GPS

[Glenn Baglo]

I know I've read examples of GPS limitations, such as a voice model telling the driver to turn left in the middle of a bridge, or another leading a caravan into the desert, but I was wondering what your experiences are?

I'm wondering if it would help me locate Forest Service campsites in BC ( or similar inexpensive, unserviced sites in the U.S. ), sani-stations, serviced campgrounds and that sort of thing, or are they mainly useful in the city?

I don't really need another instruction manual to read, so I'm sorta hoping they are useless.

baglo

[Rick Brown]

I have a Tom Tom and it works for my wife and I, although we do question it sometimes, it get us to were we needed to be. As a matter of fact we normally lead the caravan to were we are going.

[dsheets70]

Well I have to say that my Garmin StreetPilot c330 let us this weekend to a non-existent Target Store. This does not happen very often, but it is frustrating when it does.

[Glenn Baglo]

I have a Tom Tom and it works for my wife and I, although we do question it sometimes, it get us to were we needed to be. As a matter of fact we normally lead the caravan to were we are going.

Ya, but, where does it lead you to? Full service sites just off the freeway or will it also take you to obscure sites and sani-stations? That's the part I'm interested in.

baglo

[Carolyn Patterson]

My husband and I spent Labor Day weekend in the Huron National Forest in Northern Michigan. We have a TomTom that we just love. My sister has a cottage up there, and we were going to camp in the yard with the family in the cottage.

Anyway, on the way to the cottage, we decided that we wanted to go have a great perch dinner at a little restaurant, but didn't remember how to get to it. Using the TomTom and putting in the street address (we had a local paper with an ad for this place) the GPS tried a few times to get us to turn where there were no roads - but what 'could' have been roads at one time. We kept going and the GPS just reconfigured the route with no problem.

Only time we've ever had 'issues' with it - then and 1 time at Cleveland Airport in the parking lot. Yet we have never been misguided like we have with Mapquest - that sometimes doesn't even get you to the location, just near it.

I swear by them....actually I just asked for one for my car tonight as my husband doesn't like sharing his.

[Kyle]

I thought someone here had posted where to get custom POI files? POI Factory

Somewhere on there is a POI for the more obscure campground - State Parks, National Forrests, Etc. I loaded it up on my c330 and works like a champ. Love it.

-Kyle

[CD Smith]

As Ray Bradbury said in his "Ode to Machines Beyond Shylock", "Stuff Right, Get Right - Stuff Rot, Get Rot".

The database in a GPS is only as good as the data that people have entered. I always go to MSN Live Search Maps and locate the satelite photo of the place where I am going and how to get there. GPS's are good to alert you to where you have to turn, but I don't trust them to tell me the best route to get someplace.

[Daniel V.]

I was wondering what your experiences are?

I find that I wouldn't go without my Garmin GPS about 90% of the time, and feel like throwing it out the window the remaining 10%. Of course, it makes it a point to pick the worst time to start messing with you, i.e. when you're tired or when it's dark or in heavy traffic. But otherwise, if you use it as a tool and do a sanity check on the proposed route before hitting the road, the GPS can be extremely useful and save you hours of map staring not to mention your marriage. Even better if you get a model that is able to save routes for planning longer trips.

The pre-loaded points of interest are OK to get you to lots of basic places in the city or in the country (gas, common restaurants, ATMs, etc.). But what gets interesting is when you start loading your own POIs that you can obtain from various websites. We also use ours to save the location of our campsite or parking spot so we can easily find them later. You could also load topo maps onto it for trails, mountains, lakes, and such.

[Doug Mager]

Glenn, we bought a Garmin Street Pilot. Made the first huge error in firing it up out in the parking lot of the store we bought it from. Somehow it now figures this must be home, as it continually wants to go back there when ever we use it to find 'home'. We DO now where we live so we usually disreguard HER directions but generqally get a good laugh when she says TURN LEFT (and there's no where to do that), or better yet 'recalculating'.

We are told that most of the info in these devices is fed from land surveyors and IF their input is inaccurate then her compass could be off a titch!! Also we are told that usually one knows their way home so the closer on gets to home (using the system) the less accurate it seems to be. IT will quite often try to get us to circle the block (and these are looooong country blocks too, BTW!!) in an effort to get us home. We have tried to reset her berings MANY times to make our 'home' somwhere other than the outlet on the north side of the Fraser in Abby!!!!

It mmmmmight help IF you could type in an accurate addy for the device to try to home in on too, BTW.

We bought ours mainly to use while driving in our hot rod and usually use it to back up the speedometer on the old car. It works well for calculating arrival times and things like that too. Some GPS' are much better better suited than others for the usage you prefer, so if you have one, I hope it tells ya where to go in a timely fashion, LOL!!!!

