Volume 11, Issue 1
| Top of the Hill | Boots and Blisters | Pinching Pennies | |||||
| Who's Who and New | Feature Article | Disclaimer/Copyright |
| Top of the Hill | by Tony Gaier, President |
I hope everyone is having a great new year so far. I look forward to being the team's president again this year. In case you missed the December Meeting/Christmas Party, Mike Dugger and Mark Espelien also stayed on for another year. Bob Baker stepped down and Tom Rinck stepped up as the new membership officer. Alex Fischer replaces Aidan Thompson in the secretary position. Bob and Aidan, thank you for the terrific job you both did last year! I would also like to thank Adam Hernandez for hosting the December Meeting/Christmas Party.
This month's evaluation is on January 21st, at 9:00AM. It will be a search techniques evaluation at Bear Canyon Trailhead. Something that is new this year is a two week prior signup for the evaluation. The signup deadline for the evaluation this month is January 7th at 9:00PM. This way if there is no one signed up (or in the opinion of the evaluator, not enough people to conduct the evaluation signed up) the evaluator can make plans to do something else that weekend. So please call and leave a message on the hotline as soon as possible, if you plan to attend an evaluation. The February evaluation will be on the 26th at 9:00AM. It will be land navigation evaluation. The location is still to be determined. If you plan to attend this evaluation, please leave a voice message on the hotline by Sunday, February 12th.
| Boots and Blisters | by Mike Dugger, Training Officer |
Welcome back from the holiday.
I have developed a tentative training calendar for the upcoming year. You will see some similarities to last year, although I do plan to make a few changes.
In 2005 I attempted to review the theory of subjects we evaluate on before our business meetings once per month. However, depending upon how many prospective members are with the team at a given time, There may be only one or two people interested in that topic. Bob Baker suggested that the mentors could take a more active role in teaching prospectives who need it some of the basic theory behind the topics that we test on. I think this is a great idea and plan to try it out this year. I will still come prepared to do some individual instruction before the business meeting for anyone who wants it -- prospective or active member. Instead of the SAR Fundamentals training, I will work more of the concepts that we test on into the regularly scheduled weekend trainings. This should free up the pre-meeting time slot to have some guest speakers as we have done for many years and also make the weekend trainings more interesting.
The topics listed below may exchange time slots due to the availability of other teams I plan to invite to train with us. However, I will do my best to keep to the dates listed. Please keep in mind that these are only the trainings that I plan to schedule. There are many of our members qualified to lead training, and I invite them to schedule other events that help us hone our skills for SAR. Anyone with ideas for training, or the desire to set one up, please see me. If developed sufficiently in advance, approved by me and at least three of our members attend, I will give training credit. There will also be opportunities to train with other teams who develop training, and I will try to get these on our calendar as well.
CSAR 2006 Training Calendar:
Just a final reminder that all members are expected to bring their full search pack to all training events. You never know when someone may request a pack breakdown. I look forward to seeing you out there!
| Pinching Pennies | by Mark Espelien, Treasurer |
I recently received a letter from James Newberry, the state SAR Resource Officer, concerning submission of gas receipts for reimbursement through the state. He has developed the first written policy for this activity - apparently previous SAR coordinators made up their own policies.
What we need to do now:
That's it - this is all effective Dec 13, 2005, so all submissions prior should be unaffected. We may also revise our submission form, but nothing new yet - keep using the current one.
I will keep you informed as things develop.
| Who's Who and New | by Tom Rinck, Membership Officer |
As my first duty as membership officer, I would like to thank Bob Baker for his two years of service to Cibola SAR. Bob did a wonderful job as membership officer.
Cibola SAR currently has 16 active members and seven prospective members. That is a very good start for the year. I would like to encourage everyone to become involved in membership this year. We can do this by encouraging others to join our team and by keeping ourselves involved and interested in SAR work.
I look forward to working with all of you this year to make our great team even better.
| What GPS should I buy? | by Tony Gaier |
That is a very good question. The answer is, it depends on a couple of things: for instance, how much money you have to spend and what features you need.
If you don't have much money to spend, there are a couple of good units for under $100. If you want something small, the Garmin Foretrek 101 is a good choice. It is very small with good battery life (15 hours). Some disadvantages are the very small screen and buttons. Obviously it is harder to operate in the winter with gloves and numb fingers.
My second recommendation is the Garmin eTrex. This is the same model the team purchased several years ago. Just like the Foretrek, the eTrex is a compact unit. The unit is about double the size of the Foretrek (4.4" H x 2.0" W x 1.2" D). There are a lot of good units in the $75-$200 range. With most of the low end models I have found that the antenna and receiver are less capable. What I mean is they have to be in the open to track satellites effectively. If you are in dense woods or have the unit in a pockt it may not work.
Something to ask yourself is, "what am I going to use my GPS for?" Are you just using it for SAR? Will you use it for geocaching? Do you want to use it for car navigation too? Do you want topo map capability? Do you want stand alone compass and altimeter capability? Are you getting old like me and having a harder time seeing smaller screens? Do you want a color display?
Depending on how you answer the questions above will determine which unit to purchase. If you have the extra bucks to spend, definitely get a color screen! It is especially nice when it comes to mapping features.
My two top recommendations in the "I have a lot of money to spend on a GPS" category are the Magellan eXplorist XL and the Garmin GPSMAP 60CS (or the new CSx). The Magellan has the largest color display for a handheld unit (3.5"). The screen can be viewed in almost any light condition. It is excellent for us who have less than perfect vision! It has mapping capability and uses an USB connection for computer hookup. It uses a SD memory card, so you have an unlimited mapping capability. The biggest disadvantage is the limited availability of "extra" accessories for the unit (i.e., handle bar mounts and car mounts). Also the unit is larger than other handheld units due to the display size (6.4" H x 2.9" W x 1.33" D).
The Garmin GPSMAP 60CSx is a great little unit! It has most of the same features the eXplorist XL has plus stand alone compass and altimeter capability. Its menu screens are setup much like a Microsoft Windows menu (with icons). Its dimensions are 2.4" W x 6.1" H x 1.3" D. The biggest drawback to the unit is the small 2.6" display.
If you haven't already done so, I recommend checking out one of the team GPS units and playing with it before making up your mind on which GPS to buy.
Happy shopping!
vr,
Mr. Gadget
| Disclaimer and Copyright notice | the Editors |