Handheld GPS & Terrain Navigator Computer Workshops Offered

Handheld GPS receivers are a great resource for landowners, natural resource professionals, and other outdoor recreationalists. Current GPS units are accurate (+/- 15 feet) and can be used for marking hunting locations, structures, streams, your vehicle location, as well as for fun activities such as geocaching. Professional natural resource managers can save valuable field time by using GPS with a computer to locate inventory plots, access roads, outline timber sale and property boundaries, direct customers to sale locations, and much more.

The University of Maryland Cooperative Extension is again offering a series of fall workshops for Beginner GPS Training to teach those interested in learning how to use GPS handheld receivers with a computer, with specific applications to forestry and logging uses. The workshop provides a Garmin GPS MAP76CSx unit for each participant to use as well as a laptop computer. The daylong workshop uses both classroom and field instruction. The skills learned can be applied to a GPS handheld you may have purchased. The workshop will provide the basics of using a GPS receiver, as well as: marking waypoints, creating routes, entering and finding coordinates, determining acreage of a site, incorporating coordinates into timber sale bids, locating roads, stream crossings, points of interest, downloading and uploading data to a computer (laptops provided), computer software options, and comparing different GPS handheld units.

A second one-day workshop is being offered on the use of Terrain Navigator (TN) software that provides digital USGS topographic maps that are stored on your computer. The software allows you to create GPS waypoints, routes and tracks and transfer them to a GPS unit or to download GPS information taken in the field and then create a individualized computer map of the area you are working. The most recent upgrade of TN is now fully integrated with Google Maps, which greatly enhances its utility. This is very useful for natural resource professionals and landowners as well. More information on Terrain Navigator can be found at: http://maptech.mytopo.com .

Workshops are offered at the Western Maryland and Wye Research & Education Centers. Workshops run from 9 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. and the cost is $55. GPS units and laptops are available for use. The training manual for both courses are available free online for your use at www.naturalresources.umd.edu . Workshops are being offered at the following locations:

Location: Western Maryland Research & Education Center
18330 Keedysville Road
Keedysville, MD 21756 (near Hagerstown, MD)

Contact Pam Thomas (pthomas@umd.edu)
301-432-2767 x315

• October 27 – Beginner GPS Training
• October 29 – Integrating Terrain Navigator and GPS: An Affordable, Easy-to-Use System

Location: Wye Research & Education Center
124 Wye Narrows Drive
Queenstown, MD 21658 (Maryland’s Eastern Shore)
Contact Carol Taylor (carolt@umd.edu)
410-827-8056

• November 3 – Beginner GPS Training
• November 5 – Integrating Terrain Navigator and GPS: An Affordable, Easy-to-Use System
• November 10 (tentative) – Beginner GPS Training
  (Being held at University of Maryland, College Park)

For more information about the GPS and Terrain Navigator training, please visit::

http://www.naturalresources.umd.edu/EducationalGPS.html