Bluetooth GPS

G'day

The place to go for good info would be Johnny Appleseed GPS. They are at Annerley and of course here. I am just going through the process myself with a view to purchasing a PDA with Blue Tooth, WI FI and storage cards etc. I am leaning towards your thoughts of blue tooth GPS.

Regards

Paul

Troll, bought one on eBay a few short weeks back as I did with a $0.99 plus much bigger postage cost bluetooth dongle. I was amazed how the dongle just so quickly logged into the receiver. I have a velcro point near the top of the screen to use it in the ute and another mid top of the dashboard for the car. In the ute I have built a charger point into the overhead ST console where a switch may normally be situated. Hidden when not in use.

To tell you how the bluetooth GPS went - I turned it off in Geelong where it had Destinated me to the dental surgery. On return home 160 kms away from Geelong the dongle was in the mail box, so I took it in and plugged it in the laptop - no previous connection there with bluetooth. Sat the GPS on the window sill, under an 8' veranda - 8' wide and high. To my amazement it took me straight to Geelong where the previous connection had been. Five minutes later it had found enough satellites to position me at home, yes, under the wide veranda!

There are a few guys around with them and they work amazingly well. It's normally to run via a PDA though.

Yea I saw them on ebay as well...first saw them on the garmin site for very expensive but I can get one on ebay for around the $100 mark I think. I already have the USB bluetooth receiver for the laptop...but I just wonder if I am going to have problems pairing the GPS bluetooth receiver with the USB bluetooth receiver

Got an Emtac bluetooth GPS, which must have fallen off the back of a truck, off ebay and use with the Bluetooth Ipaq or Thinkpad and dongle bluetooth.

Works a treat. Bluetooth as a technology can be a bit unreliable but hasn't worried this setup.
cheers
John

I am in the process of going down a similar path. I've just bought a new HP HX4700 pda and intent to hook it up to a bluetooth receiver. My research has suggested that you get one that has the new SiRF Star III chipset. The two brands are Globalsat and Holux. Both are available from eBay. Apparently the new chip is really sensitive and gives you a good signal where other will not. Both are rechargeable or can be run from 12 volts so you can pretty much mount them anywhere. I'm going to look at mounting mine behind the rear view mirror. The problem that I have is which mapping software to use. I'll use Oziexplorer for off roading but also want to run something like Destinator or Copilot for running around the suburbs to make the most of the set up but they are pretty expensive.

I've got a BT gps and it works great.

Now, if you're going to try for a PDA instead, they aren't being advertised but someone in the trade told me they have ordered a CDMA version of the XDA IIi Now that would be the puppy to have.
Its a PDA (fastest on the market still I believe at 520mhz) with WIFI, Bluetooth and a CDMA phone. I have the GSM version and its without doubt the best toy I've ever had. Maps look a bit small but adequate. Destinator is great and I've just tried TomTom which in the UK was the bomb and looks just as good here (though it had my street as a WAY instead of a CLOSE, but none of them are perfect). I haven't tried it in the car yet but I'm looking forward to actually having roundabouts described right to me (unlike Destinator) and best of all.... I got the voice pack for it so its gonna be John Cleese telling me where to go :-)

I dunno if there is even a route calling package available for a laptop, something like Destinator.

Oh yeah, on the subject of the BT GPS, with a PDA you can stick it in your pocket when you go walking. A bit harder with a laptop. You can however stick the GPS reciever outside and go inside and sit under the aircon while you're planning your route :-)