roybassist

Not at all. Why do you ask? From the article you referenced (emphasis mine): Officials speculate Atta may have been in New York on September 10 to make a final visit to the World Trade Center to program the towers' location into a global positioning system, the source said. So far, however, investigators have been unable to prove he was doing that, the source said. As I said in my previous post, the terrorist hijackers had been to flight school. It is at least as plausible that they could have used the aircraft’s normal navigation systems. The Department of Homeland Security has us taking off our shoes at checkpoints and limiting the amount of liquids we can carry. Do you really think they would be allowing us to continue carrying our GPS receivers onboard if they thought they might facilitate a terrorist threat? I don’t. Hope you had a nice Turkey Day, too.

If that were the case, then the majority of airlines must not be concerned about terrorism, since the number of airlines that do not prohibit GPS use far exceeds the number of those that do. (Reference.) I do not believe that the majority of airlines don’t care about terrorism, so I don’t accept that the concern is terrorist navigation. I agree. Not necessarily. Reported cases of even suspected interference seem to be relatively rare. In order for such interference to cause a crash, it would first have to occur (which is apparently rare, if it happens at all), and it would have to occur when circumstances would result in a crash because of the interference. Per the article referenced in my previous post, several instances of suspected interference have been reported, but no crash occurred. That doesn’t mean that one couldn’t, and that the airlines don’t have reason to be concerned about it. Radio amateurs have made similar measurements and reported similar findings. Maybe that’s why, in all the reports of suspected interference with aircraft systems, handheld GPS receivers have never been mentioned. I think the real issue is that some of the airlines just don’t care enough about GPS users to really evaluate the available information and make an intelligent decision on this issue. Fortunately, those airlines are now greatly in the minority.

Good point. I have seen a record of firmware releases for the 60/76C(S)x series. As I recall, there were six firmware updates released in the first six months after the 60 was introduced. There were plenty of issues. Yet these units are now often regarded as some of the most reliable currently available.

That has been claimed and refuted many times. American banned them prior to 9/11. As for hijackers using GPS to navigate, if true at all, they may have been using the aircraft's built-in GPS system. Remember, the terrorist hijackers went to flight school. They knew enough about flying the planes to use the onboard equipment if they needed it. If you have documentation to support your statements, please post links.

Start reading this thread at Post #6. Most people who have tried 6.14.1 have found it practically unusable, and gone back to 6.13.7.

Not that we know of, so far. It may be that we have just been lucky. It is my understanding that, in the U.S. at least, the airlines are held responsible for safe operation. In theory, the pilot has the ultimate responsibility, but I believe in practice it would be the airline that has to pay if something goes wrong. If they have to bear the responsibility for accidents, it seems only fair that they get to make the rules concerning what passengers do that might affect safety on their flights. I believe it is only pressure from consumers that leads them to allow any electronic devices at all. They don’t have to, you know. I’m just glad that some airlines are GPS friendly, and I always try to fly with them whenever possible. Mostly so I can have my favorite in-flight entertainment, and to a lesser degree voting with my dollars.

Annoyedone in the 76C(S)x Yahoo group is an electrical engineer who designs electronic devices for a living. He made measurements of current draw with and without the electronic compass. Here is what he reported for the 76CSx. The numbers are one-minute averages. GPS off, compass off: 36 mA GPS off, compass on: 37 mA These results are very different from the 76CS: GPS off, compass off: 67 mA GPS off, compass on:107 mA The magnetic compass was a power hog in the non-x models. In the x models, it hardly makes a difference.

Putting an aircraft in danger is a very high standard. It isn’t necessary for an aircraft to actually be put in danger to see that it could be put in danger if a critical system malfunctioned in a critical situation. If no aircraft have actually been put in danger, it may only be because interference has occurred only in flight situations where the interference was not a problem. It could be that if the same interference occurred in a critical situation, an aircraft would be put in danger. This is why all electronic devices are required to be turned off on takeoff and landing. I consider this a reasonable policy. A malfunction of a critical aircraft system close to the ground could have fatal consequences. Proof is also a very high standard. The suspected cases I mentioned in my previous post were incidents reported by flight crews. Investigators were unable to reproduce the interference later. That doesn’t mean the incidents were the crews’ imagination. They are credible (if not proven) evidence. Ever taken a car to your mechanic, only to have it refuse to misbehave in the way that led you to take it to him? Problems can be intermittent and very hard to reproduce. This article by Boeing provides details. Note the conspicuous absence of any mention of GPS receivers. Such systems are designed to work with the aircraft and tested. Personal electronic devices are not. You are free to think anything you like, but the airlines have good reason to be concerned about the potential for interference with aircraft systems by personal electronic devices.

