Electronic Navigation

If I was you I would use your PDA with OziCE but if you find the screen is hard to read use your laptop with a touch screen on the dash

my 2 cents

I have no issues mounting the laptop in the car as it is a spare.
Although it is pretty old, it is a Dell which we purchased about 6 years ago, I am not sure of its specs but if I were to use it for navigation it would be set up purely for navigation.

Would I need to purchase two programmes to run on laptop and PDA or does the one version of Oziexplorer cover both.

Just use DiscoverAus on your lap top with your Magellan, so you have a bigger screen to look at and easier to plan ahead with and passenger and drive have a screen to look at as well. We have an old Mederian Gold and it all works great on the with the laptop. I have Oziexplorer, NatMap Raster and find DiscoverAus the best to use so far anyway.
Cheers Bruce.

If you want the BEST option, then go the laptop. Fits the best maps - Raster Mosaic, and UBD City Streets are hard/impossible to use on anything but a laptop. Has the biggest screen etc etc. Its also the hardest to mount. The UBD maps need Windows XP. Ozi works great on Windows98 or greater.

The PDA's are harder to use - you need both Ozi and Ozi CE; You need to convert maps to OZF2 format, if not already done so, and you are severely restricted in putting the big maps on. Some people find the screen is too small, and others seem to frequently have problems managing track files etc. Its Ok if you're quite computer literate, but a nuisance if you're not. But they are dead easy to mount, and can easily be linked to a bluetooth GPS.

I don't know about your Magellan, but it seems that you can't use the Raster and Hema maps on the vast majority of these things. It is nice to have a full GPS, so you have something that works, should the laptop or inverter stuff up.

If you want the VERY BEST option, buy a Tablet PC.

We've got both a laptop and pda and these days just use the pda as it is easy to mount and hide (when parked), touch screen and although the eyesight isn't what it used to be it is clear enough to read while driving.
As Phil said though it is handy to be able to use the laptop to get a bigger picture and plan stuff.
I usually organise all the maps for a trip and put them onto a memory card at home from the desktop, take a copy of the raster and Hema maps with you in case.
To use Oziexplorer you need both Oziexplorer installed on the desktop/laptop and Oziexplorer CE on the pda.
When downloading maps to the memory card put the card in the pda and use the pda's usb cable as I've found you get less errors than with a dock station.
Before downloading maps they need to be converted to OZF format on the desktop then downloaded. Some maps like the Hema GDT come in the correct format already.

Thanks for the replies.
It seems about 50/50 for laptop versus pda.
I think given that we will be in cape york for 18 months I will go the laptop option.
I don't really need to hide it up there, I will either be in the middle of nowhere, hopefully not lost, or the troopy will be parked up and I will take the laptop home to Thursday Island with me.
I will load Tom Tom or something similar on the pda and use that when we venture back in to civilisation.

So as far as Cape York is concerned, all I would need would be Oziexplorer CE and the electronic version of Hemas Cape York map?

Cheers, Jack

Hi Jack

Sell the PDA

Sell the laptop

Buy some paper maps.

Use the GPS

The overwhelming mode of travel is likely to be driving around on the relatively few roads and using you GPS to confirm a position against the maps.

If you get lost for some reason , the best action is to turn around and follow your GPS trace back to somewhere you know , hence you will need to be familar with this process as part of your GPS learning curve.

Robin Miller

Robin,

That is probably the most sensible option.

But I just love having toys and gadgets.

I have done the cape before and as I remember the route was pretty simple.

As far as getting there is concerned we only have about 7 days to do the trip, including a night in Cairns. We plan on making it to the start of the OTL without too much mucking around and the having fun from there up.
We will then catch the ferry to TI and into our new house.
We then have 18 months to explore the tip and surrounds on weekends etc.
After 18 months on TI we plan on living in Cairns for about a year so we can explore the southern parts of the cape then.

Cheers, Jack