| I was obliged to replace my old GPS device recently. I have replaced that with another basic model. My historical use of GPS was only to enable me to harvest BNG data (waypoints) for wildlife recording purposes, as well as accurately measuring route distances. The new device will enable me to add GPX data to route files for anyone who may be interested. More useful perhaps to people who do not use GPS Devices, I have been able to use the GPX data to generate route visualisations which are also include. Two visualisations are included. A plain visualisation with no annotation to enable people to personalise the page to their own taste and a page annotated by me in support of the route concerned. You do not need to read further. The information below is for people who may be interested in the subject of GPS itself.
The new device I have, though basic, is far superior to my old device. It is inevitably accompanied by a smart-phone App which I do not want on my phone. I will not be installing the App. For my purposes I do not need to. Data is stored on the device using an industry standard .FIT file format. As the device can be hooked up to my PC, I can download the relevant .FIT file. I then use a third-party source to convert the .FIT file to the more familiar GPX format.
I then apply another third-party source to strip out all data which is not related to route / location information (which can be significant). That leaves a GPX file of minimum size necessary for our navigation purposes. A third and final third-party source offers numberous visualisation options. These third-party souces are blisteringly fast and like this website, they are not monetised. They share knowledge that is mutually useful.
NB: For anyone using the GPX file, they may already know you can opt to start walking the route from any point on the route (consult your device manual) but I am specifying the starting point I used in each case on the annotated visualisation. I have tried successfully introducing the revised GPX file and that works perfectly for me. Routes referred to on visualisations include a suffix which may be A or C or R. A = anticlockwise, C = clockwise and R = a straight line with retraced steps (i.e. not a circular route). |
