Bushnell GPS BackTrack Personal Locator (Green)
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 List Price: $84.95 Sale Price: $48.94 Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours Eligible For Free Shipping 
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Product Description
BACKTRACK
GPS Navigation System
Never Get Lost Again With the easiest to use personal location finder. Just mark the location and BackTrack will help you get back. Use it at the mall and stadium parking lots, at the festival, the park, for travel or you next outdoor adventure.
FEATURES
- Store and locate up to three locations
- Utilizes the latest digital technology
- High sensitivity SiRF Star III GPS reciever
- Self calibrating digital compass
- Weather resistant
- Operates on 2 AAA Batteries (Not Included)
- Compact size stores easily in your pocket or purse
- Lanyard included for easy attachment
Details
- Store and locate up to 3 locations, provides distance and direction back
- High sensitivity SiRF star III GPS receiver, Self calibrating digital compass
- Weather resistant, Operates on 2AAA batteries (not included)
- Compact size stores easily in your pocket or purse
- Lanyard included for easy attachment
Rating
A nice device, especially for the price.
I bought this after I visited a new city, went from the hotel about 10 blocks to get some chips and pop, and on my return I wondered if x was the street I should head back on, or was it further up, or back one, because I hadn’t gotten this unit yet.
This is a basic GPS unit that doesn’t find street addresses, doesn’t have a database of roads or restaurants or anything, but is intended for a simpler use. And it does that well, as it saves a location (up to three) and guides you back to that location.
You turn it on, takes about 10 seconds to orient itself, and then you press one of three buttons to save this location as location a, b, or c (the unit helps you a bit, as it shows an icon for either car, home, or star, but the naming is arbitrary–I could have saved that hotel’s location as the “home” icon, the “car” icon, or the “star” icon for favorite spot.)
Then, when you are done wandering away, turn it on and it shows you the direction and distance in yards to the spot you saved, or to one of the other two icons if you ever saved anything to them. Note that the distance is indicated, not just the direction, so you know if you are 10 yards or 1000 yards away from the spot you saved (switches to miles when relevant) as well as which way it is.
I used it in a wooded nature park last week and saved the entrance location. No matter where I wandered it showed the direction back to the entrance and how far away it was (I know the geography of the nature park so I knew it was giving me accurate info.) As for accuracy, I used it in my driveway to save a spot, walked 10 yards away, and let it guide me back to the saved spot, with an accuracy of +- 3 yards. Not as accurate when I stood next to the basketball pole because of the magnetism, and you gotta give it 4 seconds or so to orient itself.
Its other mode instead of GPS is as a compass, showing you where N is, again after giving it a few seconds to stabilize.
Construction appears robust, with a nice strong lanyard to hang around your neck or your wrist, and the unit likely would survive a drop to the ground. It’s 3″ across, 3/4″ thick. Two buttons: one button that turns it on, selects mode (GPS/compass), and selects one of the three icons, the second button that saves the spot, or turns on a backlight. Also works in meters instead of yards. I now have two of these. I have no financial interest in anything I review.
Rating
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.
Rating
This is a wonderful thing that helps you not die in the wilderness. It is so simple to use, that it seems complicated at first. The directions are basically 2 small pages of easy directions. Press the button, press the buttons and then go, come back, Thanks. Mushroom hunting in the NW Puget Sound with my two scatterbrained, non-compass/GPS-using parents was completely unrealistic until I purchased this product. I have less fear of becoming entirely bereft of civilization and watching my parents die of starvation with the handy Bushnell Backtrack thing. I looked at Garmin products and GPS etc. I researched and contemplated, but what I truly wanted was a product that would be easy to use and inexpensive.
