... The Half Moon Inn, The Street, Rushall, Harleston, Norfolk using TomTom mobile.
Insert Rushall, and then I am invited in input the name of the street. What I am offered is every street in Norfolk. Type in 'The Street', and there are a good dozen available streets.
No cheating by using royalmail.com to find out the postcode.
Suggestions on a postcard, please!
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I have been waiting patiently for this moment for some considerable time..
Tom Tom mobile is garbage
in fact
at this moment in time:
all mobile phone based pda/pim systems are garbage
It works like this, Compromises have to be made.
The more disparate functions you add to a device, the worse it becomes.
Put simply a Mobile phone is 100% mobile phone so its an effective mobile phone. Add a PDA to it and it becomes 50% mobile and 50% PDA so its half as good as a normal phone or half as good as a normal PDA. Add Sat Nav to it and you now have three things, so its now 33% effective as a mobile, 33% effective as a PDA and 33% effective as a sat nav.
dont add anything else for gawds sake!
This law works for everything BTW, including cars. a 100% off road vehicle is a good off road vehicle and a carp on road vehicle. YOu make it a better on road vehicle by taking away its off road potential.
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You could have said before.
Sulks.
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Sounds like you need a map.
Now, where can you find someone who makes them?
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If you have given up on Tom Tom, PDA etc try www.viamichelin.com. An excellent planning site and accurate too with turn by turn instructions for routes all over europe.
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Ah, but RF, how many of us cantruly state that they own anything that hasn't been visited by compromise at some point? Everything I own has been engineered to a cost rather than built to an all-encompassig spec with the intention of delivering the pinnacle of excellence in that product's field.
You're just nay-saying, you nay-sayer!
:op
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I'm very good at using a map, thank you. What I want is a system that will enable me to navigate the back roads of Suffolk, Essex and Norfolk, now that the road signs have been taken down to prevent a German invasion. And when I am on my own in a vehicle - without a pretty map reader.
That's not the fault of a mobile/pda combo. That's the result of bad programming.
Surely, if it invites you to input the name of a little village, and then the street name, it can then work out which of the many 'The Streets' in Norfolk I'm likely to be after?
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Sounds like you need a map. Now, where can you find someone who makes them?
Oooohhh can I help - I haven't played with my theodolite for ages!
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"I haven't played with my theodolite for ages!"
Theodolite?, are those things still around?. I thought GPS Total Stations replaced those ages ago. Using a Thodolite now would be akin to still using a map when GPS navigation programs are available 8-)
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Well, I did say "ages" :)
When I gave up the Land Surveying profession over 20 years ago total stations were in use mainly on engineering projects and lower accuracy land surveys. The the highest accuracy geodetic and long range triangulation work (i.e. accuracy to within mm's over many kilometres) still demanded highly expensive analogue optical equipment made by companies like Wild and Zeiss. To be honest I've no idea if that's still true.
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Just to clarify for anyone who's interested (doubtful) - in those days we measured angles very accurately using the theodolite and calculated the relevant distances/positons trigonometrically using all sorts of complex correction formulae. Over long distances this was far more accurate than measuring distances direct using electronic means and is probably still more accurate than any gps system.
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Simple:
Get TomTom to take you to Rushall. Then ask some gap-toothed Norfolk local for directions to the pub!
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What? Ask for directions?!!
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Trying to find the address using Autoroute 2005 (or Mappoint online), you also cannot find the required street. In that area there appear to be a number of roads without name or number. Looks like Navteq (Microsoft's source?) TeleAtlas (TomTom) haven't fully recorded road details here.
This would suggest all sat navs will have the same problem for this challenge without knowing the full post code. Now if you put in the post code of said pub in TomTom or Autoroute it finds the exact location. Happens to be a few hundred yards from the centre of Rushall it would seem.
In fact looking at MemoryMap 2004 for an Ordnance Survery 1:50k view of Rushall, those roads have not even been lucky enough to be given a B road designation! So we're talking a small village and therefore I'd head for the centre and you should spot the pub. It's around British National Grid reference TM 19805 82727, 125ft above sea level ;-)
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It's such a poxy little village finding the pub isn't a problem. But TTM demands a street name after you have input a village name. No can do!
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If you enter Rushall as the street as well as the town, then TomTom guides you to the centre. This applies to any town of course.
Well that's how TT Navigator 2003 worked and I'd say 2005 will be the same. The code behind the 2005 Mobile and Navigator (and Go) is common.
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Thanks, rtj70. That's the hint I needed.
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When TomTom version 3 came out though, that tip wouldn't work for Scarborough. No matter what you tried it couldn't find it at all. And that was not the only town!!
A really good site if you have not found it yet is www.pocketgps.co.uk. Apart from forums and reviews, you can load their Safety Cameras database onto your mobile and turn your mobile into a speed (oops I mean safety) camera detector. Maybe you've done that already. And it's FREE.
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I love Jane. She got me out of Ipswich without a map & without any trouble.
She bonged at me every few yards down the A12 though - I think her speed camera database is somewhat out of date. There must have been roadworks there some time ago. Time to look for a new version of the database.
So, I cannot recommend TTM enough. Some second hand disc off eBay, a BT GPS receiver for £60 & a mobile phone (SPV E200s go for as little as £50 on ebay).
I love Jane. This is going to be a good romance. But I might swap her for Catherine.
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"Some second hand disc off eBay"
I think you meant to say that you bought the full retail version of Tom Tom Mobile, but someone stole the original Tom Tom GPS receiver so you had to replace it with a £60 BT GPS receiver. 8-)
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