I have a Garmin GPS III (not the "Pilot" version - received it as a gift)
I use it in the aircraft all the time, and love it.
Out of the box, it contains virtually no information, other than highways,
water, cities, etc.
However, using any one of many on-line sources for generating
airport/navaid/obstruction waypoints, and other software to upload these to
the unit, I now have a very nice unit. It shows all of the airports within
a 200 mile radius (indicated by an airplane symbol,) all of the VOR's, and
all of the towers 1,000' AGL (indicated by a tower symbol.) The unit is
limited to 500 of these user-defined waypoints, but if I decide to take a
longer trip, I can easily go to a website and generate waypoints for the
route and upload these instead of the 200 mile radius ones.

Also, just about any unit can be used with other PC based moving map
software. I am starting to play around with Oziexplorer, using the FAA
sectional charts that Kyler Laird has provided on his website. Wow - what a
neat little, cheap moving map solution!

"RD" wrote in message
...
Good day,

Can someone give me an opinion on what type of GPS unit is good enough for
me. I'm a GA pilot, very low time, looking for a decent GPS to take along
for some X/C flying in the rentals. Just need to see highways and cities
etc. I'm not very worried about airspace as there isn't much around my
local
airport and the charts do a good enough job.

1. Are basic GPS modules such as the ones you take camping/fishing good
enough?
2. What about PalmPilot/Windows CE based hand held units?
3. Is it worth buying a decent Garmin model?

What are your experiences?

Thanks,
Ryan