GPS units?

[Ryan McGinnis]

Thought I'd tap the chaser hive-mind on this one. I've been trying to reduce clutter in my car during chases. Right now I use my laptop and Delorme for mapping; I think this is a great piece of software, but I've been wondering: how good are consumer car-mounted GPS units for storm chasing? I'm talking about the typical TomTom / Garmin / whatever in-car units out there. How good are these units when it comes to mapping gravel and dirt roads? Are the displays as intuitive as using Delorme?

 

[Wes Carter]

Ryan, I have a Garmin Nuvi and a TomTom XL340S. Both have some shortcomings in their maps. With the TomTom, it does not have some of the newer roads in it, and it shows driveways and some cow paths as being roads. Also, there are old roads that show up. I live in Tennessee, which uses a lot of hydroelectric power. There are places where the old road goes under water but shows up on the TomTom as a viable road.

The Garmin has it's own issues. Some of the roads are misplaced. The street I live on is shown as being about 250 yards further west than it really is. Some of the road names are outdated. Highway 11-W in East Tennessee is listed as the Lee Highway, a name I never heard associated with 11-W.

The TomTom units tend to be easier to customize but have a much longer start up time, sometimes taking a minute or two to lock onto satellites. The Garmin seems to lock on almost instantaneously most of the time. The Garmin mount is much more sturdy than the little disc mount that the TomTom uses.

Comparing them to Streets and Trips and DeLorme Street Atlas, my experience is that the DeLorme maps are more reliable than Streets and Trips, and Streets and Trips is more reliable than either brand of standalone GPS.

TomTom map updates are rather expensive, almost as much as buying a new GPS. You get one free year of updates supposedly but I had a hard time getting those and the customer service has not been very receptive. Even at that, I think they both work pretty good most of the time for general navigation. But I'm not so sure that I would trust them for navigating when on a dangerous storm. They will do fine for the most part for getting to the target area.

Please keep in mind that this is just my experience, and people who live in other areas might have different experiences than mine. But I usually use DeLorme Street Atlas when chasing. It hasn't burned me yet, but then again I don't put on the miles that some of the other people on here do.

I hope Mark Blue chimes in, I've been talking to him about GPS the past couple of days, and he seems like he has a really good handle on them.

On a side note, I am also trying to clean up the cables and clutter in my ride to simplify things. I just ordered two Bluetooth GPS units to compare, the DeLorme BT-20 and the Globalsat BT-359.

 

[Mark Blue]

Thanks for the props Wes and I have enjoyed our offline conversations as much as you have it seems. The one thing about the units you are considering Ryan is that they are stand alone units for the most part. If you wanted to use them with the Delorme software it will not work because Tom Tom and Garmin units do not send the data signal out in an NMEA format that the Delorme software can understand. I think Wes covered it pretty well that they aren't probably as good for chasing as Delorme would be in combination with a GPS puck.

It sounds like you already have a GPS puck of some sort that you are using with the Delorme software Ryan. Perhaps you could let us know what type of setup you have so we can tailor our advice to your configuration? If you are looking to reduce clutter definitely go with a Bluetooth puck of some sort as that eliminates one more cable.

I really have to say that the Delorme software in conjunction with a GPS puck (of some sort) works well for the most part, but I have started to collect the Delorme Gazateer Atlases for each state as there is no substitute for a paper map when you find yourself chasing BF Egypt and need to get a handle on the local roads. The Gazateer atlases are updated every few years, so it's also important to check the copyright date inside the front cover so the one you purchase is the most current version. You can cross reference the date on the Delorme website to ensure you are purchasing the latest and greatest. They can be found here: Gazateer Atlas. Let us know if we can help get you squared away Ryan.

 

[Ryan Schwartz]

The consumer car-mounted GPS units do not output NMEA in a traditional format and require proprietary software from the vendor to read the GPS output. You might be better off sticking with a GPS puck to use with your laptop mapping software. If you are willing to use up more bandwidth to have the latest streets, then Google Earth is an option (which apparently works with Garmin - never have tried it before).

Or if you do get a car nav unit, for an additional charge, you can subscribe to map update services from Garmin or TomTom to get up to 4 new maps a year. I know Garmin's service runs about $100 and it still takes a year or two for new roads to show up from the time the road is completed to when it shows up on the GPS (depends if it's a major artery or a neighborhood street).

 

[Ryan McGinnis]

Thanks for the props Wes and I have enjoyed our offline conversations as much as you have it seems. The one thing about the units you are considering Ryan is that they are stand alone units for the most part. If you wanted to use them with the Delorme software it will not work because Tom Tom and Garmin units do not send the data signal out in an NMEA format that the Delorme software can understand. I think Wes covered it pretty well that they aren't probably as good for chasing as Delorme would be in combination with a GPS puck.

It sounds like you already have a GPS puck of some sort that you are using with the Delorme software Ryan. Perhaps you could let us know what type of setup you have so we can tailor our advice to your configuration? If you are looking to reduce clutter definitely go with a Bluetooth puck of some sort as that eliminates one more cable.

I really have to say that the Delorme software in conjunction with a GPS puck (of some sort) works well for the most part, but I have started to collect the Delorme Gazateer Atlases for each state as there is no substitute for a paper map when you find yourself chasing BF Egypt and need to get a handle on the local roads. The Gazateer atlases are updated every few years, so it's also important to check the copyright date inside the front cover so the one you purchase is the most current version. You can cross reference the date on the Delorme website to ensure you are purchasing the latest and greatest. They can be found here: Gazateer Atlas. Let us know if we can help get you squared away Ryan.

Hi -- actually I'm looking to banish my laptop altogether from the vehicle, which is why I was considering standalone GPS units. Whether or not I can make this work will be the main determinant as to whether I grab an iPhone from Verizon next year (for the realtime radar and GPS overlay in Radarscope -- the iPhone makes a great in-car radar HUD) or whether I stick with what I have. I'd like to get away with no laptop while chasing if I can, but I've found that laptop mapping is hard to beat. I'm hoping that consumer stand-alone in-car GPS units have come far enough to replace things like Delorme.

 

[Darren Addy]

Ryan, I know you use Radarscope on the iPod touch. Have you looked at xGPS for the iPhone/iPod Touch? Or is it not practical to switch back and forth between apps (don't know much about using apps on the iPod Touch).

Silly as it sounds, it might be worth running TWO wi-fi connected iPod Touches, one for xGPS and one for Radarscope.

See also: https://www.orangegadgets.com/shop/product_info.php?cPath=1_2&products_id=1

 

[Ryan McGinnis]

Ryan, I know you use Radarscope on the iPod touch. Have you looked at xGPS for the iPhone/iPod Touch? Or is it not practical to switch back and forth between apps (don't know much about using apps on the iPod Touch).

Silly as it sounds, it might be worth running TWO wi-fi connected iPod Touches, one for xGPS and one for Radarscope.

See also: https://www.orangegadgets.com/shop/product_info.php?cPath=1_2&products_id=1

This could work; but the problem that I run into is that most of the iPhone mapping apps are hard-coded to require an iPhone, and many of those that run on the iPhone (including the one you linked to) rely on Google Maps or online mapping services, meaning no data = no maps. The kinds of places where there are no data are often the kinds of places where you most need maps. The Google Map app works well enough where there is data; it worked great last year when not in data holes.

I was thinking of trying to use either an iPhone or an iPod touch for radar data and some kind of TomTom or Garmin for mapping. Between the two, that should be enough data for chasing. The iPod touch works well enough, but the data solution I have (cellphone -> Cradlepoint) is a weak spot, as the phone often drop connection and reconnecting requires me to hit some buttons. At least with an iPhone I'd have data whenever data was available, without having to worry about hitting reconnect all the time.

*edit* I see now that app has an offline mode, which would probably work, depending on how it's implemented. I can't see myself manually selecting and downloading every route I might take while chasing, but if it allows a user to just say "download the whole state of Nebraska", that'd work great.