Thanks for all your thoughts.
A few things - the buildings weren't necessarily tall. Just two stories or so - after reading the comments, I'm hoping that it's because it was in my lap.
In my car I normally get 8. When it gets 8, it will stay at 8 pretty much. It had 9 satellites in my mate's car for literally 2 minutes during the entire journey.
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Its because it was in your lap.
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adam
If the road's not that wide, then 2 storey buildings can be enough to reduce the number of satellites that can be seen. That said reception will be much better when its mounted near the windscreen.
JS
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A minimum of 4 satellites are required to get a position fix, more to improve accuracy, so your experience of a minium of 4 and max of 9 seems correct,....
I don't use it daily but during the summer I did see 10 satellites registering on my TomTom/iPAQ. It was always around midday IIRC. After about 1pm it would go back down to the normal 7/8/9.
BTW this was in the Scottish highlands if it makes any difference.
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Its very simple really.
Sat nav signals dont travel through things easily. Trees, buildings, car roofs.
So its like this. If your nav cant see sky - it cant see sats.
Goona has the sat nav aerial tucked at the bottom part of the rear screen, where it has a near 180 degree view of sky.
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Found my very basic (Navman PiN with SmartST) very useful in France this summer because whereas the French often put their diection signs at the junction, with no prior warning, the satnav gave a few hundred metres warning ("in 300 metres turn right"). If you do any walking or cycling you may also find the use of Memory Map (or other) OS maps very useful - it's remarkably accurate in fixing your position down to about a metre. Especially useful in the Peak District in thick fog!!
Phil
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Well my SmartNav is based on satellites and I don't ever recall being "lost" by it in town. When I am not fully concentrating on it, and with it not having a display, I sometimes manage to mis-judge exactly which "left turn" it wants me to make, but it always picks it up and re-routes me. I guess I've been pleasantly surprised that it hasn't lost me...
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I have Ford's system fitted to my Mondeo and overall it has been quite good, when it works! The trouble is it is not as easily upgradeble as aftermarket stuff, £235 for an updated DVD, I think not. Not only that it controls Air and CD and is VERY expensive to replace if and when it fails, which it has, once.
The big plus for mobile units such as Ipaq/TomTom is that it
allows for the identification of speed camera locations and is cheaper to upgrade. Plus of course it is portable.
The obvious downside being that cars with reflective glass or heated screens - a la Ford - have trouble getting a signal.
Having had use of it, I would say that my motoring experience has not been enhanced. I could and would still manage with an A to Z. All you ever really need is an address and you should be able to find any location, in my opinion of course.
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A couple of years ago a pal of mine had reason to call 999. When the relevant service arrived they apologised for the delay and explained that although they had the latest Sat Nav system, it couldn't keep up with their vehicle, and that his address wasn't included in the map database. Apparently they found it easier and faster to call the base station and navigate following instructions from someone reading a map.
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Hi all,
thanks for all of those replies. Most useful. Yeah Phil - I'd checked most of them before I bought it just to convince myself!
The good news is, I stuck it in my car up on my the dash (not moving though obviously) and it had 8. Used it in my mate's car again following RF's advice making sure the aerial had a clear view of the sky. Nothing less than 6 satellites at any one time so I'm quite happy again now.
Once I get this mount fitted I imagine 8 will be the norm but I'm still considering an external aerial just in case.
Many thanks again chaps,
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"Phil - I'd checked most of them before I bought it just to convince myself!"
As usual with my (impulse)purchases I did it the other way round - bought it then looked up what was better!! Never mind, I'm still impressed - how does that nice lady know the way to everywhere, including some gravel track short cuts in France and know when to warn me of a "sharp corner"????
Phil
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Mine got a little hesitant on two occasions;
"Turn left onto the A......
.....
.....
....49"
Still - it worked.
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I use a navman 630 and it is an absolute godsend. Works brilliantly, 99.9% of the time. The only time it really seems to struggle is driving down the A4 into london - when you get up to near picadilly circus it without fail thinks you are about 50m further north than you actually are. No idea why, whether the maps are wrong or whather it's because you are surrounded by high buildings or whatever. But then, I've only driven down the A4 into london about 5 times in the last year so it doesn't bother me that much!
Awesome technology and totally invaluable...
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Where you get *repeatable* errors, ie same problem in the same place every time, its a mapping* error.
*Actually its a calibration error, where the map is not calibrated correctly to the actual postion.
The first versions of TomTom used to think the A14 was 300 yards north of where it was, marking your postion as driving through the battle of naseby site!
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Adam - am looking to buy one of these for a trip to Belgium and back through parts of France. Does yours come with door to door mapping for Europe ? Can you buy software for a hand-held which does it ?
Don't want to spend a fortune, but want something to get me through France and Belgium without causing an almighty row with SWMBO. Would prefer a PDA as it would be a nice toy.
JAJ
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Passing though France and Belgium is easy. The E40 does it I think? Satnav would only be useful for finding local addresses - if it's a once-off you might find www.mappy.com as useful.
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"Does yours come with door to door mapping for Europe ?"
My Navman does
One on ebay now at £86 with 15 hours to go.
tinyurl.com/9w6vw
Note that latest version of Smart ST is V3 - this one is with V2 which we found to be excellent in 2000 miles of touring France this summer and Belgium in the spring.
