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Larry_Loo
07-29-2002, 05:18 PM
In 2 weeks my wife and I will be driving from California to Atlanta to attend the world's largest woodworking machinery show, IWF 2002. We will have driven 6,000 miles by the time we return home from Atlanta. Normally, I dislike driving on the highways - even if I'm towing a TrailManor, the world's easiest travel trailer to tow. However, this trip may turn out to be a very interesting one - because  we'll have a navigator along: a Garmin Streetpilot III GPS unit. I've seen many GPS units for aircraft but have never used one in an automobile. After playing around with it for a couple of weeks, I can tell you that the Streetpilot III is simply a remarkable piece of navigation equipment. Having it with us in our truck will be equivalent to taking along a navigator who knows just about every street in the U.S. as well as the location of many service stations, repair shops, restaurants, RV parks, tourist attractions, hospitals, and whatever else you may be interested in. And, on top of that, it's a female who won't arouse any jealousy from my wife - this female speaks to you, giving instructions, directions and warnings. Unlike that of my wife, her voice remains totally calm even when I miss an important turn -  ;D ;D  After a few local demonstrations of how our new GPS unit works, I believe that my wife actually has come to appreciate its usefulness as much as I do. On our last trip to Southern California, for example, we missed the ramp to get on to a connecting freeway even though we were anticipating it was ahead. That little bit of misdirection caused us at least an hour's delay (and a great deal of anxiety as night had fallen) in getting to our destination. On this next trip my wife won't have to bury her head in road maps; we'll just sit back while our female navigator gives us timely warnings of what lane we should be in as she counts down the hundreds of feet to the next turn. If I should miss a turn, she'll calmly say "Off route, recalculating new route." If we're running out of gas anywhere, she'll direct us to the nearest service station. And, if I or my wife suddenly have a yen for Middle Eastern food, or any other kind of food, she'll search her database to see if there's such a restaurant nearby. During this entire time about 6 to 9 of our Defense Department's satellites will help to track our location on a color, moving map - so that we will know, within plus or minus 15 feet, the location of our truck on the surface of this Earth. I think this may turn out to be a fun trip! Now, if only I can manage to stay awake every minute of the time while I'm at the wheel. . .

By the way, if I've convinced any of you of the necessity of owning this particular piece of equipment, "GPS Now" has them (Garmin Streetpilot III, deluxe version), on sale for about $224 less than the price that every other store seems to be selling it. It comes with Mapsource City Navigator, which is also used in the GPS units of luxury cars like the BMWs. City Navigator, which contains a database of just about every street in our Nation and Canada, may be the best auto navigation and moving map software available at the present time.
8) 8)

07-30-2002, 12:59 AM
I have the Nav system in my 2000 Honda Oddy. It comes in handy many times, the most recent being when I had picked up my 2002 TM2720SL just outside Memphis and was bringing it back to NC.
When I got to Nashville, everyone who was scheduled to have an accident this month chose that day to have it. All the interstates were blocked and traffic had just stopped moving. First exit I could get to, I left the interstate and just using the map mode was able to manuever all the way around Nashville and pick up I-40 on the other side.
About the pleasantvoiced lady that gives directions, Ours isn't so pleasant. We call her "the bitch", but she does her job.
Dave

