The Garmin Rino 530HCx is a really powerful collaborative GPS device that allows you to communicate with and view other people’s positions in real time.

Since I’m in the mining industry I see the potential in a device such as this. When I’m out in the wild looking for rocks or taking samples it’s sure be nice to have a team of people out there with me that I could communicate with without having to bring a separate radio.

But the Garmin Rino 530HCx goes way farther than voice communication with its position reporting function that allows you to report your position to other Rino users in the group. The position reporting feature allows Rino users to report and receive Rino user positions and display them on the handheld GPS device.

Obviously I see the potential for use in the exploration part of the mining industry but I also see how it would be useful in search and rescue operations, group hiking, hunting and many other group based activities.

If you’re used to carrying a radio to communicate with other users while you’re doing activities that require both a GPS and a radio the Rino will allow you to shed a bit of weight by combining these devices.

See larger image Garmin Rino 520HCx 14-Mile 22-Channel FRS/GMRS Two-Way Radio and GPS Receiver (Electronics) List Price: $449.99 USD New From: $417.82 In Stock Used from: $320.00 In Stock

I recently purchased some GPS software for my Windows Mobile OS based device and believe that this is some of the most advanced GPS software you can get for just $24!

Actually there’s 3 different versions of the software Basic (without upgrades), Standard (1 year of upgrades) and Geo (allows you to do area calculations and comes with 1 year of upgrades).

Since I use my GPS in mother nature’s great span of wilderness – I really prefer this type of software to navigational software.

One of the best things for me with this software is the ability to use Google Earth’s satellite photography as my maps. So when I’m hiking around in the Mexican sierra I won’t get lost! The compass view with the sun’s direction is also really helpful for me when trying to find out which direction I should be going. Of course, the software has all the functions of regular GPS software like the ability to add waypoints and tracks.

When I’m on the road or traveling in a city I’ve never been in and more so if it’s a popular tourist destination, the ability to use maps from Terraserver, OpenStreetMaps or Google Maps is perfect because I don’t have to shell out $50 to $100 just to get a CD with all the maps on it for where I intend to go.

Another neat feature if you’re traveling with a bunch of friends in a real connected city is the ability to share your GPS location with your friends in real time. Yes – I believe this software had the GPS Share functionality long before the iPhone even existed.

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For clarity we’re going to break the electronics down into two parts.

We have the BEACON which is the part of the system that moves around and relays its’ position to the RECEIVER which shows the user the positional data or whereabouts of the beacon.

There are two basic approaches to relaying the beacon positional data back to the receiver and each of them have their own unique drawbacks.

The first method is to use the cellular network to send messages to the receiver device. Using the cellular network allows the system to be used pretty much anywhere that you have a cellular network but it might not work in the back-country where people would normally go hiking, boating, fishing or camping. If you intend to use the tracking system outdoors in those back-country places to track your dog if he gets lost then you’d better hope your dog has some good survival instincts and tracking ability of his own.

The Zoombak “Advanced GPS Car and Family Locator” is one product that uses a cellular network to relay the data back to the receiver. The receiver in this case is a web site on the Internet so you’ll need internet access to be able to use it.

Although Zoombak doesn’t charge a setup fee for the device; you’re going to have to pay a minimum $9.99 a month for the service and about $175.00 for the electronic beacon that you attach to the object you’d like to track.

The real drawbacks to the Zoombak is that you need internet access because it doesn’t come with a handheld receiver and that you’ll have a monthly service fee for as long as you’re going to use the device.

The second method is to use publicly accessible, free radio signals to send messages to the receiver device. Since the device is using public radio signals you can expect that there will be no monthly service fees which is a real bonus since paying a service fee for every electronic device that you own starts to add up to some real coin very quickly.

RoamEO is one manufacturer that makes these types of GPS tracking system devices that is made specifically for dogs. They give you a handheld receiver that tracks the position of the beacon in real-time so you can even use it in the back-country where there’s no cellular systems.

Since this device works on radio waves there’s some pretty strict regulations that they have to adhere to and one of them is the power level that they’re allowed to transmit. The handheld receiver will handle up to 3 beacons and the beacon device transmits at 2 watts on 154.6Mhz so the beacon isn’t going to be in Juneau, Alaska and transmit to you California.

The biggest drawback is that the device is only going to transmit about 1 mile and you’re going to foot about $400.00 for 1 beacon and the handheld receiver.

I really like the Zoombak device and if I didn’t have so many projects on the go I’d like to get ahold of a Zoombak to see if it could be hacked to be used off of their system and used independently of their service fees.

The tracking service at this time supports the Pocket PC 2003/SE, Windows Mobile 5 and the Windows Mobile 6 operating systems with their own software or you can purchase a copy of the MaspWare GPSMeter program (3rd party).

The service is completely free for private use and it’s also really easy to use. Just register your own unique tracker id, it’s almost as simple as that. Use any client software with you device and start tracking!

When everything is up and running you can track the position of the GPS device using a simple and familiar Google Earth Web Interface on the Quoox Web Site.

Google Earth is a great application even if you don’t use a GPS device with it. You can look at the landscape and explore the world with a birds-eye view of some excellent and very current earth imagery.

I decided that since I use the application a lot that I would upgrade to the Plus version of Google Earth which has a price-tag of a reasonable $20 annually.

Since my GPS is not of the Magellan or Garmin brands I can’t do the real time GPS tracking that Google Earth Plus would allow me to do. I really don’t have the need to do this real-time tracking on Google Earth, but it would probably be fun to play around with for an hour or two. I’m totally satisfied with importing my data and storing it for later use.

The Plus version of Google Earth doesn’t seem to offer any new features to the program besides the real-time GPS tracking and the ability to print higher resolution maps from the program. Google says that with the $20 subscription you’ll have preferred access to the data servers. To be honest I haven’t really noticed a difference with map data download speeds and Google tells you that the map data is the same for everybody anyways. With no way to confirm that my $20 somehow gives me preferential access rights I’ll just have to trust Google on that one.

While I don’t see much of a difference between the Plus and Free version of the Google Earth program, I’m content in the thought that I made a small donation to Google and that one day my small donation will somehow help them if they ever decide to push MS out of the marketplace.