Since I’m moving to Chicago, and pretty much know nothing in terms of directions around the city I was thinking of getting a GPS unit for the truck.
If anyone has one, which model and what do you like/hate about it.
I’ve been looking at a few different models ranging from 500-1k Every time I seem to find one that looks good I read the reviews and find some down points.
I can see the advantage of having the maps stored on an internal hard-drive vs having to load maps, but I really won’t be traveling often out of the city so I’m not sure if how often I will have the need to change the maps if I were to buy a unit that I had to use memory cards.
also noticed, some of the higher priced units have something called WAAS which makes the unit more accurate, within 3 meters instead of 15, how important is this?
any other comments, would it be a waste of money?
Replies
any other comments, would it be a waste of money?
It'll certainly cut down on the interresting locals you'll end up meeting in cool little dive bars ....
some of my best stories started with ... "well, I was driving around lost ... and ..."
Jeff
Buck Construction, llc Pittsburgh,PA
Artistry in Carpentry
or on the flip side, could help me find little dive bars..
one of the units I looked at had a function to find the nearest, atm, gas, resteraunt...
wonder if there is a catagorey for dive bars?
Yup... Slaves to a lap top...
The software you can get and the accurecy is 1 meter.. Got a reading that is 25 or 200 meters off sit still for a minute and let the system reaquire... find everything you need at a map store... look for the DOT software... And you need a lap top for business any way...
Skip the memory card units...
200 bucks for a good unit and 20 bucks for a slave cable... 40 for the soft ware.. Lap top seperate....
Cake and pie..
Life is not a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming....
WOW!!! What a Ride!
thought about that, not much more then what I wanted to spend really.
I'll have to look into it a bit more.
are there power plugs to hook a lap-top up to a power port in the truck?
Yup
Life is not a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming.... WOW!!! What a Ride!
The program I have says - yrn coming up - turn in XX yards / miles - turn here - you missed yur turn- recomputing - and a dozen other statements....
Life is not a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming.... WOW!!! What a Ride!
Cag: WAAS is wide area augmentation system. It is not really necessary as the standard is plenty accurate. WAAS picks up signals that are blocked by buildings etc. I use it for flying my gyrocopter but I am above all the ground clutter.
You will find a regular GPS is awesome.
Then the WAAS would be good for getting around in the city ,right?Who Dares Wins.
Where are you moving from? I moved out there and had a traveling job, so I had to learn it fast, and it was way before GPS.
From where I had been, with roads not straight, and the maps looking like a labyrinth of old indian trails, Chicagoland was easy. Straight roads and streets, generally, a wonderful grid numbering system, and a good array of freeways and not-so-freeways.
What will drive you crazy, though, if you do a lot of wide-area travel there, is the huge number of suburban placenames. And each "town" will have local cops with radar operating on all surface streets. Be careful.
Speak Spanish? Not yet? If in residential construction in Chicagoland, Spanish fluency will get you a leg up. A little Polish would help, too.
As far out as Elgin you will find areas where none of the signage or advertising is in English.
I haven't tried a GPS so perhaps I'm just ignorant on the subject (there has to be one, right? {G}) but may I suggest using a good map and mapping program instead (or in addition to.)
I use MS's "Streets & Trips" every day to chart out the 3 locations I'll be going to to do inspections.
Being on my HD, it is quick to find locations and to zoom in and out, and it is pretty accurate for exact locations of addresses.
One reason I suggest it is that using it will help you learn the forest as well as the trees.
By zooming in and out and panning the view, you'll get a good overview of the area you'll be in and can/will learn the road system faster (I think.)
What I do is produce close up maps for each of the locations I'll be going to that day and then, sometimes, zoom out for a map of all three for find the routes between the three. (Actually, I don't do that "zoom out" overview much any more as I've learned my way around.)
One thing I don't like about S&T is that even in close up, it doesn't show every street name. As I'm nearing a location, I like to know the street names that come just before the one I have to turn on: "OK, there's Oak ..., Maple ..., Sycamore, OK, Dutch Elm has to be next."
So I also carry a book of maps as well. I use it 2 or 3 times a week, now.)
FWIW, I've attached 3 screen shots from MS ST&T: MapFindIt shows the dialog and how the map looks just after locating an address, MapCloseUp zooms in a bit for detail (how much I zoom in depends on how well I know the arteries in the area) and MapOverview shows my 3 locations for a hypothetical day
"It is as hard for the good to suspect evil, as it is for the bad to suspect good."
-- Marcus Tullius Cicero, statesman, orator, writer (106-43 BCE)
the orginal thought was to buy a GPS unit, then I thought a lap-top with a map program for around the same money as a good GPS.
in the end, I really like the idea of the thing telling me, turn here, a little easier then trying to read directions on the fly.
maybe the gps hooked to the laptop is the answer?
as for planning out the night before, that would be ideal, but I find myself having to find places I didn't know I was going to the night before.
