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Anyone use an Arduino mega to make a gps ?

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    • It's far from obvious that a Mega would make a useful GPS logger. It's really memory constrained, doesn't have a terrific interface to external storage for the track, and has a pretty big form factor. I've looked at these projects from time to time, and they all seem ... awkward. Surely they're clever hacks, but I've not seen any that has called out, "build me!" (By contrast, I would like to get a couple of the Jupiter chips at some point, to build a GPS-disciplined oscillator for time and frequency measurements, and possibly to attempt a survey-grade long-integration-time GPS unit, which is a rather different beast from a track recorder.)

      It's hard to beat a smartphone with Gaia, Avenza PDF or Backcountry Navigator as a GPS logger. A lot of us have smartphones for other reasons, and then the app is a minimal expense. (You also need some way of powering it, but a LiPo power brick isn't that expensive either.)

      That approach has the advantage that it already comes with a display and with a fair amount of storage where you can put a basemap, so that you can see where you are in the field rather than just playing with your track afterward.

      By the way, for another clever GPS hack, take a look at sno.phy.queensu.ca/~phil/exiftool/geotag.html . As long as you can remember to take the occasional picture of your GPS display, you can use your camera's clock to geotag your images on a non-GPS-enabled camera.
      I'm not lost. I know where I am. I'm right here.
    • Yeah... the gps unit that Adafruit.com sells is kinda expensive. The two gps apps for my smartphone are much cheaper.

      Okay, I'll go with one of the Apps. I do have most of the parts though... all I would need to buy is the gps bit to add. Maybe if I find a part-time job I can maybe try the gps module out... but I need something this summer.
      --
      "What do you mean its sunrise already ?!", me.