At Stratamodel Inc. we conduct soil surveys under extreme climatic and topographic conditions and a reliable handheld is essential for our business. The TDS Recon has improved our productivity and given us a real competitive edge. We run ArcPad 7.0.1 linked to ArcGIS 9.2 and I design custom data forms for our special needs. This combination has been nearly bulletproof under conditions as extreme as the central Sahara in summer or mounted to the handlebars of our ATVs and dirtbikes in the backcountry of the Colorado Plateau.

These units are tough but not indestructible. Recently one of my technicians barrel rolled his ATV down a 150 ft slope. He had a Husqvarna soil auger on the back and a Recon mounted on the handle bars. The soil auger survived with just a few scratches, the ATV required $700 worth of parts and some serious welding, and the Recon? Well it looked fine and it worked well for the next couple of days but then the touch screen got flakey. We thought it was probably just a loose connection and indeed that is what was wrong. Luckily we found a repair shop on the web that did the job for a quarter of the price quoted by TDS.

I recently bought a Nomad to see if we should be moving in that direction. This unit is not ready to leave the building yet since the GPS is considerably weaker and less accurate than our Recons and even a cheap Garmin unit we bought at Walmart. The Nomad might be functional in the field when TDS can link an external antenna to it. Until then it is just another PDA with far more armor than any desk jockey really needs.