sheepdog43

Mine defaults to the same I/O's as the touchpad. Start troubleshooting there. Everytime it recieves a co-ordinate from the GPS, the mouse cursor goes off the screen.

Here

You could for adding software, but with a serial adapter you can hook the GPS to your laptop for ther uses, such as in car navigation.

Radio Shack has one that works as well. Though its about $40.

I use an Emap, and while it is the only one I have owned, it has served me well. It has been through rain (not a downpour), and dropped a few times (off a car onto pavement). No durability problems for me.. At the time I bought it, I was concerned about buying more GPS than I neded. Now, I am glad I bought what I did. Emap is a nice, VERY versatile GPS. If it ever dies, it wil be replaced with another mapping gps.

Garmin Emap May now be considered an older unit, but I still like it.

I also have an Emap. Nice GPS. Its a shame they dropped it. Every time I think I could have and should have gone with a cheaper unit, I end up using one of its functions you cannot get on cheaper models and fall in love with it once more. Take the time to learn it, and pick up Metroguide if you want to use it in your car. You will love what this thing can do.

GPS is going to be more accurate. Tires wear, air pressure changes sizes, temperature effects them too (GPS compensates fro temp). Not to mention speedometer gear ratios can be only adjusted so much. Not every ratio is possible without having multiple gear pitch (tech term for numer of teeth per inch). Then you get into parts wear.. Speedo's drift over time, gears wear out, tires wear out... Basically all this has to mesh for a speedo to be accurate. Frankly, when its dead on, consider yourself lucky. Thas a lot to adjust for, and there is nothing being adjusted. I am pretty sure American speedo's are required to be within 5% accuracy, when they leave the factory. Key part being when they leave. Police speedo's are to be within 3%. With GPS, a good lock, is really all you need for it to triangulate your possition, and determine your speed. Now a question on odometer... Since it was brought up... If you travel straight over a mountain, your actual position may only change by 1 mile. Howeve, due to going up and over, you may have actually had to travel 2 miles. What distance will a gps read? I would imagine better models will register 2 miles, but what about cheaper models? Has anyone tested this? It would certainly have an effect on the odometer over time.

I recently took mine (Garmin Emap) on a Untied flight.. I turned ot on after we reached 10k, very cool to see. It was neat watching our path and picking out items on the ground as we flew over. If you are really into GPS, I highly suggest trying this at least once. Oh, make sure you get a window seat. Isle seats do not do as well for reception, much less the view.

I dealt with this the other day. go into the resources for the serial port and change the settings. This is in the "system' in control panel. Once this is done, you can use everyhthing with no conflicts.

quote:Originally posted by ptv99jgc:Stupid question as I am not quite as computer saavy as some others. Are you getting higher transfer speeds using a USB converter, or are you using the converter because you do not have a serial connector on your laptop? Thanks, Paul I connect mine to a super slim laptop while driving. Only way to get a serial port is with a port replicator, which I did not get.

Garmin Emap Plus a nice laptop setup to plug into for travel though. Together its a great combination for travel and caching, though I am VERY new to this, so that opinion could change. A bit more than I wanted to spend on the GPSr, but I think it was worth it.

Just to let people know there is another option. (part # and web page at bottom if you want to skip) I got my Garmin Emap today (which is very cool ), and could not find the Belkin serial to USB many have been suggesting (could not find any actually). As a last resort, I went to Radio Shack. They had a Radio Shack model in stock, and a bit cheaper than the Belkins people have been recomending (about $40). It claims PDA, label prionter, and digital camera compatible. Hooked it up to my Sony laptop (with windows XP) installed the driver, loaded M$ Streets and Trips, changed to NMEA, and it crashed... However, I never rebooted after install. After it came back up, I restarted Street and Trips and if found it right away and has worked perfect ever since. Radio Shack's part number: 26-183 web page: http://www.radioshack.com/product.asp?catalog%5Fname=CTLG&category%5Fname=&product%5Fid=26%2D183 Hope this helps some people.