sat nav in cars

[Guest shadyone]

can any one give any information on how satellite navigation systems work in cars.

[Guest mcb]

Not sure exactly what you want to here but I will give it a try.

 

GPS units work fine in most cars as long as you give them a good view of the sky. I Velcro my Garmin III+ to the dash of my Pickup. I have heard of some polarizing windows on some luxury vehicle partially or completely blocking the satellite signal.

 

Now as far as features the cheaper hand-held unit have no road map data and merely give you your position and distance and bearing to other waypoints stored in the unit. While other hand held unit have major highway data in them. Other unit have the ability to load street level map-detail on top of the "courser" highway data. You can step up to more sophisticated unit like the Street Pilot that are dash mount units that will give you more detail and more features. And to go even more overboard I read about a unit that is installed in your car permanently and had a big color screen and DVD drive in the trunk full of lots of maps and even has a gyroscopic dead reckoning unit in it to let you navigate for short periods with out satellite lock. Handy if you go through tunnels often

 

Hope this help

mcb

[Guest mcb]

Not sure exactly what you want to here but I will give it a try.

 

GPS units work fine in most cars as long as you give them a good view of the sky. I Velcro my Garmin III+ to the dash of my Pickup. I have heard of some polarizing windows on some luxury vehicle partially or completely blocking the satellite signal.

 

Now as far as features the cheaper hand-held unit have no road map data and merely give you your position and distance and bearing to other waypoints stored in the unit. While other hand held unit have major highway data in them. Other unit have the ability to load street level map-detail on top of the "courser" highway data. You can step up to more sophisticated unit like the Street Pilot that are dash mount units that will give you more detail and more features. And to go even more overboard I read about a unit that is installed in your car permanently and had a big color screen and DVD drive in the trunk full of lots of maps and even has a gyroscopic dead reckoning unit in it to let you navigate for short periods with out satellite lock. Handy if you go through tunnels often

 

Hope this help

mcb

[Guest Ron Streeter]

hook my gps to the laptop and to actually track where I am and my movements as I go.(MS Streets & Trips 2001 is another program.) This is what is happening in the built-in units shown in the newshour report. Obviously not as nice as a built in unit, but gives the flexibility of having the laptop for use in other areas.

 

There are lots of possibilites. Do some research for what will work for you.

 

********

 

Hours later same day....bought the Microsoft program (streets & trips 2001) for $27 at Costco with a $20 rebate from them. So, for $7 a pretty nifty mapping program. Has some good features the others don't, and seems pretty easy to use. Perhaps more clarity at closest map levels of all three programs I'm trying. I think I'd rather be the co-pilot calling out the turns, than the driver !

 

Anyone know of another thread where in-motion mapping is discussed?

 

[This message has been edited by Ron Streeter (edited 27 April 2001).]

 

[This message has been edited by Ron Streeter (edited 27 April 2001).]

[Guest Ron Streeter]

Here's a further update on the newshour piece mentioned above.

 

The audio clip on the newshour page plays for 11 minutes. The first 4 minutes are a demo of a gps system in a car.

 

From minute 4 to 6 the military beginnings of gps are discussed as well as the turning off of the selective feature which now gives civilians more accuracy than they had before.

 

From minute 6 to 11 the use of gps on airlines is discussed as is automated tractor use on farms !

 

I haven't checked the pbs/newshour website to see if a video of this is available. Listening to audio is OK, though feels like watching tv with a black screen...don't they call that radio?