Happytrails
07-30-2002, 02:47 PM
Having worked with GPS's quite  a bit in the army, as well as owning my own, I can firmley say they are INVALUABLE! The military version which we refer to as a "slugger" is accurate to within 1 small meter! But it's the civilian versions that things get tricky. You see, the govt uses a system that "tricks" the civilian versions. They don't want someone going down to Wallmart, and spending $150 bucks on something that can guide a weapon to within a meter of it's target using our own satalites, like our "smart" weapons. The name of the system is called "Selective Availability" or "SA" for short. so right now everyone's wondering why am I mentioning this......The reason is folks, how accurate your GPS will be, basically boils down to how much you spend. The really cheap civilian versions might only lock into the three required sats, and you'll be lucky to get within 1,000 meters (3/4 of a mile) of your destination. Not only that, but every time ya walk under a tree, it'll lose the sat, and leave ya hanging till it locks back on when it's clear overhead. (You need two points on a plane to determine location, but off said plane, you need a third point of reference to determine height). What all this boils down to is if ya want a GPS you can rely on, plan on spending over 200.00. The one I got a while back is quite good, and can lock into 12 sats if they're not obstructed by the earth....(Some inevitably are no matter what). It won't loose it's lock unless I'm walking through THICK overhang. (For those wanting one to take hiking which is the second reason most campers buy them as well, they like to explore). One more quick note on SA.....up until not to long ago, it was keyed up to where the civillian versions could only do at best, within 100m.....Congress passed a bill that brought that down to a tennis court sized area. Again, ONLY if you have a good GPS that can lock onto several sats at once in case you lose a few in the thick stuff. (See how that works? No code for the sat, sat isn't immediately available to purposly confuse your GPS). Military ones have that code and/or receive an alt signal that is clean....not sure, but they're right on. Lol, on a funny side note, why do we refer to them as "sluggers"? Welp, boils down to man's basic instinct of asking not asking for directions......"We're lost?" "Way to go.....slugger!"  A definate faux paux as we're supposed to be able to navigate only with a map and terrain association as we might, and quite often don't have the "luxury" of a "slugger".........But have used em when we don't have any maps, and it was the only option. I guess the point to this post is if you plan on doing any exploring in unfamiliar territory on foot, do NOT buy a cheap GPS, You'll find yourself in big trouble real quick! And most of the better ones like Larry's have all those fancy bells and whistles which appeal to someone mainly interested in something to drive with. I paid about the same without all that including street maps, but it did have military grid on it which is what I was looking for in particular when I got it about three years ago.....anyone looking for that...look for MGRS on the box..........anyway, hope this helps.....only took me three months to pick out a GPS after MANY questions about them....seemed like the more I asked, the less people knew about them back then........... :-/

Happytrails........

Gene
07-30-2002, 04:21 PM
My GPS works off my laptop computer. I use Delorme. Works great! It is my favorate toy. www.delorme.com

07-31-2002, 08:57 AM
My Honda Nav system must be REALLY good as it was almost 2000 dollar add-on. It was on the car when I got it.
By the way, we don't call our announcer gal "the pregnant dog", we call her the "itch", but we put a B in front.
Dave

Happytrails
07-31-2002, 01:32 PM
Lol.....that's funny Dave........paid $2,000 bucks for a back seat driver! (Just pickin, but the core of the nav system is probably the same). Adding it in your dash was the "expensive" part of it........Sorry for the dig tho, I couldn't resist!  :D

Happytrails..............

Larry_Loo
07-31-2002, 05:17 PM
Happytrails,

You are exactly right about the GPS units that are built into the dashboards of automobiles. There is a large labor cost required to install them permanently in vehicles. While the portable GPS units like mine do not look as flashy as their permanently installed cousins, some of the portables perform just as well as the more expensive built-in units. The VDO Dayton GPS, for example, that comes with a 5" color screen, a CD player and a remote control device, will cost one over $2,500 or more by the time it's installed in his vehicle. According to Joe Mehaffey, who may be one of the leading experts on GPS units, Garmin's Streetpilot III performs just as well as the most expensive units. At less than $800 (street price) it is currently the best bargain of all the moving map, address-to-address routable GPS units on the market. Its portability may be an advantage because you can take it out of one vehicle, put it into another, plug it in to the 12 volt DC outlet, and drive off.

For those who may be interested in reading more information than one can possibly digest about GPS, this is the url to Joe Mehaffey's web site:

http://www.joe.mehaffey.com/

08-01-2002, 03:49 PM
We have the Garmin eTrex Vista.  It can lock onto 8-10 sats., get you to within 17 feet and when hooked up to the serial port of our laptop can track exactly on any street in the US (using DeLorme's wonderful software).  We go back into the mountains, and it even tracks many of the "fire roads" in central Colorado.  The laptop fits nicely on the platform between the seats in our Tahoe and when we get back into the toolies in central Colorado, we can take the Vista and go trekking back into the woods knowing that it will always get us back to base camp.  It is a wonderful unit and satisfies our curiosity about where we are, how fast we are going, and most importantly out here in colorful Colorado, what our altitude is.  I recommend it highly.  The only issue is that it goes through a set of AA batteries in about 4-5 hours.  We use a 12V converter in the Tahoe, but when hiking we have to keep in mind the short battery life.