Fun With A GPS

Hi

Before anyone can tell you what maps may possibly be on the GPS units you have, you will need to state what make and model GPS units you are referring to. There are many different types of GPS and many different map sets.

Cheers
Greg

Also if you have it set to avoid unmade roads, shortest or longest route and a whole heap of variables.

With all due respect, how would you expect us to know what maps your GPS is using?
Go into your 'settings' & check the map info & it should show you the map version.

A lot of GPSs use data from Whereis. That is Telstra!!!!

Hi Bill,

you may want to look at your route settings as Notso suggests. Also you may need to delete waypoints along the way if you do not go exactly to them. When I did my first trip with my Hema for the second half of the first day out it kept doing something like you are describing. When I'd set the route I'd just specified town centres along the way but didn't necessarily go through those centres so it kept sending me back to the ones I missed...then at one stage it was trying to send me home to start all over again as I re-loaded the route when trying to fix the town centre problem :)

Mine is ok until I get to the roadworks (near home and also near Gympie, Qld) and it doesn't understand why I choose to follow the highway's new configuration. I understand that one.
But then it tells me that my house is on the left side of the street when I live on the right!
And that, my friends, is why I always travel with paper maps as well, and take what my GPS sweetie tells me with rather a handful of salt!
:)

Thanks for the replies so far

The two GPS units used were a Navman move50 & a Navig[8]r C50. Both bought within the last 6 months so presume the latest maps installed. Both set to only show destination. No waypoints along the way. Only set to show the quickest route. No exclusions for dirt roads etc.

Question was how old were the maps as some of the instructions seemed to relate to the Cobb & Co days.

First queried instruction was 11 Km from home told to take a left turn. This was onto a property access road. It may wind its way through the bush to eventually emerge near Emerald because on travelling West told to take a dirt road on the edge of town. Will take the 4wd one day to see where it goes.

The main problem was at the R'ton end with being told to turn onto non existent roads, drive in circles. Where a road existed it was shown on the screen most times. That was how we knew it was telling us to drive in circles or take a long detour off the h'way via a gravel road.

These were the ones from the last trip. Two previous GPS units showed all sorts of errors in different parts of CQ. This is our home territory so errors are usually noticed easily.

Not concerned myself as I usually use paper maps & when I do use the GPS it is to find my way through large cities.

But what about inexperienced travellers who trust these units. I know they shouldn't but they do.

So; How old are some of these maps & are they ever revised & updated? Can look it up on the unit but that doesn't tell me how accurate they are. Some nautical charts are pretty much as Matthew Flinders drew them so maybe some of our GPS maps hark back to old army maps or Cobb & Co days.

It was done as an amusement on a long boring drive but did raise some interesting thoughts & some exploring to do some time. Bill

I understand what Bill experienced. We recently got and updat for the VMS box and with it came new maps for the inbuilt street navigation. And new default settings. The first thing I did was to deselect Toll ways and Motorways.

I rarely used the last model so I thought I would turn it on and check it out on a simple drive to Sydney on the Hume. I get to the Mittagong and Nowra/Wollongong turn off and it wants me to leave the highway. Blowed if I will so I stick to the Hume wondering what the hell is going on. I am not about to stop and fiddle nor try to change while moving. So I get all these instructions to turn off the Hume. I just turned it off.

On the way home from Parramatta it wants me to head into the city. Again some annoying instructions until I stopped at Pheasants Nest for a cuppa. It has the route planned to go down the Princess Highway to Wollongong then up the Macquarie Pass to Mittagong and back to the Hume. I select Toll roads and it pops back to the Hume. Since when was the Hume Highway a Toll road and no "Recalculating" sounds from it after that. Ahhhh

Bloody things. It's no wonder those Asian tourists simply drove into Morton Bay.

Phil

If you ask 2 people how to get from A to B you will almost certainly get 2 answers. And sometimes they even get the route wrong!

GPS's are simply little computers working on map data. The map data and programs are written by people so guess what!

Like any tool, GPS are simply a tool, not the wealth of all navigation knowledge.

The latest version inbuilt GPS in a Toyota uses mapping from 2010 ...

Again Thanks all. If anyone at any time can tell me what maps are being used (who drew them) & especially age (when last revised) I would appreciate it.

So far over the last 9 years I've used a Tom-Tom, Garman, Navman & Navig[8]r. Tom-Tom would have been the best but all showed misdirections at times particularly when older roads away from towns. Bill

DesF's Post says it all.

.

They are not maps as we know them Bill.

Pure data files as in the output of a GPS itself and extra data added to describe the surrounding like speed limits, school etc etc etc.

Nothing to resemble hema or gregory maps. Just pure data that means something to the little people who live in the GPS. No pictures and nothing drawn.

Catchya

Phil

The message is loud and clear.

DO NOT blindly trust any GPS.

Even though the GPS may have been purchased in the last week, the maps may be out of date.
Many GPS units you get a single free update directly after purchase.

Most road navigator GPS companies update at least every 6 months.

Even with the most recent updates, they can be wrong...they just dont update minor or obscure roads.

Of course you have slip lane or service road syndrome, where the resolution of the GPS can not account for you beeing on the main road or highway, and being on a slip road or paralell access road.

Then you have the routing algoritims.....on the lower priced units they are not at all clever.

OH there are the routing options.

These GPS uints are just fabulous for finding an address in a particular street or finding a street in a partricular neibourhood, or letting you know where you need to turn......but for actual navigation they are piss #@$y poor.

I have always refeered to my paper maps ( on road or on the water) to know where I am going and how I want to get there.

Except for a couple of ocasions where I have been a bit lazy.....I have regretted it every time.

I don't have to go past the end of my street before I know the the route planned by the GPS is not the best way to go.

Around town, no matter where I go the GPS will be telling me to turn at places I know damn well are not clever, and recalculating its route.

Its regular tricks are, taking you where you have to do right turns across very busy roads, where two streets up there are trafic lights.

Planning convoluted routes thru backs streets when the main road or a minor arterial is way quicker and easier.

Oh in a truck or towing a trailer putting you thru very narrow streets with redicuously tight truns where you sinply wont fit, or up and down very steep hills.

They cant be beat for calling out the turnings a several hundred meters out, long before you could read the street signs and preventing you overshooting highway exist you know you want.

But as a blind navicational device...Um NO.

cheers

Funny that the OP should mention that stretch of road.
When I input Rockhampton into my Garmin 1490T about 3 years when in Emerald, it suggested a route via Townsville!

I ignored it and turned it off.
The worst it did to me when I was looking for Paddy's Market in Sydney, it took me up William st then via The cross city tunnel . When I got to the end of the tunnel it said turn right turn right . Seeing I had not been through the tunnel before I did and ended up on the Harbour Bridge and doing a loop of North Sydney.
On return I went down Sussex, and went straight to Paddys but I wasn't very happy ( understatement). I only keyed it in as I thought that there may have been some new one ways since I had last been there.

Regards Philip A

Quite a lot of GPS share datas from whereis..