Here’s how I’m getting GPS tracks for my recent orienteering races.
I’m using a Navi GPS (£80) bought from Storage Depot, with an SD memory card (£15) to log the route.
I download the data as NMEA sentences via a memory card reader and then convert it to GPX with GPS Babel, and then upload it to RouteGadget. I can also convert it to KML for displaying on Google Earth, or use GPS Visualizer to create altitude-coloured images with dots showing each log point.
I’ve also bought a Holox (£35) off eBay; which, when it arrives, and when Nokia fix a bug in Python S60, I’ll be able to use with my mobile phone recording the data that it sends via Bluetooth. Unlike the Navi GPS, the Holox is ultra-sensitive and very fast at acquiring fixes. I have a Nokia N73 phone, I plan to use NMEA Info to record the data, which a friend has written. I’ve learnt a bit of Python so I’ll be able to hopefully add some orienteering-specific features, e.g. a minimalistic “Sports race” mode, or a “Race start/end” button, to the application.