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#114607 - 12/03/07 02:32 PM Do you find GPS useful in the car?
picard120 Offline
Old Hand

Registered: 07/10/05
Posts: 763
Does anyone use after market GPS device from Garmin/Trimble for your car?

Do you find a GPS useful in preventing you from getting lost on the road?

I am considering getting after market GPS for the car. I have tendency of getting lost.

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#114610 - 12/03/07 02:38 PM Re: Do you find GPS useful in the car? [Re: picard120]
Nomad Offline
Addict

Registered: 05/04/02
Posts: 493
Loc: Just wandering around.
We live in a RV. No fixed location so we move constantly. We use GPS constantly. So we are never lost, even in unknown cities or very rural roads.

Perhaps not necessary if you only drive the same roads everyday, but if you travel in unknown areas, I consider a GPS a must have item.
_________________________
...........From Nomad.........Been "on the road" since '97

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#114612 - 12/03/07 02:42 PM Re: Do you find GPS useful in the car? [Re: Nomad]
Brangdon Offline
Veteran

Registered: 12/12/04
Posts: 1204
Loc: Nottingham, UK
I have a Garmin GPSMap 60 and I do find it useful when driving. It's not ideal for in-car navigation as it doesn't have voice output (it just beeps at you) or traffic condition updates. However, it is a handheld device which can also be used for waking or on a bicycle, so it's quite versatile.
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Quality is addictive.

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#114617 - 12/03/07 03:25 PM Re: Do you find GPS useful in the car? [Re: picard120]
benjammin Offline
Rapscallion
Carpal Tunnel

Registered: 02/06/04
Posts: 4020
Loc: Anchorage AK
Yes, though I never have used it yet for that.
_________________________
The ultimate result of shielding men from the effects of folly is to fill the world with fools.
-- Herbert Spencer, English Philosopher (1820-1903)

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#114631 - 12/03/07 04:34 PM Re: Do you find GPS useful in the car? [Re: Brangdon]
Russ Offline
Geezer

Registered: 06/02/06
Posts: 5357
Loc: SOCAL
I have an old Garmin GPS V that also doesn't talk, the beeps are all I need, voice would be an annoyance. I use mine primarily for ETA's and making fuel stop decisions. When I get in town with lots of streets and different ways to get someplace, it's nice to know that if I miss my turn or take the wrong street the GPS just recalculates a different route. It's hard to get lost.
_________________________
Better is the Enemy of Good Enough.
Okay, what’s your point??

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#114635 - 12/03/07 04:54 PM Re: Do you find GPS useful in the car? [Re: picard120]
unimogbert Offline
Old Hand

Registered: 08/10/06
Posts: 882
Loc: Colorado
If I have coordinates for my destination my simple handheld GPS is quite useful. Having an arrow pointing "over there" as I miss my turn and have to loop back has been very helpful. On a business trip a colleague drove 30 minutes beyond the turnoff before he realized he'd missed it. (He was an hour late.)

That's a pretty basic use of GPS and is about all I seem to need. The biggest trick with it is getting coordinates for addresses. In one case I learned that a particular street had house numbers that followed the Japanese style of being in chronological order rather than logical order :-) GPS helped me find the street but the database didn't have the right house order. (I had to call & ask)

Routing, talking, suggesting routes by the GPS is unknown to me.

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#114643 - 12/03/07 06:31 PM Re: Do you find GPS useful in the car? [Re: unimogbert]
Hacksaw
Unregistered


I bought a TomTom Go 910 when I drove to San Francisco...wouldn't have been nearly as fun a drive without it. Around home it spends most of it's time in it's case but if I need to find a place I've never been to before, it's the first thing I turn on in the Jeep.

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#114668 - 12/03/07 11:01 PM Re: Do you find GPS useful in the car? [Re: picard120]
OldBaldGuy Offline
Geezer

Registered: 09/30/01
Posts: 5695
Loc: Former AFB in CA, recouping fr...
Ours is a Magellan Meridian handheld, with a powered mount in the P/U, and their Mapserve Topo data loaded in it for whatever location we happen to be. Not as good as some of the GPS units that are designed specifically for vehicle use (screen is pretty small by comparison), but good enough for most of our needs...
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OBG

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#114670 - 12/03/07 11:05 PM Re: Do you find GPS useful in the car? [Re: ]
Huck Offline
Stranger

Registered: 04/14/07
Posts: 12
I have a Garmin 330 (I think). Its the flat screen unit. It does great! I serve legal documents as a side business and it has never let me down. We drove from WI to FL and never opened a map one time from my house all the way to my brother in laws, it took us right to their door. It tells you to take the lane changes and all. I got the model with the built in MP3 player and hooked up a FM radio converter to it so it would play the music through the car stereo. It takes an SD card or you can load music into the internal memory. I recommend them to anyone traveling into unknown territory.

Huck

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#114674 - 12/03/07 11:22 PM Re: Do you find GPS useful in the car? [Re: picard120]
Roarmeister Offline
Old Hand

Registered: 09/12/01
Posts: 960
Loc: Saskatchewan, Canada
The GPS is only as good as the maps you have stored in it. crazy
I use it while geocaching and I have encountered mysterious roads on the map where only a farmers field lay. I've also found roads that I normally wouldn't have found because I blinked as I drove by.

It is useful but be careful you don't follow the electronic maps religiously as sometimes you'll end up in somebodies yard or worse.

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