Date: Fri, 27 Aug 2004 00:03:48 EDT
Reply-To: FrankGRUN@AOL.COM
Sender: Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From: Frank Grunthaner <FrankGRUN@AOL.COM>
Subject: GPS and Routing Software Report with Some Euro-comments
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Listees and other interested wandering souls:
I have just returned from a long planned and eagerly anticipated European
vacation which included a 12-day cruise through the Baltic from Dover to St.
Petersburg and back. the cruise included sojourns through the Kiel canal
(Germany), Warnemunde/Rostock (Germany), Tallinn (Estonia), St. Petersburg (Russia),
Helsinki (Finland), Stockholm (Sweden), and Copenhagen (Denmark). Following the
22 mph cruise portion of the trip, we rented a car from Hertz in Dover that
included round trip passage on the Chunnel and the ability to swap the British
car for a European vehicle in Calais (and to reverse the swap in Calais as need
for the British return). We then toured Belgium, Holland, Germany and France
by automobile before returning for several days of adventures in London. There
are no directly labeled Vanagon comments here except for our extensive GPS
and routing program experience.
As to our transportation, we used a Ford Focus (stretched) station wagon with
a common rail turbo diesel 2.0L engine and 5 speed manual. The British part
of our wanderings was accomplished in a 6 speed Ford Mondero Station wagon with
a common rail TDi engine as well. In Europe, on the Autoroutes and Autobahns,
I generally drove between 130 and 180 km/hr. Wife consistently panicked above
180. Moderately stable above 160 (wife). The car was strong, quite and
handled superbly. Fuel consumption never exceeded 6.1 liters per 100 km. On
smaller mountain roads and particularly scenic areas, we averaged 3.9 liters/100 km.
For the calculationally challenged, these numbers work out to 38.56 mpg (US)
and 60.31 mpg. Amazing!
But the point of this note is the navigation! Based on our experiences in the
Chilean Atacama Desert, I become a great fan of GPS systems. For this trip we
were looking for 1) a GPS system with low power consumption, high sensitivity
and rapid satellite acquisition time 2) a software package with extensive
detail of roads, streets and critical establishments (hotels, gas stations,
castles) 3) GPS location integration with 2, and finally, MAC compatibility
preferably with system 10 (X). Unfortunately for the creative computer users out
there in the hinterland, GPS manufacturers seem to know only of Windows or Palm OS
systems.
For the GPS hardware, we had several options. I have used the Garmin RINO 120
extensively because of its FRS radio capability and the ability to map the
position of other RINO units on the maps in real time. Garmin does offer
Worldmap and Metro Europe databases from Mapsource. With the purchase of a serial/12V
power cable (the RINO is a battery pig!) and the use of my Keyspan or IOGear
USB to Serial adapter, the Garmin system is moderately usable with VirtualPC
on the Mac. Unfortunately, the RINO only has an 8 Meg memory buffer, so
detailed routing info and maps had to be uploaded to the RINO for each major city.
Serial connection through Virtual PC for routing and navigation with the
Mapsource product was only barely adequate on major highways. The satellite update
time essentially eliminated the RINO's utility in major cities.
As a backup, I had purchased the DeLorme Earthmate system in its Bluetooth
incarnation. The only available software was for moderate resolution street maps
of the USA. This system worked perfectly
with my 17 inch Powerbook G4 1.5 GHz notebook running System 10.3.4. It
worked perfectly with the routing and mapping program Route 66 Europe 2004. This
was our central routing tool throughout Britian and continental Europe.
So some details. The Route 66 Europe 2004 program is available for both MAC
and pc platforms. The European database is excellent. Roads to the level of
cowpaths are to be found. The list of possible locations is extensive but dated
to the end of 2003. Establishments built in the last year are not to be found.
However, road directions (one way), crossovers, even construction areas (web
link each morning to the Route 66 web site) were documented and taken into
account when generating routes. For example, we entered the location of the Hertz
location in Calais by typing two words: "Hertz Calais" in the find location
window. The program immediately returned a list of locations. We selected the
Coquelles site and made it a departure point. We then searched for the Burg
Eltz and indicated this as the destination. The program immediately calculated
the route, indicated the route on a map of variable scale a generated a turn
and distance list. The Earthmate GPS unit was readily paired to the bluetooth
capability on the Powerbook. Using the Bluetooth serial utility, I defined the
interface type expected by the Route 66 program. We then triggered the location
file for the GPS, indicating that we wanted the current vehicle position
continuously updated on the display map.
Throughout the trip, in amazing detail we went from place to place (er,
castle to ruin to hotel to grocery store actually) with the blinking GPS symbol
constantly showing us where we were at any time. In the bowels of Brussels, the
congested streets of Amsterdam, Stuttgart, Munich, Nuremberg, and Frankfurt.
But also through excursions off the Deutsche Alpenstrasse, runs through the
Tirol, in and through the back roads of the Mosel and the Rhine. The drive through
London in 5:00 traffic consisted of 68 turns to get to our hotel. Perfect!
To summarize, you can spend more, but this level of utility is hard to beat.
I spent about $200 on the Earthmate Bluetooth unit, and $65 on the Route 66
Europe 2004 MAC package. A similar package is available for the USA. The pc
crowd can get the non-bluetooth version of Earthmate for about $100, and the Route
66 software for a bit less.
I should also note that I use MACGPSPro also to download waypoint info from
the RINO GPS units and it can interface with Mapsources. But time is fleeting.
Frank Grunthaner
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