I have a unit called CO PILOT that is a sleeve that my Compaq iPaq fits into, it hangs on my van's dash, I LOVE IT. Even in areas where I am familiar with the roads, it saves time, finds shortcuts I never new existed. Great when out of familiar area, can plot detours etc
search on CO PILOT GPS
Company will sell direct, great support too
thanks, I have an IPAQ, a few years old, 3600 series I believe. might be a good option.
We had a rental car in Phoenix that had GPS ...
figured I'd give it a try over the old map skills that were driven into me as a small child ... on family vacations ... 2 parents ...4 kids ... one car ... the back seat sucked!
And ya only got to ride up front if you could read a map!
So I learned map skills very well ... plus ... I can pack a trunk like a some-bitch!
Anyways ... we're driving down the highway .. thru Phoenix ... and either someone mover the road about 10 feet to the right ... or the computer was wrong ...
But we spent the whole ride thru getting yelled at my some hot sounding computer chick!
Please turn right ... immediately ... Please turn right ... immediately ....
she was really getting pissed.
Had to shut her off till we hit another highway ....
JeffBuck Construction, llc Pittsburgh,PA
Artistry in Carpentry
I have a Ipaq 36(40 I think) with the Navman plug in GPS, CAG. It's very sweet.
Hey CAG,
I moved up to Chicago a year ago and the most helpful tool I found for finding my way around is a street finder. A few different companies make them (Mapsco, Rand McNally, etc...) and I have to admit that without one of these I would be totally lost. So when I get a call from the boss on what job I will be sent to I just flip open the cover to the book, find the town on the index which shows what maps it is on and what county it is in. Then I flip to the back section find the county, from there I pick out the town, then just look up the street and address. This gives me exactly where to look in the book to find where I am heading to.
Anyway with just a little effort you will always know where you need to head to and how to get there. Also it only takes under 5 minutes to figure out how to use the book. Last but not least you can pick up an up to date street finder at any descent bookstore for about $40 and save the rest of your hard earned cash for any of the couple of dozen different things that are bound to pop up during and just after a move.
Cork in Chicago
PS Where are you going to be working and living in this huge town?
I have the Navman plug in GPS for my Compaq handheld and I love it. I bought it after Mapbeast got me lost one too many times in a bad part of town. It's cheap, (around 175 bucks as I recall) has amazing features, great support and a breeze to use. http://www.navman.com
Paul
PaulB
That looks pretty cool, but how much control do you have? At the sight they had a picture of a heads up display and a voice appeared saying "In 50 feet turn left."
Am I stuck with what it thinks is the best route?
What happens if I hit a traffic jam and want to find a route around it?
Is there an map display itself where I can see how things are laid out?
"It is as hard for the good to suspect evil, as it is for the bad to suspect good."
-- Marcus Tullius Cicero, statesman, orator, writer (106-43 BCE)
Bob,
As with any GPS I've seen, you have only limited ability to pick a route, you can tell it for instance to avoid tolls or urban areas. But, if you deviate from the route, either by missing a turn or because you decide to change on your own, it does recalculate on the fly. I've done it quite often, it's amazing to watch it refigure the route. And yes, it shows you a map as you travel and gives you the option of just reading turn by turn directions. I've had mine about a year and I'm thrilled with the overall performance. None is perfect, but this is darned near so and a great deal.
Paul,
Thanls for the info - maybe I'll have to catch up to the 21st century!
"It is as hard for the good to suspect evil, as it is for the bad to suspect good."
-- Marcus Tullius Cicero, statesman, orator, writer (106-43 BCE)
No point in rushing Bob... it'll be here for another 95 years ;)
Mind sharing which unit you have?
I've used the GPS & laptop method, with MS Streets as the mapping software with decent results. The GPS I use also has a cable allowing it to be used on my Ipag 3700 also, in case the laptop is unavailable.
Renaissance Restorations
Victorian Home Restoration Services
http://www.renaissancerestorations.com
Garmin has a PDA with a gps built in. could be an intersting set up I use a laptop with the ms streets & trips. I also have the Garmin etrex vista with the waas feature . The map software gets a little pricey with a roads and receation and a topo and a marine database that are around 100.00 ea.
mike
No good deed goes unpunished
>>I use a laptop with the ms streets & trips. I also have the Garmin etrex vista with the waas feature .
How do the two compare?
I use MS S&T; this thread has me wondering about adding the GPS systems
"It is as hard for the good to suspect evil, as it is for the bad to suspect good."
-- Marcus Tullius Cicero, statesman, orator, writer (106-43 BCE)
I am still trying to get the ms s&t to see the gps . the gps maps are very good. I have set it up in both the truck and my car and at highway speeds on rt 95 i get the bridge crossings on the display as i go under them (kids think this is way cool) :). The ms s&t trip planner is good but you still need to watch where it will send you. I run it with different options to get the fastest and shortest trips.
mikeNo good deed goes unpunished
CAG--
Hold the phone and hallelujah! Are you really finally moving to Chi-town?
