GPS forum?

[norton73]

How about a GPS forum, perhaps as a child forum under Tech Talk?  Some of us are GPS novices, trying to figure stuff out on our own. Maybe a separate section for GPS tracks for some of the rides so they are all in a single spot.

my 1st question, my Norton has a positive earth electrical system, can I still hard wire a GPS?
:)

[norton73]

Cool! Thanks for adding this.

[alabamatoy]

I have had several GPSs and have been called "queer for maps" by an old friend, so I have a bit of knowledge of the subject.  Why do you want to "hardwire a GPS" when the best GPS you can get these days is most likely already in your pocket?  Modern cellphones are incredibly capable GPSs.  Admittedly, it can draw down the battery faster than with the GPS turned off, but why have a second device, especially one hardwired into your bike that you cant easily share or DL maps?

Apps like "GPS Essentials" and "US Topo Maps" and "PDF Maps" are amazing.  All three of these will DL maps for offline use when cell coverage is unavailable.  Essentials and topos will both make nice tracks.  Essentials will save the track as a KML file which is directly consumable by Google maps.  Here's one I made at CMRA:
https://www.google.com/maps/d/edit?mid=zqY_FcGeDOPE.klYXHMGW3KAU
the phone was bouncing around in my backpack and AFAICT never lost its GPS signal.  Admittedly, it was still prior to all the leaves coming out which does attenuate the GPS signal somewhat.

The apps I mentioned are free, although many of the geo-referenced PDFs will come at some minor cost.  A friend of mine is making these for a living, http://cartotracks.com

Sorry for the rant.  Hope this is helpful....

[Gam]

Cool! Thanks for adding this.

i found this, but it looks like one guy did it just like a negative earth bike, while others said to hook the negative to the positive on the gps.

http://www.accessnorton.com/satnav-power-positive-earth-t16424.html

[WECSOG]

Definitely don't connect the negative to the positive, as that would instantly let the magic smoke out of your GPS. And once that stuff is gone, you can't get it back in!
Most if not all GPS receivers don't have a grounded chassis, so they don't care which (if any) side is connected to chassis ground on your bike. Just connect positive to positive, negative to negative and ignore ground.