You could also use updated satnav like Tomtom etc on it - for best prices do a Google or look at somewhere like
www.totalpda.co.uk/xgps.asp
Phil
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www.scan.co.uk at the moment has the Navman GPS plus (I guess) Smart ST v2 for about £86. Sure you could buy this an upgrade. User interface of TomTom superior though,
I have Smart ST2 but bought TomTom. The GPS receiver is cracking from Navman. Uses 3 x AAA batteries and last for ages and I use it for walking too with Memory Map OS mapping.
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JAJ,
I'm afraid I'm a little undequalified to answer your question but if by door to door mapping you mean, can you put house numbers in, then yes you can.
If I wanted to go to 35 Allerton Road in Liverpool it would direct me to number 35. Pressing the home button (which, incidentally is a really handy feature) would direct me to my house which is already preprogrammed in.
Hope that helps.
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Just completed a Spain-UK-Spain trip with a Garmin GPS V - some general comments:
Used the Garmin bean-bag as there are no suitable flat spots in the Golf to use the adhesive discs. The bean-bag works, and has the additional benefit of being easily hidden from view with no trace when parked.
The GPS V has very limited memory (19mb), so it's necessary to load up each day's maps as you go; even then it's sometimes necessary to rely on the base map in some cases, e.g. for the Calais to Millau leg (950km), I had the start, Paris and the end maps only loaded.
No problem with satellite loss - no external aerial.
The link between Garmin Mapsource and Google Earth for showing tracks is brilliant.
If I did a lot of long-distance motoring I'd probably upgrade to a Quest, or similiar, which has 256mb and can load maps for Spain to UK in one go; also has colour and speech.
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Is there a concensus on which is the best GPS to use in a car? I'm only interested - for now - in use in the UK.
A friend bought the Tom Tom, seemed ok, but I have nothing to compare it with.
Is the subscription for Tom Tom Plus worth it and does it work?
Thanks for any thoughts.
Don
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I have used a Navman520 and TomTom.
Personla view is that for useability and speed the tomtom wins hands down.
I think the plus subscription is a waste of time.
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I have used a Navman520 and TomTom.
Personal view is that for useability and speed the tomtom wins
hands down.
I think the plus subscription is a waste of time.
TVM, in what way is the Navman 520 bad? They seem to be at a bargain price on the auction site, especially compared to TomTom's £300
Gareth
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I have used the ICN 520. Didnt say it was bad. Infact its quite good and good value, indeed MRS TVM has the medion pna 150 which is the same chasis (a Mio). However its a tad slow. The tomtom wins every time, bigger screen, better user interface, and all round better sat nav.
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TourVanMan TM < Ex RF >
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I use TomTom3 on an XDA2i, I have to say that it works fine, the routing can be sorted out by adjusting the speed prefs, i.e. in the truck I set the motorway speed to 54 and other roads to 40, that then routes the shortest distance normally, in the car i set the speeds higher and it will normally route the quickest. You can get TT3 quite cheap now as TT5 is out, haven't tried TT5 yet but will be soon, only advantage I can see to tt5 is that it now has full postcode routing.
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I've been using a Navman PIN 570 for the past 2 or 3 weeks. I find it quite easy to use, although some of the maps are out of date with the newer roads not shown correctly. It looks like you're driving through a field, that aside I think it's good value for money as it's not just Sat Nav but a PDA as well.
--
Davy S.
Oops, where did that screw go!!
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I have Tom Tom Mobile 5 running on my Nokia 6630 phone and it works well enough for me. Has gotten me everywhere I asked it to, though one time I had to do an extra lap of a roundabout as the instructions came up too late. I don't do lots on long distance travelling, but as I am still relatively new to the area (and country!) even a 5 mile trip can take me to roads and places I have never been to before so its times like that when I am glad I have it (and Bluetooth GPS in the glovebox).
I have the speed camera database loaded on it too and it has never failed to alert me to a camera, though it has alerted at times when I couldn't see a camera, only on motorways though so who knows what other camera could be about.
I can't compare it to any other Sat Nav system as its the only one I have ever used, but it does have its weaknesses as it still thinks I live in the middle of an un-named road even though this estate has been here for 7 years, and maps for other countries are difficult to get ahold of as Tom Tom don't sell map software on its own.
The only thing I can imagine bettering it would be a dedicated OEM type in-car system as faffing about with GPS, waiting for it to get a fix, then starting TT, waiting for it to sort itself out and connect to the GPS etc, means that I only use it when I don't where I am or where I am going, so many times I forego the benefit or the speed camera function.
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BMW system and occasional use of a TomTom 7. Tom Tom acquires instantly (upon switch on) Used in the last few days navigating bits of Wales. Superb, personally prefer it to BMW's system. Got"lost" for a moment around Corris in South Gwynedd. "She" didn't say anything but the arrow was in a field. Now that it's been properly set up (trav elling at an average of 50 mph) it doesn't try to turn you down narrow lanes as much as it used to. All in all very useful and worth the money.
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I would greatly appreciate any thoughts anyone has on the Indago combined satnav/camera system, please.
With thanks in advance.
Jack
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too expensive
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TourVanMan TM < Ex RF >
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I've got my Uncle's Tom Tom something or other today (a good one - with bluetooth and a remote) and it puts mine to shame.
In fact, I'm so ashamed of mine I think I'll permanently relegate it to the glove box.
The Tom Tom is amazing.
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