Garmin Rino hand held GPS

[matt85]

after doing a bit of hunting with a friend from work ive decided I really want a hand held GPS. his GPS managed to keep track of our path and what GMU we were in (we hunted threw 3 and each has different rules).

another coworker told me his whole elk crew used Garmin Rino's since they were both a GPS and a radio. I liked this idea as I often hunt In two or three man crews that split up to cover larger areas. having a radio and GPS in one removes a piece of equipment I have to carry.

thoughts on the Garmin Rino? prefer something else?

thanks
-matt

 

[richteb]

Matt,
I had the 650 for while, and although the gps side worked really well not so the radio. Now I am not sure what frequency they use in the US, however here in Australia they use UHF band and the radio function was not even close in comparison to a dedicated two way radio. Both reception and voice clarity were poor in quality at even short ranges. This seems to be fairly common as we purchased 6 or 7 units and all suffered the same issues. The other problem is that when you transmit your position it can be seen by any rino unit in range. This maybe a good thing or not, depends on perspective. The other thing to consider is the Rino unit uses a built in battery that when depleted must be charge using the supplied charger, unlike other garmin gps units that use AA battery that you can replace in the field. On standby the battery on the rino will last a long time, however if you are doing a lot of transmitting and using the screen with the backlight on (almost a must in bright conditions) then power consumption is considerable.

I guess last but not least, you need at least two units to gain any benefit.

Hope this helps.

Ben