inexpensive,RELIABLE altimeter watch

“Anyone have a recommendation for a good altimeter watch. Its got to be light, very accurate and be wrist mounted. The least expensive,the better. Thanks in advance.”

“I could use one of those too. Cheap and good.”

“I've been mostly happy with my Sunnto. Except it's on the expensive side, and complicated.”

“Trouble with good, small electronics is that good doesn't seem to come cheap very often. For sailing, I'd love to get my hands on this gadget -- only $160 at SailNet: Skymaster SM-28 Pocket Weathermeter

New Skymaster Weathermeter gives you advanced weather information in a convenient pocket-knife design that will fit in the palm of your hand! With such great features, this unit is a great value!
Product Features
* Windspeed (Current, Average, and Maximum)
* Temperature with Windchill and Heat Index
* Relative Humidity with Dewpoint
* Current Barometric Pressure and 16-Hr Pressure History Bar Graph
* Severe Storm Audio Alarm
* Altitude
* Unique pocket-knife design to protect the unit when not in use
* Optional Measurement Units
* Replaceable 400 hour Lithium battery
* Replaceable plastic impeller will not corrode
* Comes with lanyard
* Threaded for tripod mounting
* High visibility case - Floats - Water resistant
Product Specifications
ACCURACY: +/- 3% Windspeed; +/- 2 F° Temperature / Windchill; +/-3% rH;
+/- 3°F Dew Point; +/- 3°F Heat Index; +/-3 hpa Barometric Pressure
RANGES: .5-89 MPH Wind; +5° to +122°F Temperature; -22° to +158°F Windchill; -31.2°
to +155.8°F Dew Point; +69.8 to +155.8°F Head Index; 0-99% rH; 400-1100 hpa Barometer
OPTIONAL UNITS: Knots, MPH, KPH, M/Sec, Ft/Min, Beaufort Scale - F or C
RESPONSE TIMES: Current Windspeed; Average over 2 seconds; Average Wind 5 sec;
Max Wind 2 sec gust; Temp / windchill / rH / dew point 1 min; 15 min sampling Barometer
POWER: CR2032 Lithium battery (included)
MEASURES: 5.9 x 2.1 x .85 inches
WEIGHS: 3.9 ounces with case”

“pekka - Thanks for the reference.

pekka's Skymaster Link”

“Campmor usually has some reasonable priced ones but I just don't trust them. The Timex one I had was a POS and would gain 20' standing still. The Suntos I MIGHT trust but not much.

Pekka, Have you seen the Kestral wind meters? They look cool as hell.”

“I have a Casio Alt. watch.
My buddy thought it was cool. So he bought one too.
We'd calibrate both at the start of a trip. After a few miles the watches could disagree with each other by 200 feet.
Mine was always closer! 8^)



The Sunnto has alway been right on. So far.”

“Yeah, my Suunto xLander tracks pretty tight with my GPS. Never compared them during an approaching storm though.”

“I wish Sunto made an ati/watch that was a clip style. I'm thinking of taking the plunge and gettinga gps though so it'd be redundant and cost just as much probably.”

“It's getting interesting what's going on with GPS's these days. Their programmability is where much of the advancements seem to be. Nonvolatile memory capacities of GPS technologies are increasing, therefore it has become more possible to load maps in with landmarks, waypoints, routes and satellite data.

It won't be long before USGS 7.5' topo maps will be loaded into these handhelds. Which ones? All of them. The entire State series. The problem will become the LCD viewing technologies to match the available data.

You can now get 8GB compact flash cards for cameras (Lexar), so it's easy to make the connection.

It's gonna happen. Just watch.”

“they eat batteries really bad though....

i use 2 sticks, some birchtree sap and a bar of soap to tell where i am....”

“I have an Alta altimiter watch. It seems to work well, but I haven't used it since I got GPS, so I can't say how accurate it is. The only problem I had was the counter-intuitive operating system, so I always had to bring the instruction book. I guess I never used it enough to really learn how to use it. Birch, or nash, you can have it for $20 plus postage. I got it as a gift, so I'm not sure how much it cost originally, but I think about $50. My e-mail is listed in my profile, so drop me a line if you're interested.”

““You can now get 8GB compact flash cards for cameras (Lexar), so it's easy to make the connection.”

This is the way to go. You can get a gps for a handheld Palm Pilot that is the size of a matchbook and this gives you nearly unlimited memory space but the drawbacks are that the Palms screen is nearly useless in the sun shine and they run out of juice real fast. I’m looking at getting a sony handheld and I have a Sony digi so I’d love it if someone made a gps that used the memory sticks.”