigation and location aware devices. read more

Oct 8
GeoEye releases first image. GeoEye-1 takes a pretty sharp image from 423 miles above the US eastern seaboard. see it here | news release

Oct 4
GPS The Movie. Final screening in Seattle (Northwest Film Forum, 7PM) before the film goes to DVD in March '09. movie website

Oct 3
Garmin announces GPSMAP 600 series. Marine and road navigation, 5.2" touch screen, IPX7(waterproof), available Q1 2009. read more

Oct 1
Taxis with GPS provide mobile traffic data. Siemen's Mobility Div. presents new Traffic Information System at 15th World Congress on ITS (Intelligent Transport Systems) 2008 in New York, Nov 16. Siemen's press release | Congress on ITS 2008

Sept 30
SPOT helps rescue hiker. Helicopter arrives soon after Michael Ervin ruptures quadriceps knee tendon in Citadel Pass (The Banff Crag & Canyon). read more

Sept 30
TomTom & Sex in the City. Kim Cattrell is new navigator voice for spicey directions. read more

Sept 26
Overall health status of GPS and IGS constellation.
Learn the details for each satellite in orbit. read more

Sept 26
Nokia announces disaster software.
Comprehensive, quick location-based data collecting on disease outbreaks or natural disasters for mobile devices. read more

Sept 25
Russia launches 3 new satellites.
Proton carrier rocket blasts off Baikonur cosmodrome. read more

Sept 11
Train your nuvi?
Garmin nuvi learns your driving and can better estimate ETA (Estimated Time of Arrival) for you. read more

Aug 27
Windows Internet Explorer 8 in beta. Microsoft's new security options give Opera, Safari, Firefox a run for the money. read more