GPS for cars.

[bennylaird]

Not having much experience with these little devices can I get some input to help answer a colleages question.

What are the main benefits from spending more money on them?

Better working range?
More maps?
Ease of use etc?

I might get myself one sometime but have not managed to get myself lost for a while despite being told to............................

Cheers Dears

[glock40sw]

G'day Mr. Laird.

They are the duck's guts.
I do a lot of driving for site inspections all over the country for our flooring installations.

It is a real pain to fly into a city, hire a car and try to navigate by street directory.
Last month I got a Tomtom One XL from TANDY. bloody great bit of kit. should have had one years ago. No more street directories. fly in, hire car, mount to windscreen. turn on, select destination and WALLAH... follow the arrows and the voice guidance. I drove from Grafton to Beachmere ( north of Brisbane) yesterday. never been there before. Tomtom lead me right to the front door of the site. And when I was ready to leave, I hit the HOME button and it brought me back with no dramas. It has the latest aussie maps and if you go to the auspoi website you can download for free the speed camera locations, as well as the locations of Bunnies, McDonalds, wendys, School zones. Can also download different voices also for free. I have Darth Vader voice at the moment. Best $599 I have ever spent.

The Missus bought a new Subaru Liberty and it has a GPS SATNAV builtin to the dash. She loves it.

[NCArcher]

I have to echo Mr Glock's comments.
Great bits of gear.
I have a Navman and am really happy with it. :D
They pretty much all get you where you want to go but some of the newer (more expensive ) ones have some great features like Bluetooth handsfree operation of your phone through the touch screen on the sat nav. Pre set speed and red light camera warnings are handy too. Not that I ever speed of course :cool:

[Barry_White]

I have one built into my Pocket Computer/Phone which operates via Bluetooth

When you key in someones address it even tells you when to pull up outside the address.

Haven't opened a street directory in 18 months.

Trouble is there is the latest version of the map available and they want $230.00 for the down load.

[Tonyz]

If you get one fitted to ya car get it BOLTED down. Top thing for stealing. Mate of mine went to Adelaide got one fitted for a tour over Vic And NSW. 4 hours later his car had been routed through and the GPS went looking for itself

[Jim Carroll]

We recently went to brisbane and loaned Irenes brothers Garmin GPS. It took us to the Showgrounds a lot easier than she could read a melways, no arguments on which way to turn, went straight to dick smiths and got one for ourselves.
Nothing worse than trying to go somewhere and it is dark and stopping all the time to try and figure where you are.

Irene says she is the only other woman allowed into my life that she will put up with.:D

Takes a little bit getting used to what it is trying to tell you but if you stuff up it quickly recalculates and gets you back on track.:2tsup:

[Jedo_03]

Well - we bought ours last century... a Garmin e(something)... mounts on the dashboard, has a zoomable map of aus with lines for roads (some of the roads have moved LOL).. and the display moves as you travel. Dunt talk to you: no street directories: nothing fancy: but yur never lost...
From memory - paid ca$700 for it back then...
Can see the usefullness of updating to (say) a tomtom if we were needing to find specific addresses in strange cities - but we don't need that sort of thing... Just type in F..I..T..Z... and it comes up with fitzroy crossing... accept it and follow the directional arrow, keep to the road lines... and 8 days later - presto - yu've arrived....
S'thing we often do - drive randomly for 2 or 3 days, exploring anywhere the breeze takes us... then turn on the garmin and find out where we ended up (and which way to go to get back)
Another use for GPS - for those who don't know - is GEOCACHING...
hide a little placca box full of trinkets and loot and a notebook and pencil. post the gps coordinates on a geocache site with a little clue as to it's exact location ( 10 strides east of the 3rd cow pat past the gate...) - others go and find it and log back to the geocache site... Of course others hide loot as well... it's well established in Aus... I've got a few caches here and there... just google geocache australia...
cheers
jedo
http://geocaching.com.au/

[Ashore]

Have had a navman for over 12 months top bit of gear the newest are even better , they take pictures and remember the position wher the picture was taken and will direct you to that location as well as local petrol dining accomodation etc in some cities . You can also get the road angle incorperated in some GPS'S that warn you when approaching fixed radar cameras school zones and can be adjusted to by-pass toll roads .
However the best feature for me is the accurate speedo , that is they tell you of you cars correct speed, where most speedos are inaccurate, plus they operate in any car and use a cigar lighter socket as power, great if you fly to diffrent cities. :2tsup:

[Cliff Rogers]

G'day Benny, what is your problem????
I thought there was always somebody willing to tell you where to go. :D


I had a play with one in a Lexus a couple of months ago, worked well until I needed to go to a place on a very long main road through Cairns & I either didn't have the right street number or it didn't exist in the map.
I had to fight with it for a while to get it to accept a destination, I ended up picking an address on a cross street near where I had to go so that required some local knowledge.

