Abstract: A global positioning system recorder (GPSR), comprising a housing that contains a GPS receiver and associated circuitry, an antenna external to the housing and operatively connected to the receiver, a memory card slot, and control circuitry inside the housing for interfacing the GPS receiver with the memory slot. In operation, a memory element such as a PCMCIA card containing a set of operational parameters for the GPSR is inserted into the memory slot. The receiver reads the operational data from the memory card, receives GPS signals via the antenna, processes the signals to determine the position of the recorder, and writes the position data (along with the date and time) to the memory element. In a preferred embodiment, a new position data point is recorded only if the GPSR has moved since the last position data point was recorded, and/or if a parameter of interest has changed by at least a preselected amount.