Near Intersection of I-35 & I-90 Southern Mn. | I have (had? - I can't find it lately) an older Garmin Handheld which was known as the EMap.
Like many handhelds this unit had the ability to mark waypoints. To mark a waypoint with this unit, you pushed and held the ENTER key a bit. Pushing the ENTER key again confirmed that you wanted to save the waypoint and returned you to a normal view.
Because of the way that the keyboard was laid out, it was possible to do this by feel without actually looking at the keyboard. The waypoints were numbered as Waypoint 1, Waypoint 2, etc.
I was successful in doing what you are attempting while Rotary Hoeing at fairly fast speeds. I would just lay the unit in the window sill of the tractor cab. I got acceptable GPS through the window without an external antenna. When I noticed a rock, I would feel for the handheld and perform the keystrokes of pushing the ENTER key and holding for a bit and then pushing the ENTER key again. As I said I was able to do this by feel so that I did not need to take my eyes off the row for steering.
My marks were not perfectly accurate due to the time delay in getting them marked at higher speed but these Waypoints were useful.
If the GPS would not have had the ability to mark Waypoints by feel, this plan would not have worked very well.
I would come back with my ATV and trailer built to straddle my 30" rows and pick up the rocks by navigating to the waypoints. This unit had a fairly easy way to DELETE waypoints so I would delete them after I picked up the rock(s). This allowed me to clean up my Map so that I could work on an area of a field without getting confused where I had been.
I found that if I tried to use the NAVIGATE to a Waypoint feature I would end up "getting dizzy" by looking at the screen and driving. I found it was much easier to stop, use the GPS screen to estimate an approximate position of the rock(s) and then drive in the general direction of the location without constantly looking at the screen. I would often find some other rocks on the way that had not been marked.
All in all this worked reasonably well.
I was on a Canadian fishing trip last week and borrowed my friends EMap since mine is lost. The Waypoint feature was extremely handy for navigating back to the Resort and good fishing spots.
Edited by tedbear 9/9/2006 05:12
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Portable GPS rock marker ideas ?
