Find the Way With GPS

Orbiting roughly 11,000 miles above the earth, the 24 satellites of the Global Positioning System are perhaps the most important navigational tools created since the invention of the compass. With a clear line of sight to at least three satellites, any modern GPS receiver can calculate your location anywhere on the planet with extreme accuracy, 24 hours a day, rain or shine.

Originally built by the U.S. government for military purposes, GPS technology today is showing up in all sorts of consumer devices. PDAs, cell phones, two-way radios, cars, and even wristwatches have become GPS-enabled.

In my sampling of such location-aware products, I came away most impressed with Thales Navigation's Magellan RoadMate 700 ($1299), an automotive navigation system. On a four-day road trip, the device proved accurate, easy to use, and a big help on unfamiliar streets and highways in Southern California.

The diminutive, Bluetooth-enabled Earthmate GPS Receiver ($290) from DeLorme is harder to use if you are driving, but it's more portable and a lot cheaper than the RoadMate. Whether I placed the receiver on the dashboard or in a bag, it broadcast GPS data via its wireless connection to my notebook PC and my Palm Tungsten T3 PDA, both of which stored and displayed the maps. Combined with DeLorme's Street Atlas USA 2004 mapping software, the device is a powerful navigation tool--especially if you have a copilot to work it.

Garmin's Rino 120 ($250) combines two-way radio communication and GPS navigation in one light and rugged unit that is great for route-finding on a mountain or regrouping in the chaos of Disneyland. The Rino packs an astounding variety of features, but its best trick is its use of the unlicensed Family Radio Service band to show the location of another nearby Rino user (so buying two of them is useful).

Sports training is an endeavor in which location is less important than your speed, distance, time, and pace. Over the course of a 10-mile run and a 20-mile bike ride, the Timex Ironman Triathlon Speed + Distance System ($185 to $250 depending on the model you choose), which includes a GPS transceiver that is wirelessly connected to a wristwatch, gave me real-time data on all four of these vital statistics. My only complaints: The small numbers on the Ironman watch are difficult to read, and I lost the GPS signal twice.