Just out of interest, for anybody who has one, try & see if you can select Mulgrave Rd. in Cairns as a destination.

[munruben]

A friend of mine is going to New Zealand in September and has arranged for her hire car to have one installed ($7.00 per day) and it gives you a running commentary through the car radio as you drive from place to place, detailing history and places of interest around the area.

[glock40sw]

Just out of interest, for anybody who has one, try & see if you can select Mulgrave Rd. in Cairns as a destination.


G'day Cliff.
The Tomtom one XL has no problems with Mulgrave Rd. Cairns.
What was the street number?

[Cliff Rogers]

G'day Cliff.
The Tomtom one XL has no problems with Mulgrave Rd. Cairns.
What was the street number?

Either 192 or 196 I think.

On the corner of Aumuller St.

[glock40sw]

Cliff It will only go up to 154.

[Barry_White]

G'day Benny, what is your problem????
I thought there was always somebody willing to tell you where to go. :D


I had a play with one in a Lexus a couple of months ago, worked well until I needed to go to a place on a very long main road through Cairns & I either didn't have the right street number or it didn't exist in the map.
I had to fight with it for a while to get it to accept a destination, I ended up picking an address on a cross street near where I had to go so that required some local knowledge.

Just out of interest, for anybody who has one, try & see if you can select Mulgrave Rd. in Cairns as a destination.

Hi Cliff

My system called CoPilot Live found Mulgrave St straight up but as Glock says it is only a short street and it is no where near Aumuller Street and Aumuller Street runs from Spence Street to Hoare Street and Mulgrave Street doesn't cross it.

[Cliff Rogers]

It is Mulgrave Road, not Mulgrave Street. Mulgrave Road goes up to at least 535 & then it becomes the Bruce Highway but the numbers continue on.

Aumuller Street runs from Tingira Street to Hoare Street & it crosses Mulgrave Road.

[Barry_White]

It is Mulgrave Road, not Mulgrave Street. Mulgrave Road goes up to at least 535 & then it becomes the Bruce Highway but the numbers continue on.

I called it Street but it did find Mulgrave Road but mine only shows it crossing the Bruce Highway and then running parallel to the Bruce Highway for a block and a half and then it stops. But the numbers on the Bruce Highway do go on and on.

Aumuller Street runs from Tingira Street to Hoare Street & it crosses Mulgrave Road
That is true I didn't trace it far enough
.

Cliff I have found some of the maps don't equal the reality. They are only as good as the the people that drive the course with the computer and record the data for the GPS

Here is the map I have Aumuller Street is a lot further south down the Bruce Highway.

[Cliff Rogers]

Ar-huh! It is all clear now...

Mulgrave Road is the Bruce Highway.

The bit that they are calling Mulgrave Road on that map is actually the service road on the side of Mulgrave Road. (AKA the Bruce Highway)

That will be why the one I was using couldn't find 196 Mulgrave Road, I should have been looking for 196 Bruce Highway. :doh:

[Barry_White]

Ar-huh! It is all clear now...

Mulgrave Road is the Bruce Highway.

The bit that they are calling Mulgrave Road on that map is actually the service road on the side of Mulgrave Road. (AKA the Bruce Highway)

That will be why the one I was using couldn't find 196 Mulgrave Road, I should have been looking for 196 Bruce Highway. :doh:

GPS systems are pretty good but they do sometimes get lost.

The one I have got lost when I was going to Sydney down the Putty Road. About half way along it thinks you have taken off in an aeroplane because it starts telling me how many air kilometres it is to my destination and after about 60klms it thinks you have landed again and starts back on road kilometres.

[Cliff Rogers]

GPS systems are pretty good but they do sometimes get lost.

The one I have got lost when I was going to Sydney down the Putty Road. About half way along it thinks you have taken off in an aeroplane because it starts telling me how many air kilometres it is to my destination and after about 60klms it thinks you have landed again and starts back on road kilometres.
That happens on very windy range roads 'cos the map makers are too bloody lazy to draw all the bends.

Have a look at the Gillies Highway & the road from Smithfield (Cairns) to Kuranda... I bet that sections of them are drawn as a straight line. :D