Discussion: Garmin Forerunner 305

The Juniors training camp at Tahoe requires a device such as the Garmin Forerunner 305. What are the features of this device that make it useful for the orienteer?

I find the requirement oppressive, as the instrument costs over $200. If I had a junior I'd send him to the HVO training camp instead (or Texas) -- check the USOF Juniors page for more info. I wouldn't trust him/her with an expensive device like a FR305...

That said, it's a specialized watch that includes GPS, keeps a track of where you went (but you can do that yourself on a map, unless you were really lost). In addition, the 305 model includes a heart monitor.

Is this what people have used on RouteGadget when you see "GPS" beside their name?

That's one of the devices people used... so you can also use it to see how fast you were going throughout the course. Seems like a good analysis tool for a coach, but I agree that it seems a bit much to require of juniors. Sounds like a good opportunity to get Garmin to do some sponsoring!

why on earth would you not trust a junior with a 305?!!!!

I've recently got a 305, seems like a great idea, gives much better awareness about how one is running and navigating. The coach can see too afterwards and give feedback. One of the big problems in orienteering coaching is that one really needs a coach per person for shadowing - 305 is one way to get past this...

On a technical issue, I get total climb results which are not very accurate. Any ideas?

Garmin GPS Climb - divide by 2.

I find SportTracks usually gives a fairly accurate value for the total climb (much lower than the Garmin software). I usually run where I have maps with 5m contours and SportTracks usually gives me a climb within 10% of what I get counting contours.

The Garmin companion website offers a free service to correct elevation based on digital elevation models (that is, the altitude is computed according to your 2D position and a digital model of the terrain). This virtually eliminates all errors on elevation, although there can still be some glitch (if the model is not accurate or up to date)

http://trail.motionbased.com/

On the plus side, you can upload directly on the website from your forerunner, then export your trace to GPX for archiving/analyzing with other software like sporttracks...

I agree with JanetT.

Requiring juniors to have a $200 device to attend a training camp is a good way to suppress camp attendance. No previous camps have had such a requirement; why should the Tahoe one?

You can use *any* GPS device to record your tracks while orienteering -- although they're all somewhat pricey.

Maybe they're requiring a specific GPS model to allow for easier data transfer with a consistent software and format. Also, the ForeRunners are more watch-like (less cumbersome) than a standard GPS receiver. They're easy to use and can record splits.

I love seeing my tracks after a race (I overlay them on the course map, a trick I learned from vmeyer); it really helps me learn from my mistakes and figure out where I went wrong.

But, requiring such a pricey device for a junior training camp seems a bit heavy...

playing devil's advocate, requiring orienteering shoes and a functional compass will come to a similar price. A 305-like device seems like a useful tool which to anyone training regularly will be well worth its price (and this from someone who only invested in a *watch* a few years ago!).

Making it obligatory sounds like a good way to make it easier for juniors to convince their parents to buy them one!! :)

Dividing by two doesn't work for the climb... I've run in flat Warsaw and had a reading of over 500m... a recent run in the south of france on hills was only 10-20% out. It would be nice if there were a way of getting it right without needing to pass by yet another website.

Twenty years ago watches with 30-lap memories were the coming thing for recording one's race splits. Once we tried one we had to buy one.
Now it is GPS units like the Garmin 305 that are the latest tool.
I do not know much about Garmin or the USOF junior camps but if cost for individuals is a problem why not approach Garrmin to see if USOF can get a few units at a good price to make available at all training camps for a reasonable rental.
On the theory that once you try you'll want to buy USOF could end up selling a lot of these units to its members.

Wow, this training camp ( http://baoc.org/wiki/Schedule/2008/Tahoe_A_Meet#Ju... ) sounds like a fantastic opportunity for juniors to get a great deal of O-training and, I presume, quality coaching. The cost seems to be really low (under $100), and I am sure it would be possible for juniors to apply for a grant to USOF to help offset the cost of the GPS watch, right? I agree that the requirement may be a bit harsh, but if the coaches are qualified and experienced and will use the GPS data effectively, then it sounds like a great idea. (Granted, it is not clear from the website who the coaches are.)

JanetT said it, but the 305 can also monitors your heart rate (while the 205 cant), so this is a very specific requirement: how many GPS receivers also work as HR monitors?

