BaseMap Staff Review Thread

[robby denning]

Hey Roksliders,
We wanted to find out why BaseMap (a Rokslide sponsor) is 1/3 the price of the major competitor. So here we go.

I've got @Tony Trietch, @Josh Boyd, @Travis Bertrand, and myself lined up with comp apps to give this a whirl. All of us except Josh are new users.

Now we already know it's good, as @les welch (and @Jordan Budd) gave us a review earlier this year here. That was enough to get the rest of us interested. And if you need no more convincing than that, just head over to BaseMap and buy it, it's only $30 bucks a year for the Pro version we're using.

We'll all be posting our experiences on this thread. And if you're an experienced user that can add to the conversation, absolutely feel free to chime in on this thread.

For me, once I got in on my phone (had a little snafu with the app store and an outdated credit card and had to work with BaseMap CS to solve it), it was like the other apps in my life--just had to play around with it for 15 minute go get a feel for it before taking it ouit. I went flying on Tuesday and put it in the plane. It tracked ground speed, dropped pins, well enough for my first trip.

So far, the tilt is what I'm liking. Too many years of GE under my belt to really dig into a mapping system that I can't tilt. Just two fingers up on the iPhone 6 and I'm in tilt.

Swipe back down and I'm flat again.

Also like the option to jump right from the app into my GE app.

 

[Travis Bertrand]

I am by no means an expert as this app has many layers and I’m still sifting through them. And by layers I mean both, map layers and layers of the app meaning tons of features when you click on a button.

So... as far as map layers go. There is a ton! Its quite impressive but can be overwhelming. There is some cool sort features though. Go to the main layers page and start going through each folder or category of layer. You then click on it and it will activate the layer. If you want to save the layer for easy access on future maps, hit the heart button. You then can sort through your active layers by clicking on the middle column. ( I found this helpful when the map just didn’t look right and needed to turn an unneeded layer off.) you can also click on your saved layers as well by clicking the right column. See pic below.

Another different feature is the journal button. it looks like a mix between Facebook, Strava, and racksite. As you can see from the pics below I am only following Robby in hopes he slips up and gives up a big bucks location!

A neat “layer” is the active wildfire and historical wildfire layer. As you can see, it shows the current fire that’s burning up some of the best and most critical sheep habitat in Arizona right now.

I’ll post more in here soon as I’m still getting used to the app but as far as I can tell, it’s a great bang for the buck!




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[robby denning]

Dang, how do I make sure I don’t accidentally share that 240” buck?

Seriously, I haven’t done it yet but figured that feature would be handy when hunting with a buddy and you need to find each other.


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[Justin Crossley]

This thread is going to be awesome! Thanks for spending the time to learn and share guys!

 

[Josh Boyd]

This winter I added the Hunt Research module to the BaseMap Pro app for preparations for Wyoming elk hunting.
So far I’ve been really impressed with the features it adds to the app. It has allowed me to reference and filter through general unit boundaries, season dates, harvest stats, wilderness boundaries, and past wildfire footprints.
The specific information varies by state and species but it’s nice to have readily available to turn on/off and filter while planning long distance hunts.


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[robby denning]

This winter I added the Hunt Research module to the BaseMap Pro app for preparations for Wyoming elk hunting.
So far I’ve been really impressed with the features it adds to the app. It has allowed me to reference and filter through general unit boundaries, season dates, harvest stats, wilderness boundaries, and past wildfire footprints.
The specific information varies by state and species but it’s nice to have readily available to turn on/off and filter while planning long distance hunts.


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I’m glad you brought that up Josh, that was something I hadn’t understood about the app yet that I wanted to get to. I’ll get it turned on and start checking it out.


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[robby denning]

Learning curve continues. I figured out that the default layer for satellite imagery was “Google Imagery with Labels”.

I was noticing on my son’s Google earth app last night on his older iPhone his imagery was way better than the BaseMap‘s. So I got checking around the layers and realized I was on the default mentioned above. Once I switched over to the “BaseMap 3-D Earth” view, it was way better images and the tilt worked a lot better allowing you to see the grain of the terrain a lot better. My view is as good as my son’s on the GE app now. So make sure you play with those layers. The sequence below shows what I’m talking about

Switched to this

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[AdultOnset]

