Many new (and not so new) GPS
owners have basic (and not so basic) questions about the operation and
performance of their GPS equipment. Most of the questions and
answers are available for you on one of the following websites.
*> Joe and Jack's GPS Information Site:<http://joe.mehaffey.com>
*> Thomas Born's Garmin website <http://www.bridge.de/~tom/garmin.htm>
BE SURE to take a good look at THE TITLES all of the items listed as you
will be looking for other listed information in the future.
These websites include a hundred or more topics and articles on all facets of
consumer GPS usage. These include such topics as:
1) How GPS receivers act in the woods with tree cover.
2) What the latest Garmin firmware revisions are.
3) Product reviews of various Garmin, Lowrance and Magellan GPS receivers.
4) Do GPS receivers have Year 2000 problems (Most don't).
5) Cable Pinouts for Garmin (and some Magellan) GPS receivers.
6) Shops that sell GPS receivers via the Internet.
7) How accurate are GPS receivers?
8) Amplified external antennas for GPS receivers.
9) Reviews of popular MAPPING SOFTWARE packages.
10) GPS receivers operated on MotorCycles and MotorBikes.
11) Information on MAP DATUMS.
12) Using your GPS on commercial aircraft. (Is it Safe?)
13) Battery drain and battery usage of various receivers.
14) How to connect your GPS to your laptop computer and SA4/5.
15) Information about GLONASS, the Russian GPS system.
16) Waypoint lists for many parts of the world.
For more general information on GPS, mapping, datums, NMEA,
DGPS, see for example
Trimble's 'All about GPS',
http://vancouver-webpages.com/pub/peter/index.html
and
http://www.cnde.iastate.edu/staff/swormley/gps/gps.html.
Peter Bennett and Sam Wormley have a wealth of information of many types on and
about GPS on their websites. In addition, you will
find hundreds of pointers to still more websites on these FAQ sites. You can learn fast by a) First take a look at the FAQ websites and then b) ask
questions on the newsgroup if you do not find the answer on one of the FAQ
sites. The FAQ website's answer to your question is likely to: a) be more
detailed than a newsgroup response and b) lead you to more
information about whatever you are wondering about.
If you don't find the
answer on the FAQ sites> please feel free to ask any question whatsoever
via the <news:sci.geo.satellite-nav>
newsgroup.
The Garmin 'GPS
III Plus'
It is reviewed by Joe
Mehaffey. I bought the 'European Edition' of this GPS receiver in February 2000 from 21store.com
for £336.50.
It was provided with a manual and a cable to connect it to a PC serial port. The
display was monochrome. The device has mapped my route on foot, in a car and
on the flight deck and in a passenger compartment of a commercial Boeing 737
plane. It does not have an audible
alarm but displays a message when alarms are set.
Using the 'GPSIII Plus' in a
car: I bought from Lowe
Electronics Ltd. an 'Electronics Power/Data Cable'. This set of two linked
cables powered the receiver from
a car cigar lighter socket and connected the receiver to the serial port of a
notebook computer. I also bought an 'In Car Power Inverter' from Peripheral
Corner Ltd. to provide power to the portable computer. The receiver
was mounted with the supplied Velcro strips above the dashboard of a car, away
from the airbag.
Maps for the 'GPSIII Plus'
The European edition of this 12-channel GPS receiver
was supplied with the 'Atlantic' base maps already installed. These can
not be changed or deleted. The American base maps, which provide details of
the American continents, are provided in the 'GPS III Plus' sold in the USA.
There is also an 'International
version of the hardware.
Garmin receivers can display ( one
at a time), four types of proprietary map, either 'base', which is
provided in the receiver, 'topographical', 'roads and recreation' or
'MetroGuide'. The last three classes of map have to be purchased and
uploaded to the receiver, before they can be viewed. Map types present in the
device are displayed rapidly in the above order, when
the receiver is switched on. The last one in sequence is retained for
continuous display. Maps cannot be displayed superimposed. If you have all four types of map data for the same area
loaded into the receiver at one time, you may see briefly the flickering of the
first three types before the 'MetroGuide' map is finally displayed. Other
areas, for which there is no data, are shown with cross-hashes. Each of the
installed map sections can be disabled/enabled, selectively. This means that
you can load both topographical and R&R or MetroGuide data for the same area,
to give a choice of what type of data to display. It is possible to turn off the
' MapSource' map display in the 'GPSIII Plus' and just use the ' base' maps, if desired.
It is only possible to upload to the 'GPS III Plus' maps which are provided by Garmin, as the device will only accept maps in
Garmin's proprietary format.
I decided that I needed to use
good quality maps of countries outside Europe in my 'GPSIII Plus', so I bought
the Garmin CDs called 'WorldMap' v 2,
from 21store.com.
It provides additional detailed maps of much of the
World including the USA. I also wanted to display more details of UK roads, so
I purchased the 'UK Roads and
Recreation' CD from Lowe
Electronics Ltd. Note, that if you use your GPS in the UK and want to show
a location in Ordnance Survey map reference format, then you should change the
grid from 'WGS84' to 'OSGB'.
