Anyone Use Http://www.gpstuner.com ?

[+CrazyCucumber]

I stumbled accross this piece of software at http://www.gpstuner.com/ I downloaded the trial and it seems pretty good. Just wanted to know if anyone has used this in the field ?

 

I will try it out when I get a chance and let you all know if not.

 

Cheers

 

CrazyCucumber.

[+GAZ,NES and LAYLA]

i tried gps tuner with my ipaq and found it ok. my preferred pda software though is vito navigator, as it is probably the closest thing to a "proper" gps. A good feature with gps tuner is the averaging facility which i understand is a great help when setting caches. It may be worth your while downloading a trial of either vito navigator or vito navigator 2 before buying tuner.

[+as77]

I have also used Vito with satisfaction, it is really easy to use. Navio is another good program.

However, GPSTuner may be the best choice because it is being very actively developed; version 4.0 will be released soon and upgrades are free for one year. Also, the author is very responsive to user requests.

[+Roberts-tribe]

I used to use GPSTuner ( before I had my Legend C ).

 

It's OK and quite usable.

 

There are some caveats ( relative to v3.5 ).

 

1. Try accidentally running it concurrently with TomTom Navigator and the iPaq will lock up. Reset required.

2. Sometimes it can go totally off the wall. On a number of occasion it would be saying something like 50M one moment and the next it would be telling me I was 5500 Km away! That requires a restart of GPSTuner.

3. Once you have some waypoints in, it can take a very long time to initialise.

4. Can only accept about 70 downloaded cache waypoints.

 

Some or all of this may be fixed in v3.6. I don't know as I've stopped using it.

[+CrazyCucumber]

Thanks for those other suggestions, I will give them a go before buying anything.

 

I did have the problem with Tomtom locking up , but on the GPS tuner FAQ's it says you have to unistall the TomTom GPS driver as this holds the GPS Com port locked open so no other apps can use it. But as you say you still can't run them both in parallel AFAIK.

 

If this hobby becomes an obsession i will probably stump up the cash for a nice handheld dedicated GPS. we will see !

 

Thanks for the advice .

 

CrazyCucumber.

[+Xangxa]

What a coincidence! I was just testing GPSTuner this past Friday and Saturday! I already had Vito Navigator II, plus I also had trial versions of Navio and GPSDash.

 

Why was I considering GPSTuner when I already had VN2? VITO does NOT respond to support questions in their forums or email! I also noticed that Handango.com had dropped the product from their catalog! Very disturbing indeed. It also had its fair share of headaches and bugs. It would take multiple soft-resets and holding your left leg up while dancing in a circle while facing 278 degrees before it would attach to my bluetooth GPS without locking up. My GPS is a HAiCOM 303s CF GPS in the HAiCOM 404BT bluetooth slipper.

 

I was thoroughly disgusted by the performance and interfaces of Navio and GPSDash. Getting useful information and setting waypoints was a major pain. Come on people, this shouldn't be so hard! And the requirement that EVERYBODY has for an "electronic compass" is useless (i.e., you need to be moving in order to get a heading). YES, the requirement makes perfect sense, but a REAL compass is so cheap and useful the emphasis of these products should be on BEARING not HEADING!. My style of navigation is sight-then-walk. Walking and reading your PDA at the same time is asking for a face plant. Bearing CAN be reported while one is standing still, but getting it from Navio and GPSDask was a major pain or not even possible! What are these people thinking? I got useful bearings out of both VN2 and GPSTuner.

 

Wild fluctuations happen with both VN2 and GPSTuner, but are rare. I just took the one that appeared the most often and ignored any "flickers." I don't think its fair to blame software for any irradic readings -- it could be the GPS or it could be interference with the satellite signal. Be sure and test, more than on one day/location, the trial versions. I did not have the problems that Robert-tribe reported on Friday when I was comparing products. I did have on jump on Saturday while searching for a cache, but it cleared up. That's why I think it's more environment than software that's a factor.

 

Be aware that GPSTuner won't load a large GPX file from GC.com due to memory issues. Since all the data in the GPX is extraneous it's not an unreasonable problem. Instead, use GXPsonar to export it as a LOC and load the LOC file instead. As Robersts-tribe said, a lot of waypoints will make it run slower (at points, not everywhere all the time). It's definitely still usable with a lot of waypoints. ALSO, be aware that Roberts-tribe only got (my theory) 70 waypoints to load due to using the GC style GPX (lots of extraneous data). I was able to load 500 waypoints when I used LOC files. The GPX was 2483K while the LOC version was 93K. If you have a GPX fixation you could use GPSBabel to convert it to a scaled down GPX (why?)

 

Anyway, after playing with GPSTuner I bought it this morning! I'll continue to play with VN2 for awhile, and may eventually offload it from my PPC.