JPTL

Rod,
Which Garmin is good for water?
Does it show depths as well?

Adrian_

You mean a sonar or a GPS that incorporates a depth chart?



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1979 Euro

blown 87

That sucks.

69gaugeman

I have the 176C which is colour. It has the maps that are the latest. They show all bouys rocks, cribs, underground cables, etc. It is the actual nav map that you would normally use.

It has been superseded now. Not sure of what model. 8 years ago I paid ~ $900 with maps of the great lakes. It had waas as it had just come out and was accurate to a couple of meters

You can buy maps on a chip, or a blank one and buy the cd and add as you go.

Blue chart are the maps

JPTL

Not a sonar, but a GPS that has the depths that you'd find on a nautical chart (from NOAA for instance).
Shame the naut. GPS' are so pricey...I guess supply & demand.
I'm thinking of what $900 could buy for my Shark (I was straying too far off topic)

Adrian_

Don't waste 900$ on a car GPS. This toys are all about the map and the antenna, al the fancy 3D crap is totally useless when the stupid thing actually puts at 30 meters the crossroad you're already in. (both the current GPS, which is US military stuff, and it's russian counterpart are accurate and ofer real-time positioning only when used with proper military equipment, we will have to wait until 2013 in order to get civilian stuff that actually works http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galileo_positioning_system ).


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1979 Euro

Nightfly

Looks like your unit picked up the infamous Garmin back road virus. Invented by an insane rally driver, it takes you through the worst roads possible, alternating with toll roads with construction delays, school zones, and two lane roads loaded with Winnebagos.


Seriously; mine has taken me down the off ramp, just to get back on the very same highway three times, and there was no sign of construction or anything. That was when the maps were new (I haven't updated them cause I'm cheap; anyone know where to download an image of a new garmin map cd?).

hacker-pschorr

I can zoom in / out in the 3D mode to see 5-6 blocks ahead to plan a route around what the GPS wants me to do. Comes in very handy when I see an upcoming traffic jam. I can quickly look at the map to see a route that goes around the congestion. Worked great in Chicago, not really necessary in Green Bay.

blown 87

Not quite, it is one hell of lot closer than 30 meters.
My cousin was on the design team, but trust me on this 30 meters is not near close enough for IFR aircraft.

It was 30 meters when the US had SA turned on, but that has been off since the early 90's.

Adrian_

Don't get me wrong, if you sit on a spot with the GPS in the car it will eventually place you on the map with a decent accuracy for a civil aplication. But don't tell me you didn't noticed that when driving (at moderate, urban speed) the GPS tends to be somehow "behind" your actual position, and this happens even if you set the refresh interval at the minimum allowed. It's particullary anoying in big european cities, built well before urban planning, where the street network sometimes looks chaotic.

I've had the chance to use specialised, military equipment on a couple of occasions, and it's a total different game when it comes to this kind of things.



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1979 Euro

Abby Normal

Track days my friend!

hacker-pschorr

Nope, not an issue. As the graphic shows me approaching a street, I see the street sign out my windshield.

Even at highway speeds the graphic shows me moving under an overpass damn close to my actual position.
At city speeds it's about as dead on as you can get.
Like I said before, I've used it many times to plan an "escape route" when I noticed something ahead I wanted to avoid, even at highway speeds.

How old is your unit? Even the Magellan units Hertz has been installing for 6-7 years refreshes at a damn good speed.

There are rare cases like taking an access road along the highway when it thinks you are staying on the interstate. In that situation I'm driving parallel to the main road, and it takes a bit for the GPS to recognize I altered course and update my route accordingly.

blown 87

If I ever get the funds I am going to turn the 89 into a track car.

But you know what I mean, if the interstates were ok to go 70 in the early 70's in the god awful cars we had then, we should be allowed to go faster in cars that are built for it.

How you been man, did you get moved again?

AO

I used my GPS to navigate the mountain roads in NC for SITM this past summer. I zoomed it way in and it helped me a little to decide how tight the blind turns were going to be. It wasn't perfect, but it was better than nothing.

Adrian_

Old? hehe, I used this year Garmin 255 and 760, and now I switched to a Blaupunkt Lucca 5.3 in order to be able to try the iGo software. Which sucks btw .

The parallel acces road glitch is a classic one, once I drove well over a km before it figured out I left the highway, and the distance between lane 1 of the highway and the acces road was more then 15 meters when it finally re-routed.

As I said, our different perception might come from the differences between the street network in US and Europe cities. When you have two lefts separated by 5-10 meters any civilian Gps I used has a problem if the software doesn't instruct it to tell you "take the second left".

Or maybe uncle Sam allows better GPS readings for the civilian use on US soil (but this kinda makes no sense)


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1979 Euro