If they did prohibit all types of electronic devices during the cruise portion of a flight, it might make sense; though I would consider it overly conservative. The thing is, computers, video players and portable gaming devices are almost universally allowed during the cruise portion of flight. Some airlines single out GPS devices to prohibit during cruise, others don’t. I fly with the group in the latter category whenever possible. I wholeheartedly support the prohibition against the use of personal electronics during critical portions of flight. That rule, by the way, comes from the FAA, not the airlines. A few years back, I spent quite a bit of time searching for authoritative information on this subject. Among other things, I found an FAA document that, in essence, said that any interference electronic devices might cause didn’t represent enough of a hazard to justify banning their use completely when an aircraft was at an altitude where there would be sufficient time to ask the passengers to shut everything off before anything serious happened. The conclusion was that it was sufficiently safe to allow electronic devices to be used during cruise, and monitor for problems. This document also concluded that it should be left up to the airlines to decide what devices they would and would not allow; and that is how the rule was written. The other thing I discovered was that although there were several instances where devices such as computers, video players and portable gaming devices were suspected (but never proven) to have caused interference with an aircraft in flight, I could not find so much as a rumor of a GPS receiver ever having been suspected of causing interference. That was only a couple of years or so ago. As far as I know, United Airlines has never has a policy of prohibiting the use of GPS receivers on their flights. I bought my first receiver in about 1995, so they have been generally available to the public since then. That means that United now has at least 13 years, and I presume even more, experience of flying while passengers were operating GPS receivers. Many other airlines have allowed their use during that period as well. Yet as of the time I did my research, I could find no reports of suspected interference with aircraft in flight cause by GPS receivers. Does that mean it couldn’t happen? Of course not. But the evidence I found was sufficient to convince me that GPS receivers are no more likely to cause interference with aircraft than other types of electronic devices which have actually been suspected of causing interference, yet are almost universally allowed by airlines. So if an airline wants to prohibit use of a GPS receiver during all phases of their flights, that is their prerogative. It is my prerogative to consider such a policy as arbitrary, uninformed, not supported by operational experience, and unnecessary; and to choose to fly with their GPS friendly competitors. I feel every bit as safe flying on airlines which permit GPS use as I do on those that don’t.

American is infamous as just about the most stubbornly GPS unfriendly airline ever. That’s why I never fly with them. This list indicates that Iberia’s policy is to prohibit GPS use, and EasyJet’s is to allow it. It’s always a good idea to consult this list and any other resources you can find to try to select GPS friendly airlines when possible.

While not exactly features, these button shortcuts got a number of pretty favorable comments when I posted them a while back; so I’ll offer them up again. Useful button shortcuts: The ZOOM IN and OUT buttons also scroll through lists, one page at a time. Also to the top or bottom of a menu with one press. A real time saver. Pressing the FIND button twice brings up the Recent Finds page. Another recommendation: Customize your page sequence for the way you intend to use it. You may want to add some, eliminate others, rearrange the order. MENU MENU>Setup>Page Sequence. I eliminated the Main Menu page, because it’s easier and faster to access the Main Menu by pressing the MENU button twice. You may not be sure how you want it at first, but you can always change this later when you find out what you use frequently.

Interesting that you mention that...I happened to notice yesterday that Garmin released an update for the GPS V on October 30, 2008. I was surprised that they were still releasing firmware updates for a unit that has been discontinued for so long.

I bought a factory refurbished 76CSx from getfeetwet.com in April, 2008 and am completely pleased. It had all the same stuff in the box as a new one. It even had the plastic film over the display. Buy from a reputable Garmin dealer, and you can’t really go wrong. When purchased from an authorized Garmin dealer, they come with the same warranty as new, so there’s really no risk. Those who sell them and those who have bought them usually say the only difference they can tell between the refurbs and new is the price and the box they come in. Because these units have been recently overhauled and tend to be purchased quickly, they usually come with the latest firmware, as opposed to a new unit that may have been sitting on the shelf for a while. If you had unlocked the maps to the stolen unit, I think you’ll still have to buy a new unlock code for the new unit; but I believe that costs less than the full-install.

I had a GPS III+, which didn’t do everything your V did (no turn-by-turn routing or WAAS), but, as you are probably aware, also allowed rotating the display from portrait to landscape. When I upgraded to the 76CS, I was also concerned that I would miss the ability of the III+ (and the rest of the Roman Numeral family) to rotate the display; but if you have several data fields on the map screen, it ends up being practically square anyway, and it really hasn’t been an issue. When in the Garmin auto mount, which I like a lot, it stands up pretty tall on my dashboard. It was a little challenging to find a good spot where it would fit, but I succeeded. Other than that, I can’t imagine how a 60 or 76 series wouldn’t be better than the V for both auto mapping and handheld use. I have since upgraded to the 76CSx, and I am as close to completely satisfied with it as I am ever likely to be with anything.

