Topic: Satellite in car navigation , what should they do for you.

[Rodney Wallbridge]

Gyday all, after a few months of sampling my Garmin Nuvi 310 navigator , I'd start a  thread to discuss features of these units and possibly find out if anyone else uses one to chase or for general navigation work.
 After doing some research online i found that as well as moving map display of roads, Gamin's can also overlay 10mtr contour maps Australia wide which really adds a lot of realism when the road you are driving on has no others within  cooee  of the mapscale etc.
Lots of other makes and models on the market, interested to read from your experiences.

[Mike]

G'day Rodney.

Not actually using one of the items but i would like to know what benefits you have had from using them for chasing.  Perhaps you could detail some features which you find useful when out on the road chasing and what data you keep for future references.  I'd be keen to get one considering the lack of roads up here to chase 'deep' and it might come in handy if the satellite shows me a path to prudition!

Mike

[Jimmy Deguara]

Thanks to Rodney, I have exactly the same set up now with contour map as well. It also gives ample information including the red light cameras, fixed cameras and the school zones. Sometimes these can be annoying especially given the the fact that school zones are timed between specific periods.

Regards,

Jimmy Deguara

[Rodney Wallbridge]

Hi Mike, well firstly the Nuvi 310 made by Garmin has been  very useful for post Chase preparation by direct input lat/long will show you the lay of the land where GFS sugests best potential is.If for instance GFS plots for area X where thunderstorms might evidently bullseye I can instantly see if its going for orographic  trigger/convergence on a range.
The Data base of knowledge for Fuel,lodgings,landmarks,lookouts,Food,shopping centres,entertainment(maybe this should include routing to biggest storm )Transit,Hospitals,ATM's is quite extensive.
Chasing outside the regular area or simply taking a scenic route certainly helps find your way when signposting is poor.Determining a road to take prior to arriving at the turn and knowing its general direction out chasing is a huge benefit.Mine shows where national parks and state forests are etc for areas to stay clear of etc.If i have missed anything, i'm happy to give more details only just touched the surface.

[Mike]

Seems to be the tool that one should acquire whilst out chasing. Do you use it in conjunction with laptop/net/radar images?  Presumably one could drive out that to a known convective hotspot prior to storms to get the unit to load your postioning and for the driver to get bearings for later chases?

May I ask the cost of one of these units?

[Rodney Wallbridge]

Gyday Mike, the nuvi 310 was $650 on special $150 off from $800.I don't have Mobile wireless broadband for my laptop which only comes out with me on overnight chases out of town etc,still waiting for the prices to drop  or non contract deals to appear.
Its a worthwhile bit of gear when you are out of the local area.Even in local trips the trip computer is cool for distance traveled etc.Yes it will store waypoints on the map as POI's for visits later.Like all gadgets there will be allways something better in the shops just around the corner but this unit has Blue tooth hands free built in for your phone,Mp3 player, spoken street names and the terrific added feature of the 10mtr contour australia wide overlaid maps on the roads( Optional extra third party software $130)
Since i also had a Garmin Emap,the external antenna  plugged straight into the Nuvi for added accurancy.

Rodney

[David C]

At the moment I'm simply using my mobile phone with the Nokia Navigator software - I downloaded the US west coast maps a few days ago and just monitored them from LAX to Orange County (1 hour or so trip). They are quite ok. Obviously the maps don't have the same level of information (contours, red light cams, etc etc) as those used with the garmin, but for road mapping they are adequate and, personally, that is all I am interested in really for storm chasing. The mobile screen is small but again it is good enough. I'll see how the Route 66 maps go in rural NSW before I decide whether it is worth going for a garmin in the short term.

[Richary]

I have the TomTom OneXL unit. It has two main uses.

1) I am new to Sydney (well after a 5 year break) so if work sends me on a job I can type in the address and it tells me how to get there.

2) Geocaching - it gets me to the closest road point to the cache.

There are a few hiccups in the database at times, where it thinks there is a break in the road and wants to reroute you via a much longer way around, or roads that are now blocked. But it's not too bad. I did find some omissions of fairly major dirt roads in central west NSW which make it less handy for the storm chasing work (in one case it wanted me to travel 90km by road to a cache that I did in 30km).

The other option is getting holding of a program like OziExplorer (shareware) that you can then load maps into. While it doesn't give you verbal directions you can interface to a GPS so you know where you are on the map, and look at the topo maps or whatever type and work out yourself which way to go. With moving map it has an arrow showing exactly where you are, and automatically changes to the next map if necessary. Very nice piece of software  - www.oxiexplorer.com

[Michael Bath]

OziExplorer does appear to have a lot of features and have tried it on my PC as a stand alone map browser. It's ok for that use but a bit cumbersome finding adjacent map sheets. The map set I have lacks a lot of name information for towns so sometimes you don't know where you are when you load a map.   Rodney and I should suss out how it goes with the GPS interface.

I got a TomTom ONE Third Edition last Thursday. It was a freebie from Harvey Norman when I upgraded my phone from CDMA to Next G - so can't complain given it has a RRP of $399. Neat touch screen LCD setup and includes PC software to keep things up-to-date, and that works well. No scope for topo maps though (I think).  Have given it a couple of short test runs and it has quite a lot of great features. Will be interesting to see which roads it finds or not when I'm on chase.

Has not heard of my home address but neither has the Garmin Nuvi - must be a shortcoming of the WhereIs maps as my street/estate has existed for 10 years !

Michael

[Rodney Wallbridge]

Just an update on my GPS I'm using,Its very amusing when you have set a prior coordinates and its several hours drive away.Along the journey a little icon comes up and once opening it ,tells you of a shorter distance to the point.User beware this could take you up some little used bush track out through a state forest which is only trafficable by 4WD which i have a Rav4 so made for an enjoyable trip as a side trip etc.Some roads have since been closed off or bridges closed there is always another way nearby but always be prepared for some backtracking if required.
I was on a journey to visit Carrai National park and the roads were on the Garmin Nuvi 310 BUT you could become easily unstuck if in a conventional vehicle.All in all the overlayed Topo map is very enjoyable and look forward to my next exploration side trip down some quiet little back road

[Mike]

Thanks for the tips.  I'll be in Morningside, Qld for TAFE in May for 4 weeks and no doubt I'll visit Southbank for a bit of shopping for some gadets!  I'm already going out of my head with boredom now that everything is over, but I like the TomTom units, I've always heard good things about them.   I'm not quite adept with all the gizmos that can be used in conjunction with laptops etc, but with the help of this thread it's making my decisions easier.