New Apps for off road.

Google? Ha!

No, go with a company that their first duty isn't helping hipsters find a starbucks, lol.

Backcountry Navigator Pro, and Avenza (for forest service MVUMs or other GeoPDFs) are still my favorites.

 

There are MANY other overlays for BCN.

USGS Topos, Forest Service topo, USTopo Imagery, etc...

My favorite so far has been the "USFS - Forest Service (newer)" overlay. I do a lot of driving in FS land, and this one is a great combo of topo and roads/trails.

 

I use BackCountry... have had it for years. For a while, my phone was an iPhone, so couldn't use it unless o had one of my droid tablets...

Back with a Samsung again, so...

Anyway, I haven't tried the Gaia App though, so, cant speak for it

Either way, I know k don't use it to its full potential...
But, use it for fishing, hiking, wheeling, etc..

Chase

 

I run a split on a tablet between downloaded maps on Gaia with my routes pre made, and APRSdroid.

Btw like most ham stuff you can listen and watch, but you just can't transmit. So if you're meeting up with hams and they're using arps, you can use the aprs.fi site or receive info from a digipeater to help guide you to them, just don't TX without going for your tech.

 

My technician license just showed up in ULS about 10 minutes after you posted this.

 

Congrats! What's your call sign?

 

KN4OBQ

 

Last year traveling all over Baja California, I used Earthmate app as it connects with a DeLorme inReach Explorer satellite device...

Here is my track map for the area around La Paz (map and satellite):

 

This may be a dumb question but is there a good video that shows how to use Gaia? I've heard that alot of the trails it picks up on are hiking trails and not off-road trails. Is there somewhere to download other people's offroad trails?

Thanks for any help!

 

I don't know about Gaia, but for the trails, sometimes people will post their GPX files for a specific trail. Alltrails.com usually has trails and/or gpx files, but I believe you need a membership to get the data files. I usually just cheat and compare their tracks to my own topo maps.

A lot of times, I actually find it better to make my own tracks for planning purposes. I have some trail books/maps(paper), and I will develop my own track using Google Earth. One book I have has a series of lat/lon coordinates. I plug those in to google maps, then essentially connect the dots. Google Earth only goes so far though, and sometimes I have to import the KML into my BCN or Avenza apps, and trace the roads/trails (using FS maps, MVUMs, etc...), then export again to a new KML and finish the job in Google Earth. Once i have a complete track of the intended trail, I import it back to BCN.

This process, while arduous, helps familiarize myself with the intended trail and helps get a better lay of the land.

 

Just fondo forget to turn off track recording after a Sunday hike, and spend 2 days trying to figure out why your batteeb is draining faster than usual...

Chase

 

Ok - I have a Baofeng, cable, and an old phone with APRSDroid. I can hit a few I-gates unless I'm really in a bad spot just behind a ridge.

I have Gaia and BCN demos on the android phone. I think I've looked at Gaia a few times and prefer Venza over it. BCN has promise in what I've heard about APRS overlays. I found an APRS setting in BCN, but it looks to pull from aprs.fi instead of what I'd consider "integration" with the installed APRSDroid app. Is there somewhere else (like a custom overlay) that can display APRSDroid on BCN? Is this a pro-only feature I won't find or be able to use in the demo?

 

Is there a setting for inport source of APRS data?

I'm sure Gaia is in development as well. They've had a strong call for APRS integration as well. And that'd go great with their offline maps.