Do not buy anything labeled "update". Buy the free standing one. The current version is 2009. That's what you'll get if you buy it from a dealer who goes through a lot of product. You can use either the NT version or the non-NT version. The NT version is stored compressed on the unit, so it takes up less space on your memory card. Also it is broken into fewer pieces (segments) than the non-NT version, so the NT segments cover more area each.. This is important if you think you may try to load topo maps along with street maps. That’s because there are two limits on what you can load in the receiver: 1) a size (2 GB) limit, and 2) 2025 total number of map segments. People who load topo maps often hit the segment limit before they hit the size limit. All of CNNA NT 2009 has 64 segments and takes about 1.1 MB. All of the non-NT CNNA 2009 has 344 segments and takes about 1.75 MB. Obviously, either of these by itself will fit; but if you start loading topo maps, you will be able to load more if you use the NT version of CN. A possible downside to the NT maps is that some have experienced lags when using NT. Others have no problems.

When you talk about going to sleep and waking up with the altimeter showing an elevation different by 100 meters from the previous day, presumably you turned the GPS off when you went to sleep. In that case, what you describe is not surprising: auto calibration works only when the GPS has a satellite fix. It can’t work when the GPS is off. The solution is to note the elevation shown on the barometric altimeter before you turn it off at the end of the day. Then the next morning, after achieving a good satellite fix, manually calibrate the altimeter to the reading you had at the end of the previous day. By following this procedure, you will not only eliminate huge inaccuracies, but in fact achieve very good accuracy, regardless of changes in weather. This has been documented previously by julianh, in one of his many excellent posts on this topic: In this post from the same thread, he discussed the environments in which he has used his unit and made his observations:

What maps did you download from mapcenter.com? (A link would be very helpful.) I just did a search of their site and couldn't find any Garmin compatible maps. Did you perhaps mean http://mapcenter2.cgpsmapper.com/ ?

I don't know about the Colorado or Oregon, but AFAIK, all other units have to be connected to a computer to rename the file. The file can't be renamed using the unit alone. That could be important in some situations.

It would probably help people help you if you included what the error message says. Even if you can't remember it exactly, anything about the wording of it might help.

Yes. Things like: pedestrians are allowed to go the wrong way down one-way streets, vehicles are not; vehicles are allowed to go on interstate highways, pedestrians and bicycles are not (with rare exceptions in some places); pedestrians may be able to turn left at intersections where vehicles are not. I'm sure there are more, but you get the idea. Welcome to the forums!

In addition to what has already been said, if you use the pre-programmed card, you can’t have other maps (such as Topo, or custom maps) loaded at the same time with the ones on the card, because loading maps always erases any maps that are already on the card. If you get the maps on DVD, you can select the CN maps you want along with any other maps you want and load them all at the same time, so you can have different map products loaded at the same time. In addition to the flexibility issue, Garmin periodically offers updates to the maps on DVD at a cost less than the original install. There is no such upgrade program for pre-programmed cards. If you want to update your maps, you buy another card at full price. Also, if anything happens to the pre-programmed card, you’re out of luck because the file on the card won’t work on any other card, only the one it comes on. So even if you backed it up on your computer, it won’t help if the card is lost or damaged. For most people, the DVD is a much better way to go.

Nice article, but the problem was solved in the other thread on this subject, and this wasn’t the issue. Now that the problem has been solved and the solution is in the other thread, it would be nice if a moderator would close this thread.

If you are using the non-NT version of CN, I believe it is possible to transfer maps without including route calculation data. If the streets show up, but the unit won’t calculate routes, that may be what happened. In MapSource, in the pane on the left side of the screen, at the bottom of the Maps tab there is a checkbox that says, “Include route calculation data.” It sounds like it may not have been checked when you transferred the maps. Make sure it is checked and try it again. (To save time, you can try it with just a single map segment of your local area as a test, rather than wait for a large amount of maps to load. If this solves the problem, just select all the maps you want to load and transfer again.) If you have the NT version of CN, that wouldn’t be the problem, because the NT version always includes route calculation data. If you have the NT version, the box is greyed out, so you can’t change the setting. The greyed out box is incorrectly shown unchecked.

Correct if you're talking about City Navigator; but the OP mentioned Topo maps. I understand that product has over 6000 segments and totals over 4 GB, so he would run into the 2 GB/2025 segment limit if he tried to load it all. To Albackore: if you try to load over 2 GB of maps, or more than 2025 map segments, the maps don't show up properly on the unit. Anything below those limits works fine. All of City Navigator North America is below those limits. All of Topo 2008 is not.

http://forums.Groundspeak.com/GC/index.php?showtopic=193374