Bill Straka,  One of our GPS and hiking enthusiasts talks about his
favorite book on how to navigate and use GPS in the backcountry.
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Subject: A GPS book for backcountry users

Given that the copyright date is 1997 and the second printing was Dec 1997,
I don't know how I overlooked Michael Ferguson's book, GPS Land Navigation
(Glassford Publishing, Boise, Idaho). The cover bills it as "A complete
guidebook for backcountry users of the NAVSTAR satellite system. Overall, it
is the best backcountry and general user book on GPS I have seen. It
necessarily condenses a lot of map and coordinate system stuff but to my
non-geographic eye does it very well.    He does a really good job of
discussing the place of various types of navigation aids for the backcountry
navigator (compass, altimeter, map reading aids, as well as GPS). His
discussion of how GPS works is excellent for the non-technical type. The
real bonus is his 3 tables of coordinates of interesting points - highest
point of all states and most counties in the US (including Alaska and
Hawaii), all the state capitol buildings, and a major portion of the
intersections between Interstates (and some US numbered highways with the
Interstates). His receiver comparison table is, of course, out of date (hey,
any such table would be out of date before it ever reached the printing
press), but his list of useful parameters to compare and the explanation of
them is potentially useful to new users. Then there is his wonderful little
section titled "If Your Receiver Breaks Down"  which includes a table of
sunrise/sunset azimuths and solar noon time (standard) for the central
meridian of the time zones (for 1998, it does vary with the year) - small
enough to copy and laminate to stick in your pocket along with your map. He
does talk about interfacing receivers and computers, digital maps, DGPS,
etc., but only very briefly.

Overall, this is the book I would currently recommend to people who want to
learn more about using their GPS. And some of us "authorities" can learn or
brush up on a few things in it, too.

          -- Bill

Link to "GPS LAND NAVIGATION" at Amazon BookSeller>Click here