Thread: In Car GPS

Well of course they are only going to be as good as the maps. We recently took a Tom Tom One on a 3,800km round trip and found that probably 95% of the time it was spot on.

It doesn't know our road has been extended, so we had to start from 500 metres down the road. It was spot on getting to our friends in Sydney and pretty much everywhere we went while there (the missus used to service ATMs and knows Sydney like the back of her hand). It found the technology park at Belrose and if anyone has ever been there, you'll know it is very difficult to find if you don't know what you're looking for.

It had no problems getting us from Sydney to Coonabarabran, then to Brisbane via Gundawindi - including a backstreet short cut at Moree. Around Brisbane it was fine, as it was up to the Sunshine Coast. On the way to TeeJays though, it didn't know that a motorway exit had been moved a kilometre north, so it let us fly past it. Fortunately, the old exit was still there as a dirt track.

On the way back down the coast, it got confused in a few places where the highway has been straightened - thought we had left the road and were driving in a paddock for awhile. At Port Macquarie, our friends street has been diverted and it didn't know about it.

It's understandable that when road changes happen, it's not going to know about them, unless you can get map updates. I downloaded the latest before we left but obviously there were a few changes not in it. This is going to be an ongoing problem with the maps because roads are constantly changing.

In the US there is a service that allows you access other users' map updates but it's not available here.

In short, I reckon they are probably one of the most useful pieces of technology I have used for a long time.

I'm not convinced that you guys are using the GPS's correctly. They are not that much different to a map, you still need to do some work yourself.

For instance, on a long trip I will review the route on my laptop and select the route I want, then copy it to the GPS. From there, the GPS is just the sidekick telling me progress and, if necessary, can be asked for fuel, parking or diversions.

For short routes it is handy to use as a visual guide if you hit an unexpected one way street etc. It is great in the city for parking and sudden diversions.

I have a navigator phone which now does all the short haul stuff within 50k, anything longer I'll check the laptop and select the route.

You should not just blindly accept a route, it doesn't work that way. Most units allow you to select whether to use major roads, direct routes, avoid tolls etc.

I agree with Groggy, I always check the route once I have told my TomTom One where I want to go and if necessary I will pick an alternative route by using either the "Travel via" or "Avoid part of route" selection.

You should not just blindly accept a route, it doesn't work that way.

I've found that 9 out of 10 times it does. It would be pointless me looking at a route from Brisbane to Eumundi because I've never been there. I certainly wouldn't be up on any road changes that have been made recently. Looking at a 2001 road map wouldn't be of any more use.

For me, the advantage of these things is that they get me there one way or another and if I take a wrong turn, they recalculate and get me out of trouble. If I had to research every route, I just wouldn't use it. If you know the way well enough to second guess it, why do you need it at all?

We tried it out getting from Sutherland to the Blue Mountains. We both had our own ideas on the way to go. We asked Tom Tom to give us the quickest route and I'll be blown if it wasn't right.

Nup, I tested it out using the blind faith method over 3 weeks and it didn't let us down.

I haven't got one of those fangdangled GPS's. I have my trusty old Garmin 12 which takes me to places the new toys will probably never know about like that good camping spot in the middle of Simpson Desert, the start of that track in the forest etc.

When I go on made roads and to weird places like Melbourne, Sydney Brisbane etc, I can easily enter the coordinates for the key intersections as waypoints.

I get the coordinates from this site (Route Site)but there is a trick I accidently discovered one night.

Below the map is a list of "turn left here etc". If you gently glide your mouse over each of the icons, it comes up with a script that includes the latitude and longitude which is handy for people like me with older but more rugged and reliable GPS's.

Mate that is just way too hard. I'd never use it if I had to do that!

Granted, they're only really useful if you're on gazetted streets, but they do give you lat and long and you can tell it to navigate to a lat and long, so if you give me your secret campsite's coordinates, I'll still be able to find it

Darren,

I have asked people with what I call the boutique GPS's if they can check the coordinates and most say they can't but those who can do not think they can use different types of coordinates.

Most people with these units probably don't know how to read the coordinates and most of those wouldn't know what they meant or what to do with them. And they don't need to understand any of it either.

For people who want to drive around the city mazes, the newer types of GPS are perfect, they have been built for people with virtually no navigation skills, they are simple to use because there are limited options and they have simple to interpret screens.

For more critical navigation applications such as bush walking, rescue, fire fighting, 4wd, boating (both coastal and offshore) etc the new idiot proof GPS's are far from ideal apart from using as a wheel chock or a weight to hold down a chart in rough seas.

Horses for courses.

I am looking at getting a later model GPS where I can load in my own maps and routes plus use it in the city to find some elusive one way street in a new suburb. The top line Garmins look the part.

In the meantime, I use my method with my old GPS and it works fine for me, and as a side benefit, it discourages me from visiting the cities.

A friend of mine is a 4wd nut and loads topographic maps into his GPS plus satellite images. There is really no limit to what you can do, provided you are careful in selecting the GPS in the first place.

I can load them into my Streetpilot but haven't found the need yet.

For bush walking, I use a 1:25000 topographical map and a compass. A GPS would be handy for getting your present lat and long, which the Tom Tom can do, but obviously it would be no use for route planning. I plan to take it with me next time to try it out.

Likewise, for navigating off road, I don't suppose they'd be much use other than to tell you where you are right now. It would then be up to you to use that information in conjunction with you map. I understand that a proper off road or bush walking GPS allows you to input breadcrumbs so you can retrace your steps easily.

But for driving around in unfamiliar cities (or even familiar ones as we found out) these gadgets cannot be beat. Locating ATMs, servos and shopping centres, even on foot. Getting a rough estimate of how long a trip will take. Monitoring your speed and getting warnings when you exceed the limit, or when you are approaching a red light camera or a fixed speed camera. We found it invaluable. But I have no need for one in my daily life. That's why I borrowed my Dad's

Like I said, it depends on the GPS. The Garmin Streetpilot does all that and was about the same price as other units. If necessary you can remove it from the vehicle and walk with it too (clearly not the preferred method but it can be done). The next step in the GPS's should be the ability to download data for the area you are in. I can only hope it isn't by NextG!

I use mine to find places that I have never been to, that is why I ended up on a closed road yesterday.

I have been driving around North Queensland for 20 years so I know most of the best ways & short cuts but the GPS has already been helpful in finding a couple of short cuts that I didn't know about.

Originally Posted by Cliff Rogers

I have been driving around North Queensland for 20 years so I know most of the best ways & short cuts but the GPS has already been helpful in finding a couple of short cuts that I didn't know about.

True. One of the things I enjoy with the GPS is the ability to try a new route when I have the time spare and not have to worry about getting back on track. My phone has brought me through Melbourne in two ways I like now. You don't have to stress over finding a park, determining where you are then figuring out how to get home.

I used the Where Am I function on it just now and it gives the lat and long in decimal degrees. Using Navigate To... | Latitude Longitude I can then enter a destination in either decimal degrees or degrees and minutes. Just tried it to navigate to Merimbula Airport (the lat and long in my location) and it took me there by road (naturally) but it was correct. Well, I didn't actually drive there but it has this neat Route Demo mode that walks you through the route.

The MIO can do a 'fly over' and you can enter the address as Lat.Long