[Glenn Baglo]

Glenn, we bought a Garmin Street Pilot. Made the first huge error in firing it up out in the parking lot of the store we bought it from.

From what I've read so far, I think I'll just get a bar fridge and a long extension cord and tie it to the rear bumper. Would cost about the same and maybe prove more useful.

I buy maps at every opportunity, because of my job ( news photographer ). When you have to find a downed plane that's been located up some logging road, you need a map, and help from locals. I'll probably stick to maps.

baglo

[james kent]

We bought a ...re-configurating....Garmin Street Pilot 550....re-configurating...
SHE hates me. ...re-configurating.... Although I have progranned HER to stay off main highways, .....re-configurating...SHE always wants to send me back to the throughway...re-configurating...... I have changed HER voice...re-configurating... a couple of times but SHE still sounds basically the same...re-configurating... I don't think SHE really likes me.
RE-CONFIGURATING!!!!!

[Daniel V.]

I don't think SHE really likes me.
RE-CONFIGURATING!!!!!

The male voice is much better at reading maps !! My wife said so!

[Lainey]

generqally get a good laugh when she says TURN LEFT (and there's no where to do that), or better yet 'recalculating'

I like the "please drive the highlighted route" that I get when I've ignored multiple occurrences of "recalculating"
Especially fun on NEW roads that have not been loaded into the database yet. My dad who'd never seen a GPS in action before got a real kick out of that!

I wish I could change her to a male voice, but it doesn't seem to be an option on mine

All that's entertaining, but I still love my Garmin. Glenn, this is a great tool if you are going to be doing any extensive travelling. My son's too young to navigate for me effectively, so it really came in handy on our trip south this summer. I bet I'd have added a day's driving to the trip if I had to navigate without it. I also find it useful for work when I'm trying to find an address (especially the country ones that can be tricky).

(Doug: if you go in and erase the existing home from the system, then if might be easier to reset a new home location)

[Parker Buckley]

I find the GPS (Garmin Nuvi in our case) to be extremely helpful. Sure, you have to use common sense and not let it direct you the wrong way down a one way alley that ends at a pier, but 90% of the time, it's really good. Even rolling down the interstate, it can help get you set up for the rare occasion when you must exit to the left, or other such things. It also lets the driver be a little more aware of what's coming up without messing with a map or waking up the navigator. We've used the POI option several times to find resturants, groceries, etc. It's not a must-have for us, but I'd sure miss it if we went back to just maps.

Parker

[CD Smith]

I have the Garmin Nuvi 260W. The only real complaint I have about it is you can only enter one 'via' point.

When I travel I use both the Garmin and my laptop with MS Streets and Trips.

We get a laugh once in a while when "Jill" (the voice of Garmin) and the "Un-named" (the voice of MS S&T) give contradictory instructions. Jill always wants to return to the Interstate and Un-named wants me to follow the MS S&T route. The routes are not necessarily the same.

[Doug Mager]

LOL ....we named ours 'LINDA' because she sounds and acts exactly like one of our next door neighbor, Linda (re-calculating, make a U-turn when safe to do so!!)

[Patrick M.]

Just bought a Darmin 260W at Costco and it's amazing! I had been using a PDA/GPS Sleeve combo that was obsolete about 10 years ago, but hey, it was a gift! Now that I have a modern 2008 GPS, I'm disappointed I suffered with the old one soooo long.

I think I saw it had 6,000,000 items in its POI database. I can't confirm that but it has stuff in Tucson and Phoenix nailed. Walgreens - check. Costco - check. Wal-Mart - dito. In-n-Out Burger - YES! Honda dealers - Hai!

From POI-Factory I loaded all the US Stateparks, all the Interstate rest areas, and all the Offbeat Tourist Attractions, which had a few items near Tucson that I had never heard of!

I just saw this program that allows editing of Favorites to add information and correct co-ordinates. A beta version, untested on mine, but looks useful - http://www.slowjim.com/Index.htm

I especially like this feature - "Where Am I?", which would have been very useful for a late-night trip we had to the Emergency Room in Cottonwood a few years ago:

[Will M.]

I use the female voice on my GPS because the male voice just says "you don't need any directions - figure it out for yourself"

[Frederick L. Simson]

I don't really need another instruction manual to read...

I've had my best adventures when I didn't know where I was going.

[Pete Dumbleton]

Frederick,

Get one, learn how to use it (esp the Where Am I?) and then turn it off -- It will be there if you need it but it won't change your driving style -- Best of both worlds!