I am a former USMC Naval Flight Officer (navigator/weapons systems etc) so I'm very experienced at various navigation systems (GPS, INS, radar, dead reckoning, etc) and admittedly tumble headlong down the rabbit holes when it comes to the nit-noid details of using the respective system. I am all about planning out where I want to go before I go AND especially knowing where I am once in the woods. I used Onx last year and had no issues. A huge leap from paper maps and/or GPS. I liked everything about it except the price...basically $30/annually for one state's info. For S&G's I decided to get a subscription to BaseMap and I am super glad I did. The functionality of if (on the whole) far surpasses OnX. The choice of various basic map data alone make the difference for me. When coupled with the season/harvest data (that basically amounts to a GoHunt-lite data set) it outclasses OnX completely. I agree with Les Welch's system critiques (hot buttons on screen, incorporating a UTM option, and readily available cursor coordinates (whether in Lat/Long or UTM). I would think the GIS engineers at BaseMap could add those relatively easily.

I've used BaseMap on a few hikes so far and have had zero in-the-field issues or surprises so far. I am eager to use the offline downloaded maps feature....will give that a try next week in the southern end of the Idaho Panhandle Zone.

When you consider what you get for the money (nationwide parcel ownership, harvest and season data ...for an extra $9.99 a year) BaseMap is the way to go....especially if you hunt multiple states.

 

[willfrye027]

When my Gaia subscription runs out I’d love to try it. How’s the data/memory usage for downloading the high resolution 3d maps? I am already running into data issues with my downloaded Gaia maps and imagine those 3d ones would be taxing. Thanks for posting this!

 

[92xj]

How do you get basemap 3d earth? My app does not show this as an option.

 

[Jordan Budd]

How do you get basemap 3d earth? My app does not show this as an option.

It's only available on the iPhone app right now. They are working on it for Androids as I understand.

 

[wapitibob]

Google imagery isn't saved for offline use.

 

[robby denning]

Google imagery isn't saved for offline use.

Not yet! But plan to.

 

[robby denning]

How do you get basemap 3d earth? My app does not show this as an option.

my pics in post #7 show how I found it, and I'm on an iPhone. As Jordan said above though, sounds like if you have an android, it might not be available.

 

[wapitibob]

Not yet! But plan to.

That would be nice.

 

[Tony Trietch]

The 3d tilt feature is pretty slick, the filters are easy to navigate and understand. This is a steal for the price they are charging.

 

[Ace531]

I'm looking at getting an app like this for my pronghorn hunt this fall, and the price point is very tempting. How well has the app worked offline/airplane mode? I'm going to assume that there won't be much in the way of cell reception where we'll be, so curious how that feature has been working for those that have this app. Thank you.

 

[robby denning]

I'm looking at getting an app like this for my pronghorn hunt this fall, and the price point is very tempting. How well has the app worked offline/airplane mode? I'm going to assume that there won't be much in the way of cell reception where we'll be, so curious how that feature has been working for those that have this app. Thank you.

I hope to know more on that feature in the next few days. Heading to some cell free country to scout. Stay tuned!

 

[robby denning]

I hope to know more on that feature in the next few days. Heading to some cell free country to scout. Stay tuned!

Sorry so slow to answer! Been in the hills 4 days a week since late July so not much free time to post. But the upside is I’ve spent a bunch of time on the app, almost every day.

The offline mode works well. Like onX, you have to download your area. I was scouting a chunk of mountain range about 5 miles long and was able to get it to fit on the hi-res. Once offline, I was able to navigate no problem, use the tilt( super handy). Way I understand that you can only use the layer that you downloaded so I would use the “Google with labels layer.” Sometimes I was hoping I could go back to the Google 3d layer.

I also have the onX app and did a bunch of side by side testing. While onX does fine in offline mode, one thing I noticed is that I can go offline in BaseMap without having the area downloaded and still access a lot of detail that I can’t in onX unless I have the area downloaded


Both areas are exactly same area
in offline mode without the download.

I noticed this multiple times in areas dozens of miles apart.

BaseMap didn’t work every time that I didn’t have the downloaded area, but more often than not, I could at least see the terrain that I couldn’t see in onX

It was really handy because it never fails that you don’t have your map downloaded for the complete area you’re going to be in. Kind a like the old days when you would buy all the USGS topos, and you end up hunting in the corner of one, if you know what I mean.

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[Turkeygetpwnd38]

Hey guys, I purchased BaseMap 2 days ago based on this thread and am having some issues. Primarily, everything is loading so slow it is unusable. I’m on an iPhone 8, have strong WiFi and full gps signal, been trying to mess with it but I feel like I’m waiting for maps to load on a dial-up connection in the 90s. Anyone else having this issue?