This week we have 2 annual subscriptions to the Ordnance Survey’s brilliant new online mapping facility, OS Getamap – worth £19.99 each – to give away. OS Getamap allows you to view maps, plot routes and much more on your Mac or PC, and while most of the tools and options are free to use when you register, a subscription gives you more benefits that are ideal for ‘power users’, which as a trekandmountain.com visitor you surely are!
According to OS, the top 5 benefits of becoming a subscriber to Getamap are as follows:
1. Printing
As a subscriber you can print your own customised sections of the digital OS Explorer 1:25 000 maps and OS Landranger 1:50 000 maps at various zoom levels and select print to fit, portrait or landscape style. You can print to your heart’s content – unlimited means as much as your printer and ink cartridge can handle.
2. Full screen mode
You can make the map view fill your entire browser window, by clicking the ‘View this map in full screen’ icon in the bottom left-hand corner of the map. You can switch between standard and full screen mode at any time.
3. Using route planning tools
When you’ve made a route you can click on it and a range of route tools and settings will display underneath your map including:
- Route summary – distance, elevation range and estimated times to walk, run or cycle the route based on Naismith’s Rule.
- Route settings – name your map, provide a description, select a category, choose whether your route is private or shared, and control the appearance of waypoints (useful to hide for GPS routes).
- Elevation profile – see the lay of the land over your route on a height and distance graph.
Route card – gives the OS grid reference, latitude and longitude, elevation and distance for all the waypoints on your route.
4. Importing and exporting GPS routes
You can import and export your routes to and from getamap and most GPS devices. If you have a Garmin GPS device you can also ‘sync’ the routes on your device with your map folder in getamap, keeping them both up to date.
5. Manage and organise your maps
You can make your maps and routes easier to find by filing them into categories like walking, cycling or running, or make up your own custom categories, for example by holidays or geographic areas. getamap provides a default set of categories but you can add, edit or delete as many categories as you like. You can also share a map or route you’ve made by emailing the link to someone else, which can be handy if you’re planning a trip with a group.
Sounds pretty good eh? Well all this mapping power could be yours by entering our competition – all you need to do to enter is answer the easy question below and we’ll pick two winners out of the correct entries on the 30th June.
QUESTION
Which of the following functions does an OS Getamap subscription NOT include?
A. Print customised sections of OS Landranger and Explorer map
B. Give you elevation profile of your route
C. Allow you to import and export routes to your GPS device
D. Clean your boots after a long day on the hill