Terrain Navigator Pro is great software- A track is where you have been...A route is where you want to go. The GPS tracks your movements unless you turn it off or disable that feature. The 'track' feature can be adjusted to mark a waypoint every so often (the time between marks is adjustable) or after an adjustable amount of distance traveled.
If you have a GPS that does that and has a USB or serial connection that can be hooked to a computer, TNP can download that from your GPS and plot the track on the Quad...7.5' map in which it occurred.
We do that all the time in Search and Rescue. Send the teams out into the field and they start recording tracks when the begin the search in the assigned area. They turn it off when the have finished the search area. After returning to base camp, the GPS is given to the Command Post and where they were is downloaded and saved. After a few hours of doing this with all the units, the Operations Leader can see exactly what has and what has not been searched. We mapped the trails in a State Park as a volunteer activity for the park and in so doing did some good training for the unit.
No need to manually enter a waypoint every so often around the border of the field. The GPS is probably already doing that. You do need to enter the waypoint when you mark a find and edit it by giving it a name or at least recording on paper what find corresponds with waypoint 005, for example.
Forget using Lat and Long. Read up on UTM (Universal Transverse Mercator) on the net and set both your GPS and TNP to that coordinate system. National Search and Rescue, FEMA, Oil companies, etc., use UTM...not lat and long. If you are navigating in an aircraft or ship, Lat and long is the coordinate system of choice. On land it sucks.
The datum set up on your GPS must be set to the datum ON THE MAP YOU ARE USING. The default in almost all GPSs is WGS 84. All US topos are NAD 27. If you get these reversed and don't make sure of the above rule, somebody returning to a marked waypoint may be as much as 200 meters off, in the CONUS (Don't know what it is in your area) and all other things are correct. Not an issue if you are in a heli at 2000' but trying to find the edge of a foundation on a cellar hole you hunted last year and not having the datum correct, will put you up to 200 meters away from that foundation.
GPSs have improved so much in the last five years it's almost unreal. GPSs we used 5 years ago would probably only be accurate to about 10-20 yards. New Garmin HCxs operating in the same area consistently calculate an EPE (estimated positional error) of 7-10 feet. They lock on to satellites faster and lock on to more satellites than the older units did. GPSs are a bit like detectors. The old ones work but the advancement in electronics and its application to small electrial devices has improved dramatically. There are advantages to having a modern metal detector as well as a modern GPS.
There are a few things one needs to learn to use a GPS effectively and accurately. Much less than it took to operate you detector effectively. Failing at either endeavor will put you behind those who can do it. Jim
