Altimeter anyone?

[Larv]

I'm wanting to buy an altimeter, preferably a flat one that I can stick on my dash somewhere. I have a round one from Radio Shack but haven't stuck it anywhere as I can't seem to find a good place. Any suggestions?



Larv

 

[Gary - K7GLD]

Good luck - I haven't found any decent ones either - I'm now looking at some aircraft types on Ebay - not stick-ons, but accurate and adjustable...

 

[rbattelle]

There's another option. I have an old version of this watch, which includes an altimeter. Works well.



Ryan

 

[BimmerAgent]

Cabela's

Cabela's used to carry one. I had it in my '00 V-10. It was about 2" square, and would slide in to sticky mount holder so you could remove it if you wanted. I'm not sure if they still have them, but it was fun to watch here in Colorado. Pretty accurate, too. Bruce

 

[McLaughlin]

How about using a GPS? In addition to your location you will also get your speed and altitude.

 

[rbattelle]

How about using a GPS? In addition to your location you will also get your speed and altitude.

I have one and found the altitude measurement to often be far off.



Ryan

 

[Turbo_Bob]

I'm wanting to buy an altimeter, preferably a flat one that I can stick on my dash somewhere. Any suggestions?

http://www.aircraftspruce.com/catalog/inpages/microTrim.php



http://www.aircraftspruce.com/menus/in/altimeters.html

 

[Nate]

I use my GPS. Garmin eTrex. They are only like $200 now. Mine is 5 years old now and still works great. Seems to be fairly accurate vs road signs. Granted I wouldn't trust it flying a plane, but it works good enough for my needs.

 

[McLaughlin]

Compared to a properly adjusted altimeter, I agree the altitude function of the GPS will have the most error; however, unless you get a high end altimeter that automatically corrects for local pressure or unless you manually adjust the altimeter pressure each time you get in the vehicle and every 100 mi or so (the indicated altitude will also not be corrected for density changes due to temperature or humidity), I suspect the GPS will be about as accurate.



The GPS standard is that 95% of the time the displayed altitude will be within 15 m or about 50ft if the GPS receiver has a unobstructed view of the sky. Usually the reading is more accurate then 50ft but you can't count on it. The other 5% of the time, the displayed altitude can be off by almost any value. That is part of the reason that aircraft GPS approaches are considered non precision with a typical height of 600ft AGL and must be abandoned if less receiver locks can not be maintained continuously with 5 GPS satellites.



FWIW, aircraft altimeters are considered accurate enough for use as long as they are within 75ft of a given known altitude.

 

[Dutch & Di]

We've had ours for 10 years [I think we bought it at Camping World]. It too is flat and round. It has a kind of u shaped plastic holder and the altimeter is removable. We don't remove it just turn it so our altitude is always up Easier to read when we're out west in the mountains. What we did is put a small piece of black velcro on the the front of the black pull out for the cup holders which are at the top end of our dash in our 96. We put another piece of velcro on the back of the plastic holder and it's been sitting there doing just fine for all this time. Hope this helps, Diana