Hey folks.... kind of a random question here. Last year, I was 1 of 5 members of a team that did a relay race. It's a fun 100 mile relay (mountain bike, road bike, kayak, then a run, followed by another run). Anyhow, each member does one leg of the race. Last year we had a hard time keeping track of where the currently active team member was in his or her leg of the race. I've been looking around for GPS tracking devices, to use in this year's race, but am not having great luck finding something that offers real-time tracking, without signing up for an anual contract. I know there are products out there.

Anyone have any input?

Well, I use a Garmin GPSMAP 60csx (https://buy.garmin.com/shop/shop.do?cID=145&pID=310) for Geocaching. It's great, does routing, etc. I'm not sure it will do what you need though. You want to be able to track your teammates, in real time? While using a laptop or something to view it? I'm not sure I completely understand.

What it sounds like...is you will need to use some kind of third party service to supply the client-side app which will use the backend GPS data, to put it all on a fancy GUI for you. Oddly enough, I've programmed in this exact environment for Lockheed....and we did this back in 2001. :)

I found this: will it help?

http://www.brickhousesecurity.com/livedemo.html

Tomtom Navigator 6 GPS mapping software (http://www.tomtom.com/products/product.php?ID=285&Category=2&Lid=4)will allow this on a phone enabled PDA. It is a great mapping application also. Your other mates would need the same software and type of equipment though.

From the site: TomTom Buddies: Instant Messaging and more, allows you to keep in touch with a selected group of people and keep track of their locations.

I have a few ex's that could find me ANYWHERE, want to use them? :)

LOL-- I never thought of that route. I might check into that :)

There are many cell phones now with GPS antennas inside them. You can subscribe to the service for a month and then log on to the phone co's website and see your position based on where the phone is, as long as its powered up. We use it under Nextel in Chicago for some of our vans.