The Garmin 'StreetPilot'
III Atlantic version receiver with MapSource City Navigator for the UK will be
released in late 2001. Although the trip and
waypoint management functions of the 'UK MetroGuide' will work with the
'GPSIIIPlus' receiver, the map download features on the CD will not. This
means that detailed street-level dynamic mapping of the quality found in Delorme's 'Street Atlas' v 7 maps,
are not available for the 'GPSIII Plus' in the UK. However, a CD of UK street
maps called 'Travelmanager
Office' is available and works well as stand-alone software for
street-level mapping and planning journeys. It has no interface to
GPS receivers, yet. There is no comparable product in the UK to the US Datus 'PNA' portable hand-held vehicle navigation system.
The 'GPSIII Plus' has about 1.45-MB of memory space
(the same amount as a MSDOS 3.5" floppy) for storing Garmin maps, which
can be viewed instead of the 'base' installed maps. Selected maps from Garmin CD-ROMs can be uploaded to
the 'GPSIII Plus' receiver from a computer using the serial cable and MapSource
program, which is installed when Garmin 'MapSource' CDs are installed. Press 'MENU > MAPSOURCE INFO > KBytes used' to show how much
memory space is already occupied by uploaded maps. This display also shows the total
memory capacity of the device. The 'MapSource' program, which is installed from the
CD-ROM, can also be used for several functions, in addition to uploading maps.
These are:
(a) to upload/download routes, tracks and waypoints to the GPS
(b) to enable the user to manually generate a route and upload them
(c) to print maps
(d) to manually input waypoints and routes onto the map for later upload
(e) to edit waypoints, both on the map and in text form.
GPS-capable route-planning and moving-map software:
There are many programs that can
be used in conjunction with a GPS device to show
the current GPS location and selected places which is displayed in a moving map on a
computer monitor. Many can also upload and download data to GPS receivers.
Here are some I found, in alphabetical order:
- 'Autoroute
2002', Microsoft's road and route planning maps with GPS support and excellent street and area code location for
Great Britain, Austria, Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, Spain and
Switzerland.
- Note that the GPS
navigation data is only updated every fifteen seconds by default, which is too slow
for anyone using a GPS system in a car with Autoroute 2002. You can
reduce the update to two seconds, using a Hex editor to alter either 'Autorout.exe' for Autoroute 2002 or for 'Street.exe'
in MS-Streets&Trips.
If you want to alter 'Autorout.exe', first, copy 'Autorout.exe' to a
backup file, such as 'Autorout_back.exe', in case you make a mistake and want to use the unaltered
program again. 'Autorout.exe' is found in the 'Autoroute' directory in
'c:\Program Files'. Now, open 'Autorout.exe' with a Hex
editor and search for the binary Hex string 'BF983A0000'. The '983A' is the value 0x3A98 (15 seconds).
Change 983A to E803 (value 0x3E8) and save the file. Now, the GPS navigation data will be updated every two
seconds when you use the program. The same procedure works for
Autoroute 2001.
If you are using 'frhed' as the
HEX editor, enter the string '<bh:bf><bh:98><bh:3a><bh:00><bh:00>',
in the 'Edit | 'Find' dialogue box. (Copy and paste '<bh:bf><bh:98><bh:3a><bh:00><bh:00>'
without the apostrophes at the beginning and end, into the 'Find' box.
'b' is for byte and 'h' is for hex notation.) When the string has been
highlighted in yellow, click on the '9' of the '98' and type 'e8' to
change '98' to 'e8' and then type '03' to overwrite '3a' . When you
are sure that you have done this correctly, save the edited file and
exit. If you have any problems, close the edited file without saving
it, open it again and try once more. If all else fails, rename the
saved version of 'Autorout.exe' back to its original name.
- 'EPS'.
A Java charting program with many features,
that runs in Netscape 'Navigator'.
- 'flexGPS'.
Freeware.
- 'Fugawi'.
Northport Systems Inc. Canada. US$95.
- 'Gartrip'
By Heinrich Pfeifer, Germany. US$30 shareware. A trial version is
available, with limitations.
- 'GPS
Positioner Pro'. Freeware.
- 'GPS
Utility' is a freeware/shareware program with many features.
- 'GPSS',
UK in-car moving map with voice input and output functions.
- 'IBIS'.
Freeware.
- 'MapBlast'.
- 'Mayko
Xmap' runs under Linux.
- Memory map
sells base software @ £70 or £100 for GPS compatibility and then £25 per map set
thereafter. Map coverage varies, but as a guide, Scotland is available in 4 sets.
At the moment all the 50,000 series are available and as soon as Ordnance
Survey provides digital versions of 25,000 series maps, they will offer
them as well. Download the 30-day evaluation copy, then register it at the website,
to enable printing for that period. You can print as many maps as you
wish, for private use.
- 'Navigate-GPS'.
21-day evaluation available.
- 'NavPak'.
Global Navigation Co. US$ 180, 50% less for the 'lite' version.
- 'NeverLost'.
Australia. A$95. A two month trial full version is available.
- 'OziExplorer'.
Australia. US$75.00. Shareware.
- 'QuoVadis'.
Touratech, Germany. £94.16 shareware with several CDs.
A map scanning service is available.
- 'Route
66' by Geographic Information Systems B.V.
- 'Route
Master' by ISYS Systems, phone +44 870-160 4447. UK route planning and GPS
software, using Ordnance Survey maps. Free in
the July 2000 'PC Magazine' UK CD-ROM.
- 'SeaClear'.
Freeware nautical charting program.
- 'Waypoint+
'by Brent Hildebrand. Freeware to upload and download routes, tracks
and waypoints from a Garmin GPS device to a PC.
- WinGPS
Pro and WinGPS 398 shareware.
Other GPS links:
