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Compliments of:
GPS All The Way
By Garth W. Cane
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Global
Positioning Systems get you there, and get you back, safely
and easily.
Do you know what road you’re on?
Many of us travel in areas where we’re not familiar with
local roads and facilities. Wouldn’t it be nice if we
had help finding the closest service station, and knew whether
or not it had diesel fuel capabilities as well as gasoline?
Old seafarers and early explorers depended on locations of the
sun and stars. When we’re trekking down the road, it would
be inconvenient to pull over and shoot the sun with an astrolab.
We may know we’re 515 km from Calgary, and 711 km from
Winnipeg, but that doesn’t tell us specifically where
we are. To accurately locate our position in detail, we need
more than two basic pieces of information.
The Tech Behind It
There are 24 satellites orbiting around the earth, placed there
by the American military to help pinpoint locations, right down
to a few feet. The U.S. government invested $12 billion to launch
and maintain ground stations required for accurate military
measurement. Now everyone can access these satellites to accurately
find their location, anywhere on the earth. These satellites
orbit the earth at a height of 11,000 miles, and continuously
circle the earth twice each day. As long as our GPS receiver
can see at least four of these, we can find our location, height,
and speed. This is called triangulation.
Each satellite has precisely accurate, atomic time clocks to
help our receiver measure the time it takes for a signal to
travel to our location. In order to carry out calculations,
part of this signal tells our receiver the exact location of
each satellite. Many locations on earth have been surveyed exactly,
and any discrepancy between this figure and that shown by the
GPS system is transmitted as a correction factor from an uplink
to each satellite.
In an effort to determine exactly where they are, recreational
sailors, farmers, soldiers, airline pilots, hikers, off-road
bikers, and many others besides RVers turn to in-dash GPS systems,
stand-alone portable systems, Personal Digital Assistants, and
laptop-based mapping programs. Companies such as Garmin and
Magellan offer units that can be handheld or mounted to bike
or snowmobile handlebars, or installed in a boat.
GPS for RVs
When we plan extensive trips with our RVs, we want to know which
roads and turns to take, partly so we can estimate costs. As
we travel down the road, our GPS systems can tell us if we’ve
wandered along a different road than we had planned to use,
and give us directions to get back on track.
Many new automobiles have a GPS navigation system installed
at the factory, and it allows us to know where we are on today’s
elaborate system of North American roads. Most of the programs
available show greater detail for roads and streets in the U.S.
than in Canada.
Over the years, to help us find our way, we’ve tested
many computer programs and hardware systems offered by manufacturers.
Often stand-alone systems not requiring a laptop computer are
installed as options in many new cars, trucks and motorhomes.
Your friendly dealer can get you one, to the tune of about $2,000.
Garmin StreetPilot 2720
This is a compact unit offering turn-by-turn information as
text or speech announcing upcoming streets, or points of interest.
That way, drivers don’t have to take their attention off
the road. Garmin also offers the GTM10 optional traffic receiver,
which warns of traffic conditions, road construction, and weather-related
tie-ups. This unit can work with touch-screen or alphanumeric
remote controls. Once you reach the campground, you can easily
move the system from your RV to your car.
TomTom GO700
With its 2.5-Gigabyte, hard-drive memory, the TomTom GO700 is
designed for door-to-door, cross-border planning. It gives clear,
accurate voice instructions, and a choice of routes, complete
with crystal-clear, 3-D graphics. You can choose from more than
30 languages, and millions of points of interest.
One notable feature: the volume will increase or decrease with
speed. Through your cell phone, TomTom can download data and
real-time information on traffic conditions. The Mapquest personal
navigation device is powered by TomTom, with no installation
or setup required. This touch-screen device uses a suction cup
to mount to your windshield, enabling you to easily move it
from vehicle to vehicle. Simply plug it in, turn it on, and
go, with the knowledge you’ll never be lost again.
Some receivers offer a Wide Area Augmentation System (WAAS)
to give greater accuracy – and it’s often needed.
This was implemented by the Federal Aviation Authority to relay
differential corrections from another satellite. It makes GPS
accurate enough for some airplane landings.
Lowrance iWay500C
 This
self-contained navigation device has a large, five inch, diagonal
touch-screen that’s easy to read in the sun. With a 20-gigabyte,
internal hard drive, and preloaded with high-detail, Navteq
data of the U.S. and virtually all of Canada, you don’t
need to purchase extra maps.
Ten gigabytes are used to store maps, and another 10 gigabytes
can store up to 5,000 MP3 songs – enough for almost any
trip. The built-in GPS + WAAS receiver/antenna tracks both 12-parallel
channel and WAAS signals for greater accuracy, down to 10 feet
(three metres). It updates your position every second. Frequent
position updates are a priority when driving in unfamiliar country,
since you don’t want to be past the turn before the GPS
updates your position.
Some laptop-based systems offer a lower cost to the RVer who
already owns a personal computer. One popular program is from
long-time Delorme, which published its first CD Rom version
in 1991. Street Atlas 2006 USA contains more than four million
places of interest, 268,000 additional streets and roads, highways,
and exit ramps, plus address-to-address routing on a CD-Rom.
It has a split-screen system showing detailed GPS positioning,
and overview maps. You can use your cursor to minimize either
screen if desired.
One advantage of this program is the high-contrast screen option
for night driving, and voice prompts that tell you about the
next turns of your planned route. When tracking with GPS, auto
zoom brings upcoming turns into close view.
Delorme cartographers constantly update their base of map information
in Canada and the U.S. They make their own GPS-accurate data
instead of licensing map information from a third party. This
allows them to include customer revisions in future releases
of the program. At this time, road detail in the States is excellent,
but only major roads in Canada are shown. By investing in map-making
that is now underway, Delorme will have soon have improved Canadian
content.
Rand McNally
Rand McNally has been a trusted source of maps for many years,
and originally had its own computer- based map program. Now
it distributes CD-Rom map programs by Delorme and National Geographic.
Not only does it have thousands of points of interest, but also
many photos, video clips, and driving tours.
Pioneer
A name synonymous with excellent audio equipment and car radios,
Pioneer has an intelligent, in-car navigation, after-market
system that makes for a better driving experience.
This unit has a 30-gigabyte hard drive that delivers information,
and entertainment, with smart routing, text-to-speech voice
guidance, voice recognition, traffic information and bluetooth
capability to cut the clutter of wires.
A lane-information system advises drivers of lanes they need
to be in at major interchanges and exits. Via a connection to
XM satellite radio with its 100 channels of entertainment, detailed
traffic information is available in 22 major metropolitan areas.
Subscription to traffic service and entertainment channels from
XM radio is US $16.95 per month.
ALK CoPilot Laptop 8
 This
ALK software allows you to plan a trip, especially when you
have the small GPS receiver plugged into your USB port. When
you initially load the program on a laptop, it asks for the
language you prefer, and whether you would rather listen to
a female or male voice. Once you’ve installed a region
(North America or Europe), it can’t be changed, and automatically
sets your starting point.
CoPilot has a 3-D map display and turn arrows that highlight
the route. The program offers very detailed maps for American
travel, but could use more detail in Canada. That makes this
program very useful for Canadian RVers who spend a greater time
in the U.S. Thanks to voice prompts helping as you drive along,
you don’t always have to watch the screen as turns come
up. Customized trip routing, which allows you to avoid certain
roads, and choose others, will be improved in newer versions.
Microsoft Streets & Trips
Using mapping information from Navteq, this program provides
details on Canadian and American roads and streets. It allows
you to easily plan your trip and track your location in real
time. During planning, if you don’t like a section of
road the program chooses, simply click on the selected route,
and drag it to where you would prefer to travel. The system
will automatically recalculate your trip. Voice-prompted directions
provide hands-free guidance.
 For
Canadians who travel in the States and have kilometre-per-hour
speedometers, when you set the system to miles per hour, a window
on the left side of the screen shows the exact speed in miles
per hour. (This should help prevent speeding tickets.)
Streets & Trips offers enhanced maps of both U.S. and Canada,
plus has the ability to show gas stations, ATMs, campgrounds,
shopping centres, and other places of interest. You can download
construction zones with free online updates, and with an automatic
magnified view, you can easily see upcoming turns. If you miss
a turn, just click and drag the route, so it automatically produces
an update to get you back on track.
To prevent you from looking into a bright light on your dashboard
at night, you can combat eye fatigue by choosing an on-screen
lower brilliance and different contrast. I was pleased to see
the GPS icon had been changed to a different color of arrow,
to make it easier to see the position and planned direction.
You can also create a ‘bread crumb’ trail to see
where you’ve been.
Microsoft includes Pocket Streets on the CD-Rom, so that the
program will operate on your personal digital assistant or cell
phone.
Maps
Maps are available on the internet from companies such as Yahoo!,
AOL’s MapQuest, and MapBlast. MapQuest added more users
in a recent seven months than in the previous three years combined.
It claims that 26 million people visit its website every month,
and that they turn out 10 million maps, and sets of driving
directions every day. AAA confirms that requests for paper maps
have fallen by seven percent in recent years, while online map
searches by its members are up by 13 percent. Maps are available
from Denso for Toyota, Robert Bosch, and Alpine.
Many in-dash mapping systems for tow vehicles can be ordered
when you purchase a new vehicle. I’m told by automotive
manufacturers that this is likely the most popular option. It’s
easy to set your present location, and then key in your destination
on the touch screen, or simply move the cursor to click on your
intended destination. Some units are even programmed with directions
to emergency locations for police stations and hospitals.
During a recent trip around Washington, DC, I was surprised
that even the most obscure back roads were shown on the screen.
In-dash units also include AM/FM or satellite radio, and CD
controls, at the touch of a button. Companies such as Alpine
Electronics provide aftermarket, in-dash map systems for automobiles.
I prefer to navigate with systems using NAVTEQ (Navigation Technologies)
maps with the best coverage for Canadian travellers. NAVTEQ
believes the only way to build a highly accurate map database
is to drive the roads. It has 575 field analysts who continually
collect, verify, validate, and update all of the pertinent road
network, attribute, and points of interest information to create
some of the most accurate navigable maps in the world. Although
many map programs have information from Navteq, its what’s
done with the data that counts.
GPS mapping systems can be a godsend for Canadians travelling
in RVs or tow vehicles. There’s nothing worse than stopping
to ask directions, and then trying to remember most of what
we’ve been told – before we reach the second turn.
While using computer-mapping systems, perhaps the data disc
should be upgraded each year to allow us to see new roads and
renamed ones. Ideally, we’ll soon have accurate, computer-generated
maps with real-time estimates of travel time, plus up-to-the-minute
data on traffic and alternative routes.
Article first printed in the Camping Canada's RV Lifestyle
Magazine (Volume 35 Number 1).
Website: www.rvlifemag.com
Copyright 2007 Camping Canada Magazine
Published and printed in Canada.
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