Garmin Tracking Unit – GTU-10

I often venture “off the beaten path” alone, and while this is fun and rewarding, it’s not the safest thing in the world. I let people know where I’m going and when I’ll be back, and have various signaling and communication devices with me, but there’s nothing quite like having your location monitored at all times.

I don’t think I need to explain GPS technology to anyone. It seems that everything has a GPS in it nowadays, and we’ve come a long way from the bulky units I first started using about 15 years ago, or even my beat-up 6 year old Garmin ETrex. Take, for example, the Garmin GTU-10, which Dark Mountain Research/BestSurvivalShop loaned to me for a recent hiking trip. It’s slightly larger than a cigarette lighter and weighs less than 2 ounces. Now, it didn’t tell me where I was, but it gave some people back home the ability to track my exact location at all times.

It comes with a nifty little case, attached to which is a small carabiner. I clipped this carabiner to my belt loop, and, quite frankly, forgot that the GTU 10 was there. It was so small and light that it had absolutely no effect on anything I did, and it occupied a space that I normally wouldn’t have attached anything to, which is nice when I only have a few pockets or holders for various items.

There’s only one button – power – and one indicator light. It tells you that it’s on and has a signal, then the light goes out to save battery power. Although the device has no “help me” button, it does notify the people who have authority to track it if it’s been turned off. We worked out a system – if the device was turned off and on three times in five minutes, I was in trouble. Luckily, I didn’t need to use this feature.

On the way home, I threw the GTU-10 in the trunk of my car to see if it’d still be able to transmit my location – it did (Luckily for me, it doesn’t track speeds).

The GTU-10 has some other nifty features that I didn’t use, such as the “geofence” – draw a line on the map, or a box, and the system will alert you if the unit crosses that area. With this, you could keep an eye on your kids, or dog, or…well, pretty much anything. Garmin mentions tracking luggage with this device – for people who travel with firearms, this relatively inexpensive device could be a good insurance policy against the expensive loss of a firearm or two.

Battery life, according to Garmin, is between one day and one month, depending on how you use it. It had no problems on my two-day trip, and frankly, I don’t know how you could run the battery down in a day – it’s not like this thing has a color screen that you can watch Dexter on. It has a specific task to accomplish, and it does that very well.

Thanks again to Kino at Dark Mountain Research for the loan.