Rating
I have several GPS devices which I use for various activities but I wanted something simple which would get me back to a set point without having to use a map, or which my family could use without me. For example, when on vacation I wanted to be able to find my way back to the hotel after a couple of hours of exploring, or hand off to my wife so she could find me after a stroll along a crowded beach. The Backtrack does that perfectly. It’s dirt-simple to use (it has two buttons), it allows you to set three waypoints and will give you direction and distance to one of them from your current location. Turn it on, wait for it to acquire a signal and then tell it which point you want to go to. That’s all it does and it does it very well. The only caveat I would add is it’s bigger than I expected (about the size of your palm) but that doesn’t detract from its utility.
Highly recommended.
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A must have if your going out in the middle of no where or just a new city. I used it overseas in the middle east desert. It was my backup in case the guide decided to ditch us.The compass was also very accurate.
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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
Rating
I read the reviews that some folks were unhappy because it couldn’t get them to their exact spot in the parking lot. Don’t really view this as the designed use. Have used it on a day long hunt and a fishing trip. On the fishing trip we were dropped off and told we would be picked up at that spot 8 hours later, marked the spot came right back to it, I guess, I was probably within 100 yards after being out on the water for 8 hours, I call that perfect. I was on a walking hunt and gone 4 hours after lunch, I had marked where we had parked the truck. We had walked all over the place back and forth. I had no idea where I was parked. We were in dense brush and trees. I had previously marked the spot and it pointed me right to it. I was 3/4 of a mile away when I started. I walked back using the device in my hand until I got to the last 100 yards or so which I considered perfect. I could see the truck the last 100 yards. Not the device to mark a laser strike point, but if you are looking for an easy to carry, easy to use, inexpensive device I would recommend it to get you back to where you started.
Rating
Just spent a few days snowshoeing with one of these. What it does for the price is amazing. I found it helpful, easy, and fun to use. It has superb battery life. I had it on frequently for 7 hours or so, and the battery indicator still registers all bars. While clearly not a high precision instrument, it seemed to be very accurate, and I have no doubt that it would help one get back to a trailhead or car if unsure of what way to go. Digital compass works well. Compass is very basic but it works. What I was pleasantly surprised by (given one reviewer who said otherwise) is how quickly it acquires the satellites–especially when out hiking. When it’s been off and you turn it on to check the direction of one of your way-points (there are three you can use), it shows you the direction from your current location very quickly. Unless you are pretty careless, it would not be all that easy to mess up resetting one of your way-points. I decided that when using it hiking, I would always set the car symbol to where my car is, and never EVER reset that one while on the trail. That way, there are two other way-points one can use (house symbol and star symbol) but I’ll never doubt which one is the car and that I’ve not messed with it while out.
This is a simple device but that is part of it’s appeal. My wife has a high quality Garmen eTrex for hiking. We were using both on these hikes and, while the Garmen is great for tracking many way-points and tracking your whole trip, this Bushnell product is actually much easier to interpret and use to rapidly know which way your car (or trailhead or wherever you were you might want to go back to) is. Highly recommended.
Rating
When you take it hiking, be sure to follow the instructions. It is important to wait until the satellite is synced prior to setting things, etc. It’s a great little locator and we had a lot of fun using it on our hikes in New Mexico last week.
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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.
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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!!!
Rating
It only has three memory locations. It would be nice to see latt and long, but for the price it will help save your life. If you set your locations. It also has a 4th spot that must have been mistaken for a forth mem spot. It is a digital compass that works with out gps lock.
Rating
An excellent device for finding your way to a predetermined location. Simply click at any point in your travel, and you will be shown the way back to that spot. Very useful when trying to find your way back from a hike, or your hotel in a strange city, etc. Numerous fun uses! Glad I bought it.
Rating
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
Rating
I put the batteries in, went outside, turned it on, and within 40 seconds it obtained a fix on the satellites. Actually, it found the satellites while inside my house as well, but do not expect this in a large building. It has 2 buttons and could not be simpler to use. The unit must be held level, and you must give it time to locate the satellites. When used in this manner,it worked flawlessly. I even used it in my car and had no problems. I found the distance to the set point (you can set up to 3) accurate.