About elevation, it could be fairly easy to make a program extracting the correct altitude from a DEM, based on recorded position (plus tweaks for error corrections). The big problems is DEMs availibility: they are publicly available in Canada; in France they come with other map data (at a price) but I dont know if you can freely get them alone.

Also, GPS trace is cool, but I find it takes a good amount of experience and dedication to get the most out of it. So I am not sure what they have in mind about it.

Regarding the GPS altitude accuracy, SportsTracks 2 has a plugin available that corrects the data from a GDAL database. These seem quite accurate. Another plus for SportsTracks, you can update your GPS 205 track with Polar HR data and combine the data. Of course you will look all geeked out with both a HR montitor and Garmin 205 and you do have to remember to start and stop them both at nearly the same time. The one thing it lacks is the ability to see your trace over an orienteering map...but there is supposedly somebody working on a plugin for that as well.

The Victoria Nuggets (a National Orienteering League team in Australia) purchased a pool of Garmin 305s with a government grant for Athlete Development last year. We provide these for juniors and elites to use at training camps and races.

This has been a great tool for both coaches and athletes.

Example tracks are at:
http://www.vicorienteering.asn.au/highperf/analysi...

Some athletes have also chosen to purchase their own for personal use.

As the USA Junior team leader, I can say this much don't apply to the Junior team fund for this item. The money is not there. I barely have enough money for travel grants for the juniors to use to go to training camps and A events let alone for equipment like that. The club hosting the training camp can apply to the Junior grant program for a grant to buy the watches for use at the training camp and future training camps but they have to be prepared to valudate it's use at the camp and what they expect the juniors to get out of the use of it at the training camp and why they think it will improve the juniors orienteering skills.

As a parent that has raised two juniors; sent them to a number of training camps; trips aboard and 3 JWOC trips, I think the requirement for this $200 watch will limit the attendence. I know that our family budget would not be able to handle it then or now. I strongly suggest the club give serious consideration to purchasing the watches as club equipment to be used for the juniors at training camps and for training exerises at their local event, etc. for the club members as a whole.

QOC got a grant from USOF to buy Forerunner 305s for our juniors. I think we have 7. I would expect other clubs could try to get a similar grant (don't know if the timing would work).

Perhaps juniors without their own Forerunners or the money to buy one (I haven't even been able to justify the cost for myself yet) can borrow one. Many orienteers have them these days.

And maybe for the future ... Gene Wee's (OK) son works for Garmin ... maybe he has some pull to get some deal ...

My thoughts, again. The BAOC camp is aimed at juniors under age 20. Many older juniors are very responsible and could possibly benefit from having this kind of training tool, but I think you're putting the cart before the horse.

I'm not sure why juniors moving from Yellow to Orange (or higher) need to have an expensive item that they could likely lose over a weekend. There are juniors who can't keep track of their socks, much less an expensive tool like a GPS/heart monitor. And it seems that all attendees are required to have something like this.

Also, why in the world are you checking HR on juniors? If it's to see where they're walking instead of running, you can just ASK them. Isn't the purpose of a training camp to improve navigation skills? If there aren't enough coaches/helpers to monitor/shadow all the expected attendees, maybe you need to limit the number allowed to come.

I would think that having a junior plot his/her movements on a map after running it, and replaying in their minds what they did, is a more useful tool to learning than seeing it on a GPS unit.

My kids are both over 20 and no longer interested in orienteering anyway, so this is all I'll say on the subject.

I haven't thought this through much, but the Janets comments seem right on target to me.

On the other hand, maybe there is a good reason to have a "SiRFstar III chipset" etc... but it strikes me as a perhaps well-intentioned, but misguided imposition of tools/technology when something more basic would build a more solid foundation.

On the third hand, junior camps are great things, so I would want to encourage people to do that. I just hope the priorities are right and the accoutrements don't obscure the forest.

I'd be worried about letting kids attend at all. Sure they could get lost themselves.

:-)

If someone suggested that every kid who attended TJOC (TX Junior O Camp) should come equipped with a GPS, I'd laugh and then kill them.