The spouses uses an upgraded IPaq and skipped the GPS. Unfortunately, GPS in Chicago isn't much better than a Rand-McNally (as Cork pointed out). Since the "big fire", the city has been set out in a pretty predictable grid system. Street names run from the lake far out into most suburbs.
They are laid out very neatly with only a few diagonals...the most memorable being Lincoln Ave, Clybourn and Elston on the northside and Ogden and Archer on the southside. Everything north of Madison Ave is "north" and everything south of Madison Ave is "south" (numbered accordingly from 1 to ????) Everything east of State St. is "east" (until you hit the lake :) and everything west of State is "west" 1 to ????. Following those simple rules, you can get most anywhere. Taking a good look at how 290, 90, 94, 55 and 294 travel through or around city traffic is a big help as well.
But that is pretty much it. For example, Roosevelt runs east-west and stays south of 290 (also runs east-west) from downtown Chicago all the way out to Berkeley, IL where 290 turns north and follows 294. (That's about 23 miles...an eternity in Chicago.) North Avenue also obligingly stays north of Roosevelt. Irving Park stays above both of them.
Construction season here messes up the most reliable GPS. Remember, we have 4 strange seasons...pre-winter, winter, post-winter, construction. ;) So, Rand-McNally is your friend because there will always be "work arounds" needed for construction and Cubs traffic.
Have you figured where you are settling down yet? Always happy to pass along information about the best dive bars...'burbs or city.
Mapquest! Do the research the night before. Print out the routes and the maps. Never lets me down.
Save the $500.00 for your motorcycle. If you don't have one use it as adown payment. Much better way to spend the money.
Besides, if you never need directions, how will you explain all thoase Go-Go bar stops.
>>Mapquest! Do the research the night before. Print out the routes and the maps. Never lets me down.
>> Save the $500.00 for your motorcycle
Or use the time you save using MS S&T to make more $$
MapQuest is ok for every now and again, but even with a cable modem, it is pretty slow and has limited zoom and pan skills.
Plus it missed my house location by at least a couple hundred feet {G}
"It is as hard for the good to suspect evil, as it is for the bad to suspect good."
-- Marcus Tullius Cicero, statesman, orator, writer (106-43 BCE)
I've never had a problem although I do have a cable Modem. I also use street finder likie another poster here said.
I've never been in love with Navigation or GPS Systems. I prefer a map. Every system I've seen has displayed the same errors and I've driven around in a circle more than once.
Maybe the system you use has eliminated those bugs.
As for more money, Nothing motivates me to work harder than the desire to get enough done to justify going home and going for a ride.
CAG,
I will have to agree with those who give a thumbs down. I don't know what Kansas is like, but if you've ever flown in to ORD or Midway, you can imagine how easy it is to navigate around the city. The grid pattern prevails.
Spen $35 on one of these:
http://county_maps.home.mindspring.com/maps/TMIL3028.htm
and you will be good to go.
Of course, the GPS might benefit you when you are backing up, at least if it can locate Ford Tempo's <g>
Jon Blakemore
would it work for the explorer I tagged last week?
after a little thought, I think I'm going to hold off, I got caught up in the "new toy" thing and it just sounded cool to have my truck tell me when to turn in a sexy voice.
but I think I can allocate those funds to something else just as well....
"have my truck tell me when to turn in a sexy voice."
Just call Gunner on your cell. I'm sure he would be MORE than happy to talk to you in a sexy voice <g>
Jon Blakemore
on an internal hard-drive vs having to load maps, but I really won't be traveling often out of the city so I'm not sure if how often I will have the need to change the maps if I were to buy a unit that I had to use memory cards.
The better units will let you download software that will help you manage your data. If you are used to maps (or Mapsco) for finding things, you want a unit that displays that way. Having a scrolling map display means being able to load in maps as needed--an absolute feature to have. I, personally, would stay away from any unit that talks at you. My experience is that the units pick a route based on an alogrithm, not necessarily on the best way to get some place--heaven help you if you deviate from the "Turn Left Now" instructions . . .
also noticed, some of the higher priced units have something called WAAS which makes the unit more accurate, within 3 meters instead of 15, how important is this?
That's a very good thing, especially with road maps.
The next thing to think about is "where" in the truck you are mounting the unit. You want to not have to look away from traffic to see your route (my magellan rides in a mount that suction cups to the windshield, where it rides just left of center, balanced on the top of the dash). A removable mount means there's one less visible goodie in your ride--but an empty pracket is just that, too.
Here's another item that may be of interest:
http://terraserver.microsoft.com/image.aspx?T=0&S=16&R=16&C=16&W=1&ref=C&ClickAt=?109,62
Satellite pix of where you want to go in Chicago, or anywhere in the USA.
-- J.S.