For all things GPS related the first place to stop is Joe Mehaffey's excellent GPS resource (http://joe.mehaffey.com/). The sites offers reviews on most types of consumer GPS, software and third-party hardware. There are several local based GPS information sites. Dominic Birt's (http://www.ele.auckland.ac.nz/students/birt/faq.html) site looks at ways of adding the NZMG to your receiver (a bit outdated now as there are many receivers that support NZMG). Paul Catcher (http://tipnet.taranaki.ac.nz/~paulcatc/p1.htm) has some interesting links as does Norris Wiemer (http://www.ualberta.ca/~norris/gps/) and (http://www.ualberta.ca/~norris/gps/nz/NZ.html). New Zealand is home to some hitech GPS technology, including Trimble Navigation (http://www.trimble.com) and Salcom (http://www.salcom.co.nz/) in Christchurch. Talon (http://www.talon.co.nz/) in Auckland makes the Streetfinder (http://www.randmcnally.com/rmc/products/gps/gpsProducts.jsp?BV_SessionID=@@ @@0161089652.0975459631@@@@&BV_EngineID=jaljhgckdfkbfdmcfhjchhcji.0) clip-on GPS for the Palm Pilot. It is not available in New Zealand yet.

GPS Tutorials
There are many web based GPS tutorials. Trimble (http://www.trimble.com/gps/) has an excellent online resources. For list of other links try Joe Mehaffey's site (http://joe.mehaffey.com#How Does GPS Work).

GPS Vendors
For information on the different brands try - Garmin (http://www.garmin.com), Magellan (http://www.magellangps.com), Lowrance (http://www.lowrance.com/), and Eagle (discontinued) (http://www.eaglegps.com/). The Australasian Garmin importers are GME (http://www.gme.net.au/garmin/index.html) and the New Zealand Lowrance and Magellan importers are Electronic Navigation (http://www.enl.co.nz/). GPS retailers in New Zealand include the Auckland Map Centre, GeoSystems (http://www.geosys.co.nz/) and Mapworld (http://www.mapworld.co.nz)

GPS Software
If you want to create a moving map or want to upload waypoints you will need a data download cable and some software. For Macintosh based moving map software try GPSy (http://www.gpsy.com/) and
GPSPro (http://www.sni.net/~lwjames/GPSPRO.html).
For Windows based moving map software try
OziExplorer (http://www.oziexplorer.com/) and Fugawi (http://www.fugawi.com/). GeoSystems (http://www.geosys.co.nz) are the New Zealand agents for Fugawi. Links to Palm Pilot software can be found at (http://celia.mehaffey.com/dale/pilotgps.htm), Psion at (http://celia.mehaffey.com/david/psion.htm) and
Win CE at (http://celia.mehaffey.com/david/wince.htm). There are many other freeware and shareware applications available that help you manage waypoints and data collection. For general links the best place to start is (http://joe.mehaffey.com#Links to Third-Party GPS Intermediate Software).

Data
The cheapest way to obtain digital map data is to scan a map yourself. The downside of this is that usually your scanner is to small, or you need to scan 3 maps to get the area you want. The easiest way is to purchase a digitised map. The following companies provide single raster scans of the NZ260 (1:50,000) Topo series -
New Zealand Aerial Mapping (http://www.nzam.com) and
GPS Control (http://www.gpscontrol.com/).
Mapworld (http://www.mapworld.co.nz) in conjunction with Terralink have released a CD-Rom that contains a series of seamless NZ260 and NZ262 raster images. You can export a selected image by copying and pasting to your favourite imaging program. The bonus here is that you are not limited by a particular sheet as they are seamlessly integrated. Land Information New Zealand has available a zipped file of over 40,000 waypoints (http://www.linz.govt.nz/databases/geographic/geodist.html) in spreadsheet format. These can easily be sorted and uploaded into your GPS using one of the above software packages.

Fun sites and other titbits
Want to have some fun with your GPS......The goal of Degree Confluence project (http://www.confluence.org/index.html) is to visit each of the latitude and longitude integer degree intersections in the world, and to take pictures at each location. A list of New Zealand confluences is available (http://www.confluence.org/nz/index.html) and 3 have been visited already. Geocaching (http://www.geocaching.com/) is a new treasure hunting game. Armed with a GPS and coordinates, you can locate treasures that others have stashed in unusual places. There are a few around New Zealand (http://www.geocaching.com/seek/nearest_cache.asp?country_id=9&submit3=GO).