I could see using them with a small subset of advanced orienteers. There are things to be learned from viewing ones precise track and speed variations that can't be obtained from memory alone.

With a smaller number of campers to work with, I could manage using the technology with less advanced orienteers; maybe displayed results might excite and motivate beginner orienteers. However, I personally don't think it will add substantially to their learning for some of the reasons that Janet and Clem mention. (In a similar vein, I disallow the use calculators in my calculus classes. IMO, they do more harm than good.)

In the end, I'd rather that any but the most advanced orienteers spend more time enjoying the forest and less in front of monitor. After they've done their course review on paper, I'd kick them back outdoors to suffer in the heat, stand on fire ant mounds and swim with water moccasins.

I totally agree with Janet, Clem and Tom. Juniors need a SOUND foundation in orienteering skills before adding technology that will aid them. You have to understand orienteering in order to learn from the information provided by technology. I have been to TJOC and it is one of the best training camps offered in the USA and I have witness young men and women TOTALLY lost and confused at the beginning of the week at TJOC and by friday they were successfully completing their courses and winning too! They arrived at the camp with the basic O skills needed to attend the camp and with all of the O exercises and countless hours of teaching from the well qualified staff these young people are able to put all of the skills together and be successful and the only modern technology they use is epunch. So what Tom stated is true and with all the success that the Texas JROTC teams are having at the IS and other A events, I think the facts speak for themselves. O skills before technology. Most of the people on this board are VERY VERY skilled orienteers and have been at it for years most likely, so most of you will of course find the technology helpful and fun to use but I feel that the juniors need to walk before they run when it comes to learning orienteering.

I would rather they had a 305 than a compass (depending on the terrain)!

Sure with sufficiently many coaches and sufficiently few juniors everyone could get excellent supervision and lots of expert feedback for the duration of the camp. And they will progress a lot for the most part.

What happens afterwards? Each junior goes back to his hole and orienteers twenty times in the next six months with no coaching and little progress. I guess the coaches at the camp will be suggesting the use of GPSdevices *afterwards* to get feedback on running speed, smoothness, mistakes, reasons for mistakes etc...
Moreover if juniors don't have local coaches, gps seems like a decent tool to get advice from afar

still, i'm not a parent so it's not my money at stake

this post seems to have been hijacked, btw.

to reply to the original question... I think there are two very useful properties for orienteers:
- knowing how long you spent on different parts of a leg (eg you want to compare routes on a long leg with a fellow competitor, but you only have split times and you made a mistake of 1-3minutes... or the leg has say three successive route choices and you want to compare each of them
- knowing how fast you were running and what your HR was at each point in the course: did you make a mistake because you were running above your limit; what is your limit; that feeling that you were running stop-go towards the end of the long race, was it correct; at what point of the race did lack of fitness start to be a problem?

contrary to popular belief, it's not really about knowing where you went. You should know that anyway.

i'm a newbie, so i imagine there's much much more...

About the original question - you can monitor many things with gps. How much you slow down before control, how many seconds is used for making route choice after each contol, control exit directions, mistakes in seconds, route choices, how well you can run straight with compass, do you read map while you run or do you have to stop to read map and how often and how many seconds you typically use and in what kind of places that typically happen etc. And if you use it on regular basis, you find out how consistent these things are. Most of this can be done without a gps, of course, but sometimes it's nice to check if your feelings and thoughts about your doing are correct. I think it would be great tool to be used if you live in a place you can do lots of orienteering, so you have something to think about between the O runs.

But you don't need to have Forerunner 305 to do it. You can do it a with cheaper tools with cost less then one third of it - about the same as SI stick. For example Globalsat bt-335. But it does not have HRM and isn't so good for regular running (but it has "SiRFstar III chipset" ;).

Anyway, it's just nice to have. I find it a bit strange if someone can't go to a camp because of missing gps.

