Welcome to this month’s GPS Training podcast, it’s our 17th episode.

Today we have Andy and myself, Jon

As always, we are streaming it live on Facebook.

So if you want to see what we all look like take a look at our Facebook page

Just search for GPS Training on Facebook and don’t forget to ‘like’ our page.

So, without further ado let’s get on with today’s podcast ……

It's our 17th podcast.

In today’s podcast we are going to look at the following –

• Best budget GPS for Christmas

• Geoffrey the Bot, all will become clear, I hope

• 2018 Ordnance Survey mapping - Routable TOPO PRO

• Online resource update – restructuring

• Andy’s Top Tips, both Garmin and SatMap

• Download .gpx files - what’s that about

• And Finally, what piece of kit is on each of our Christmas lists

1. Best budget GPS for Christmas 2018

So, Andy, as we approach Christmas 2018 what is the best ‘budget’ GPS unit.

First of all I think we need to clarify, what’s are we going to classify as a ‘budget GPS unit’ – let’s say - £350.00 or less

- Garmin eTrex 20x with 3,000 sq km of mapping - more

- Garmin eTrex 30x with 3,000 sq km mapping - more

- Garmin eTrex Touch 25 with 3,000 sq km of mapping - more

- Garmin eTrex Touch 35 with 3,000 sq km of mapping - more

- eTrex Touch 25t with Discoverer 1:50k maps - more

- eTrex Touch 25t with TOPO PRO 1:50k maps - more

2 – Geoffrey our GPS Training Bot

This week we have launched ‘Geoffrey the GPS Training Bot’.

We are currently showcasing him to the public as we are training him but in the next few weeks, he will find his final home inside the GPS Training online resource.

Geoffrey the bot constantly analyses and catalogues any answers we email to customers and with a little bit of AI, its more learning and indexing rather than artificial Intelligence, but AI is the current buzz word, he will hopefully start to answer your GPS tech questions.

We have all been very entertained in the last few days so please do give him a go and over time his knowledge will hopefully broaden as we add more data for him to draw from.

To put Geoffrey the GPS Training Bot through his paces please click here and you will see Godfrey down the bottom left of our support portal.

I hope you find him as entertaining as we have!

3 - 2018 Ordnance Survey mapping - Routable TOPO PRO, this is just for Garmin users.

So Andy the TOPO Pro rears it’s head again and 2018 map cards, can we clarify this for the final time?

We are getting so many customers on the phone who, rightly, are totally confused by the different Ordnance Survey map options -

Garmin Discoverer – 1:50k and 1:25k

Garmin TOPO PRO – 1:50k and 1:25k

Garmin Birdseye map download – 1:25k

To find out more about any of these different map options please click here.

SatMap Andy is a little more straightforward?

Routable off-road data on a SatMap, how does that work and is it on all map types?

And with SatMap we have three different Map options with GPS units –

- 1:50k

- 1:25k

- Platinum

To find out more about the mapping options please click here.

4 – Online resource update – restructuring

- Firstly, Andy what is the GPS Training online resource?

You can get to it by visiting our website – gpstraining.co.uk – and clicking on – online resource

- And what have you been up to with the online resource over the past week?

To access the online resource just go tour website – gpstraining.co.uk – and clicking on – online resource – on the top menu bar.

The online resource is £50.00/ year or free for one year if you buy a GPS unit from GPS Training, please do support us here at GPS Training, I know many of you do but it does help to keep the Podcast on the air.

5. Andy’s Top Tips, both Garmin and SatMap

Garmin – Colder time of year, Eneloop Pro , Lithium AA perform better, keep batteries inside pocket warmer batteries better, use battery save from setup display,