 Bushnell Backtrack----thumbs up ! |
| Review Date: January 9, 2009 |
| Reviewer: Ernie, Bel Air , MD. USA |
| The Bushnell Backtrack is a must have for the hiker or hunter. Very simple to use and gets you back to your starting point very easily. Just mark it and forget it until needed. MUCH easier to use then the conventional GPS. |
works great for hunting
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| Review Date: November 9, 2008 |
| Reviewer: T. saxton, michigan |
| i have been looking for something like this for years. i hunt rabbits with dogs in cedar swamps and it is very easy to get turned around when everything looks the same in this type of terrain. now i just punch in my wearabouts at the truck before i get in to the woods and presto it points me to my truck everytime ,no matter what,weather ,hills ,trees . i wouldn't go hunting without it again now that i have one and so simple to use ,its just what us hunters needed .i have tryed to use the hand held gps like e-trex and this backtrack is so much nicer for what hunters need.standing still is not how it works properly , you have to walk with it so it can determine your direction.i see bad reviews about this product ,idiots. but people would bitch about being hung with a new rope too.thanks bushnell |
About what you should expect
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| Review Date: December 20, 2008 |
| Reviewer: Joe B, |
| I just took my new Backtrack out for a trial run to hunt squirrels after an ice storm. I didn't really expect to get anything but just had to play with my new toy. I marked my trucks location (I took my truck in case I got a big one) and headed off into the crystal forest. Just as I thought animals are smarter than humans and were holed up for the day but the ice coated trees were spectacular!!! After crunching around for about an hour I headed back to the truck (no squirrels) using the GPS as a guide rather than using known trails. Knowing where I was I questioned the pointer arrow but soon realized it was pointing me in the general direction of my truck. Following the average direction I came to within 15 yards of my truck. This GPS will not magically transport you to the exact footprints you were standing in when you marked your spot but it will get you very close to it. For the price and for a person like myself that has NO sense of direction I LIKE IT!!! |
It does exactly what real GPS technology does -
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| Review Date: November 30, 2009 |
| Reviewer: Mark M. Monteleone, SW, MO |
Real GPS technology is a large number of satellites 12,500 miles in orbit sending a very weak time signal for a computer processor to calculate the holders position in space. Most users don't know or understand that the receiver is not getting blasted with 50,000 watts from their favorite rock station ten miles away, or even a cell signal two miles away. Interference from structures will stop the signal, period.
I recently purchased a Backtrack as an economical aid for deer hunting and travel cross country. At the price, Brunton and military compasses can't and won't do the same job without a geodesic map and literally days of training - training I've had repeatedly in 22 years in the US Army Reserve. Much of where I hunt has no decent map, and overhead satellite photography is remarkably low quality in these less densely populated areas. If there is any difficulty in the woods, the real issue isn't which way is north, it's the actual distance and heading from a known point.
For the price point, the Backtrack works fine. It does not have an extremely fast response time, but given reasonable patience, it will orient you to the compass and let you know what heading and distance you are from the start point. Reasonable is up to two minutes - which is all it needed the first startup. At that point I set the home icon with the extremely simple two button controls.
I tested the unit at distances of yards and miles, and found when handled properly like a compass - held parallel to the ground with no motion - it would show equal distances and complementary headings between two points. At about 700 yards it changes to tenths of a mile, and when between home and say, a parking point, you can measure the exact distance between - straight line.
When traversing rough terrain with a unscaled pictographic map, such as printed by the conservation department for most areas, it was simple to keep aware of our position on that map and get a basic idea of the scale involved. I felt more secure with the Backtrack telling me my car was 739 yards away at 356 degrees than trusting my memory of which way an old wooded ravine might go. Again, a compass would have only told me which way was north - something I checked using a Silva Ranger model I purchased while in the Infantry school. It can't tell me a distance and heading to a known point unless I literally pace it out and recognize it on an accurately scaled map.
As for literally following the arrow, even a compass won't help you make a better decision to avoid the rough patches and get on a trail heading in the general direction. The Backtrack can't do your thinking for you.
Will a GPS show you your car's location in a parking lot? Yes, and for the price, it should. But you will have to learn the menus, operation, and still set the start point where you parked it - raining or not. Just put it on the dashboard and wait. When you're done, give it a minute, hold it flat, don't wave it around, and use normal routes. Walking through walls is asking a bit much. The Backtrack will get you there - if you can remember what you drove. At that point, you might try your keyfob. |
Exactly What I Expected
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| Review Date: April 23, 2009 |
| Reviewer: Ralph L. Seifer, long beach, california United States |
Mine arrived yesterday, and I went out this morning for a short stroll. I had purchased the GPS in anticipation of a coming trip to a very large city where I hope to do some wandering on foot, with a high probability of getting turned around.
As the joke goes: "I'm NOT lost. I know where I started, and I know where I'm going, and this AIN'T either one of those."
I installed the batteries after a short tussle with the back of the device, and took it outside, where I locked onto a signal in something between 1-2 minutes.
I did take the advice of other reviews and decided to dispense with the included lanyard, which is somewhat insubstantial. I plan to get some thin rope at a local marine hardware store and rig up something similar to the one supplied with the Backtrack. I had a lanyard with a metal connector, and decided against that also because of somebody's review about keeping the device away from metal.
After it started up, I put in one marker and took off for a walk of several blocks, and continually checked the locator arrow on the dial. It always pointed back in the general direction I had started from, and when I eventually turned around and headed home over a slightly different route, the arrow seemed pretty accurately locked in the correct direction. As I got in front of the house, the unit went to "zero+all arrows" as it's designed to do. I was pleasantly surprised to see the Backtrack function exactly as advertised, and I think I can be quite comfortable using it on the pending trip.
Two things I particularly liked were the fact that the GPS gives you a distance measurement, which is very helpful keeping a walker advised of his cardio workout, and the fact that the compass seems to be pretty accurate in its calibration. I've owned a couple of watches with compasses, and they required an elaborate calibration procedure on a frequent basis. The Backtrack seems to have eliminated the need to calibrate, and that's a handy extra.
Ralph L. Seifer, Long Beach, California |
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November 24th, 2009 | 
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Posted in Must Have Gadgets, Outdoor, Under $50 | 
Tags: backtrack, bushnell, christmas gifts for men, locator