I have been following this thread with increasing interest and thinking that the Garmin 305 has got to be this boy's next toy.
But then I came across the Route Gadget report on the recent Vancouver Sprint O Camp. At this link http://rg.orienteering.ca/cgi-bin/reitti.pl?act=ma... there is the input of one sprint with two routes for one Nikolay Nachev - one traditional and one GPS. I was surprised to see that not only did the two routes record different route choices - that can happen if one's memory is a bit cloudy - but they punched in to the controls at different times.
Even more confusing was that the GPS trace has poor Nikolay twice crossing an uncrossable fence, once running through thick green vegetation (you don't want to ever do that in Vancouver) and even swinging out to run about 200 meters in the muddy, salty water of Burrard Inlet while his own plotting showed none of those choices.
This shakes my confidence in my future GPS toy. Can anyone explain why the discrepancies happened?

- it may have been recorded with on older gps technology (not sirf III)
- If you don't wait for locking to satellites or keep it on a bad place (body shadow), you will not get accurate data. Wrist is not the best place for the unit.
- gps accuracy is about 20 m and map's accuracy too, so 40 m discrepancies is nothing extraordinary. But it relative accuracy is far better, so you can see 2 sec stops and small turns. But that is a sprint map 1:4000 so it may it's the worst case possible.
- with route gadget you can tweak the gps track as much as you want, so you can't tell by looking at that site.
- I can't see anything wrong with splits. SI splits seems to be about 5 sec ahead of the gps most of the time. SI and GPS differs that much, either gps is turned on 5 few secs before the start or SI units internal clock in start unit is slightly wrong. (You can't trust SI splits so much anyway, because it's based on separate clock's in each punch unit. All of them should have been set in exactly same time and all clocks should stay in same time. Emit times are much more reliable, of course ;)

Anyway, I almost never get as inaccurate tracks as seen in that link.

gordhun -- If you like the 305, you should check out the newer and cooler (and more expensive) 405...

The 305 is an excellent training tool and isn't justed used for orienteering races. The training features are almost endless. One beening interval training through HR or distance.

I completely agree that learning the basics is important and drawing your route in after your run is useful in learning O the hard way. but in orienteering there are 3 routes- the route you intended to take, the route you think you took and the route you actually did take. It may be expencive but the data you get can be very valuable. The data can be sent to everyone from all your races and training and fwd to coaches, no matter where they are in the world!

For those that write it off, try it before you shoot it down.

Brooke, when will the 405 be available to the public?

gordhun> Any device that measures something, does so to some accuracy. In my experience the 305 accuracy varies between 5 m to 40 m (the device itself shows the current accuracy). The GPS accuracy depends on clear views to several satellites. In the particular case of Cates Park, where Nikolay was running with his 305, the park is in the shadow if some big mountains, so right there several satellites are out of view. In addition to that, the trees in the park are very big and affect signal strength. Also, as Jagge points out, an orienteering map is not perfect either. At Cates Park, the trail are very hard to map, because they can't be seen from air photos. The beach line is mapped symbolically, because at high tide, there is no beach and at low tide the beach is wide etc. The map is 1:4000 so Nikolay's track beside the trail is only a few meters off.

All in all, a gps is not perfect, a map is not perfect, never expect a gps track on a map to fit perfectly. Nevertheless, it's a fantastic post race analysis tool!

It's really unclear if the 405 is a step up from the 305, or a smaller device with less capability.

Looks like the FR 405 is due in at the dealers mid-April.

It's really unclear if the 405 is a step up from the 305, or a smaller device with less capability.

I'm curious -- what features is it lacking?

example: battery life (10 hours with FR 305 vs. 8 hours with FR 405)
compare 305 vs. 405

I was just suspicious because they never showed the screenshot of the "map screen". The lucky luke link above actually makes it look pretty capable.

My concern about the 405 was that the screenshots I expected weren't there, the manual was not posted, and it's apparently not available yet. All which make me suspicious of its capability.

Whenever I have bought or seriously considered a GPS, I download the manual and read it. Garmin in particular is very good about having the manuals available online---Except for the 405, I notice---probably too new.

I have found reading the manual first to be of mixed utility. Mostly, it let me understand the features much better than the 2-page advertising sheet, and on several occasions it has prevented me from wasting time and money by showing it didn't do what I needed. In another case, reading the manual mislead me into buying it: I was looking to buy a serial port capable GPS, and the Forerunner 201 obviously had a serial port (where the 101 didn't). Unfortunately, the 201's serial port only had Garmin-format data, not the NMEA-format data I was expecting. In the end it was just an inconvenience and an annoyance. The 201 did 95% of what I expected, and I had other GPSs to handle the other needs.

