Ok I'll admit Ive been lost many times traveling these lower 48 states and found many dead end roads....its not fun with a 44-53 ft trailer behind me.<br>Does anyone have a GPS unit with a large screen mounted in the cab...Iam looking for a ez to see screen GPS unit that can be mounted...Ive looked at the hand held units but they are hard to see while driving at nite.<br><br>Pappy

 

I have a dash mounted Garmin GPS V. It's nice, but you can run out of memory easily if you're traveling for instance, the Bos-Wash corridor. The unit has an excellent backlight, but the screen is small that's for sure. The best way I think is a lap top computer hooked to a very basic GPS to feed the data to it. I'm pretty sure Tony Pilaske (TPilaske) runs this setup. Nonetheless, with my GPS V, we've found all kinds of interesting roads, restaurants, etc. without ever picking up a paper map. The autoroute feature works well provided you stay within the loaded maps. In this mode, the unit prompts you with upcoming turns that are enlarged and very easy to see even with these tired ol eyes. I've found if the route spans a loaded map and the basic map contained within the unit, big problems occur using the autoroute feature. So, what I do is if Iknow the basic route, I load the map for my destination and once within that map, then I autoroute to my final destinatiion.

[edit] Check out www.gpsnow.com or www.gpscity.com for really good prices on all GPS products.

 

That is correct Tom. I run a Earthmate GPS by DeLorme plugged into a laptop. Nice big screen to look at, plus it talks to you! Laptop sits nice on the armrest and you just throw the GPS up on the dash (it's pretty small).<br><br>Tony<br><br>http://www.delorme.com/earthmate/default.asp<br>

 

I have a hand held GPS and love it, I down load maps on it were ever I am going to be traveling.<br><br>KC

 

I have a Garmin GPS III+, handheld mounted to the dash.<br>I think it is the predesessor to the GPS V (don't remember a IV ever coming out)<br><br>I want to get an external antenna, then mount the unit lower, away from prying eyes, for now I just dismount it and put it in the glovebox when not using it, don't really have anywhere to mount the external antenna.<br><br>If I had a laptop I'd plug it into that and have the scrolling Delorme Topo maps loaded.<br>But for now, I just download where I'm going into it, plan out my route with Topo, and download the route into the GPS.<br><br><br>Somehow, I still end up getting lost though .<br><br>phox

 

I use the Garmin GPS V. It is pretty good but screen is small and is black and white, You can enter your destination and it will show you the turns etc. but no voice communication.<br><br>The Garmin Street Pilot lll gives you a large screen, color display and voice communication. Also has 128meg of memory so you can load quite a few maps. Look on e-bay, I think I have seen some for sale in the $400 - $600 range.

 

I use a Lorrance hand held linked to a Panasonic Toughbook CF-17 that has a 9&quot; TFT touch screen, which is superior to a touch pad while driving down the road. This conbo beats the Garman hands down and is cheaper. The Toughbook is small enough to fit up front by the radio, like the Garman, but won't melt down in hot sunlight like any other laptop. Panasonic no longer produces them, but they are easy to find on eBay.<br><br>I use Microsoft Streets and Trips to plan routes and Delorme to track position while traveling down the road. Microsoft's software looks great on the screen and has wonderful features except for too slow of GPS updates to be very useful while driving any faster than 20 mph. Have tried every brand of software out there, and these two are the best.

 

Thanks for the info...Ive been lookin at the Garmin Street Pilot lll with the color screen...the local dealer said I could try out the demo unit for a few days to see if I like it so monday I guess I'll give it a shot.<br>Does the packaged software work ok or should I look into some kind of upgraded software.

 

The software works pretty good, and updates are available free off the Garmin web page. You can upload/download waypoints, manual routes, and detailed map sets to and from your GPS and computer. What I've been doing lately is if I know the general route. I drop waypoints at exits, turns, etc., then connect them from start to destination. Although the mileage indicated is straight line distance from point to point, it's ballpark, and the unit will give you a pretty good idea of ETA to next waypoint and final. So if my wife is yelling &quot;I have to go to the bathroom!&quot;, I can say &quot;Can you hold it for another 7 minutes? We're almost at the rest stop.&quot; ;D I then save these routes on the PC, and download them to the unit depending where we're going. So for instance, we're traveling from MA to NJ tomorrow, I'll load my waypoint route to and from, so I have a pretty good idea how far to landmarks, rest stops, etc along the way. The auto route doesn't do that for you. It just gives you turn information. So for instance, if I'm stuck on the NJ turnpike, I can look at my GPS, and know that I'm x miles from the next exit, and have a pretty good idea how long it's going to take to get there. I can then exit there, and autoroute to my destination. You also have a compass rose setting display, and a plain information screen. Display parameters like speed, ETA, altitude, distance to final, can be set-up to your desires. The V has the WAAS option and a max acuracy of 3 meters with typical accuracy of around 15-25 feet.

 

Pappyman, Go out to West Marine on Abercorn in Savannah. They've got all the GPS units on display, connected to antennas so you can check them out. Drop me an email next week and I'll try to meet you out there one day.

 

Hey, can you get from Alabama to Savannah? :

 

I like hooking a handheld gps into a laptop computer. If you already own a laptop, this is also an economical approach, and gives you a much larger screen. If you get DeLorme products, get StreetAtlas Version 9.0; DON'T get the &quot;StreetAtlas Deluxe&quot; or &quot;StreetAtlas 2003&quot;. Myself and several other users I know find them to be much less user-friendly than the &quot;plain Jane&quot; offerings.

 

I use my GPS 6 days a week and would NOT be caught without it.<br><br>I use a laptop (the only real way to take good advantage of GPS) which sits on the arm console of the center seat....I have just about EVERY gps software that money can buy ranging from the 39.95 rand mcnally software to software that costs $500 dedicated to certain metro areas. <br><br>About the best bang for the buck I have found for street level addressing on a nationwide basis is the $50 Street Atlas 2003.....I also have the older ver 9 someone mentioned. However the newer 2003 is more accurate and upto date.....still easy to use and once you play with it for a day or so it becomes second nature.....<br><br>A bit of advice.....DONT buy the Delorme laptop GPS unit. Reason one being it requires batteries (HATE that), but the primary reason is it locks you into using Delorme's software as it will not work with most other software out there. For the GPS unit itself goto www.randmcnally.com and get their GPS unit.....its cheaper, powers off the laptop and is NEMA 2.0 compatible which means it will work with just about every GPS software on the planet including Delorme's......<br><br>Another little hint......go by your local auto parts store and buy some of that tool box liner....kinda rubbery stuff. Cut a piece to fit the top of your console......sit the laptop on it. You can SLAM on brakes and the laptop will NOT move.

 

There are Earthmate clones on eBay, which are either USB, or keyboard powered RS232, NMEA 2 out, and much less expensive than the Earthmate or the Rand McNally offerings.

IMO none of the mapping software out there matches Microsoft's user interface or on screen look. It comes form a company Microsoft bought out - Automap, I believe. Like other software sometimes the older versions are better. 2001 is better than 2002, I think. The GPS interface leaves something to be desired, though.

Most all over the counter mapping software out there use &quot;tiger maps&quot; from the USGS for their data base, so some mapping errors are common to all.

 

Picked up a used Garmin lll from a buddy for 50 bucks it has the car power plug I know this is an older unit with a build in map and cant upload any more detailed maps,he only used it twice so I figured it was worth the price,it will be a cheap starting point then I can get a better one later after I learn to use these things more....are the Amplified Garmin GPS Antennas worth the money do you get a better signal with them
??? ??? ??? ???