I haven't looked at the 305 regarding NMEA data, but I have to say I've been disappointed in the way Garmin has handicapped the Forerunners, and it looks like they're continuing that with the 405. It says it's wireless, but it really offers no details. If it is wireless, shouldn't it be Bluetooth? There are a wide range of Bluetooth capable computers and handhelds that could use the 405 as a GPS. I believe the stuff Jagge is doing uses Bluetooth GPSs (as one possible way of making it work). It seems to me that Garmin is consciously removing functionality from these to ensure a market for their more expensive navigation units. When I see a company do that, it makes me think they see me as a revenue stream more than as a customer.

Yes, it's too new. That's why the manuals and screenshots aren't there yet. This device is supposed to make its debut at the Boston Marathon next month. Basically, it's not available yet.

The question I have is that the 405 doesn't store any "routes" (compared to the 305's 50 routes). But it allows you to compete against previous "courses". What is the difference between saving a route and saving a course? Does the 405 have limited orienteering use because it doesn't save any "routes"?

(I don't have a 305, but I'm interested in this new 405)

Yes, we use Bluetooth GPSs. Very basic and simple setup: BT GPS send NMEA sentences over bluetooth to cell phone and it sends the data to server.

But we don't do the live thing every time, of course not, so we can do most of our running and orienteering without cell phone. It's enough to carry this bluetooth GPS alone because it have this logging capability. I didn't like the idea of people having to buy one gps unit for live thing and and other for regular tracking. Luckily these sirf III BT gps units with logging capability finally popped up few moths ago.

kupackman: Looking at the manual for the 305:
* "History" = recording of where you have actually gone during a work-out. This is the most useful thing these GPS units do (and is basically the only thing I use my 305 for).
* "Course" = Recorded session against which you can "compete" on future training sessions (I've never used this).
* "Route" = Straight-line path between multiple points (i.e., waypoints).
From the documents, looks like they've dropped the "Routes" feature from the 405 - no big deal I think.

The 405 looks appealing to me. It does everything that I use my 305 for (i.e., History, heart-rate, download to computer, distance, splits, timer for intervals). Big Advantages: It comes in a more compact package, and it has a "power save mode" (presumably with GPS off) so that it can be used for extended periods as a "watch".

In Garmin terminology, a "route" is a series of up to 50 waypoints, where you reach one waypoint and then continue on to the next.

"Route" is the straight line between the waypoints.
"Track" is the course you followed to get to the "waypoints" to complete the "route".
For O, you want a record of the "track" to download on to a map to compare with your memory.

Interestingly, the REI members catalog received today shows the Forerunner 405M/W for $349.95 but the web site does not recognize it.

I just received my first 305 today. Now to learn how to use it. It is now charging. It looks usable, a little bigger than a watch, but not too bulky.

Q: Do we "need" GPS tracking devices to coach orienteers? A: no... but in the right hands of a qualified coach and experienced orienteer they can be a very useful tool.

Reminds me of the vaguely similar discussions often raised by new sports science graduates or triathlete-obsessives about the "absolute necessity" for VO2 max testing blah-blah-blah. Again, a useful tool in the right hands but certainly not essential.

My son, Zac (M14) used QOC's Forerunner at the Bowie meet last weekend. The GPS unit adds another dimension to Routegadget. The learning comes when you start analyzing the data. Here are some questions we asked when comparing the "memory course" to the "GPS course" on Routegadget:

1. Why did you slow down here? Why could you ruin so fast on this leg?
2. Why did you turn down this path and then back track? What did you do to manage your route so well through these trail intersections?
3. You thought you were on this trail but you were actually on another trail. What could you have done to eliminate this mistake?
4. Why did you stop so long at this control? How can you speed up the punch process?
5. Why did you stick to the trail instead of going through the woods?

I am sure a more experienced Orienteerer could find even more discussion points.

I like the GPS unit but I am not sure I would spend $200-$300 for it. Shadowing the runner would do the same thing (if I could keep up with him).

Took the 305 out for the first time today. The GPS seems to measure distance accurately enough, the pace function is helpful, and the HR monitor works well. Thus far I am very happy with my new toy.