Just Plain Ruff Posted June 8, 2013 Posted June 8, 2013 (edited) I trust my Garmin Nuvi GPS device...to a point. When I activate the "find home", and am sitting in front of my house, it still says I'm at least 50 foot away. When I try finding a store at a mall, it leaves me at the entrance to the parking lot, which, unfortunately, usually is the street address for all the stores in that mall. While a Superstorm Sandy refugee, I wanted to go to a particular store. My GPS had the store listed, but on arrival, found it wasn't for the general public, but the distribution point to all the store's branches in the region. This, after 45 minutes driving. The store you are referring to Richard is now about 350 feet out in the ocean, out past the breakers under about 500 tons of sand. If you can brave and survive the riptides I hear they are selling their entire inventory dirt cheap. Edited June 8, 2013 by Captain ToHellWithItAll
Richard B the EMT Posted June 10, 2013 Posted June 10, 2013 The Costco store I tried for was in the Middletown area of Orange County, NY, a hundred miles away from my usual haunts, not coastal, like MY Costco store, which is back in operation.
DwayneEMTP Posted June 12, 2013 Posted June 12, 2013 Say, if anyone finds any really good GPS, I'd appreciate a heads up. We try and let Dylan lead as much as possible. I spent around $400 or so? I can't remember, on one of the super duper hiker, mountaineer GPS. It's supposed to rock, but the readout isn't intuitive...my phone does ok, but doesn't seem to get us closer often than 10-15 yards...for some, that's not nearly close enough... So anyway, if anyone finds something that is easy, maybe even fun to read and more accurate, I'd love to hear about it...
Richard B the EMT Posted June 12, 2013 Posted June 12, 2013 Just thinking back... 1) My usual Costco is in the Lawrence/Cedahurst/Inwood area of Nassau County, and was flooded out by water coming from Jamaica Bay during Superstorm Sandy. 2) My backup Costco is in Brooklyn, by the Gowanus Expressway section of the Brooklyn/Queens Expressway, and also probably got flooded, but by the Hudson River in the storm. 3) When I purchased my Nissan Quest Mini-Van, it would have cost an additional $500.00 for a dealer installed GPS. 4) The Garmin Nuvi I have cost under $100, and was purchased on-line from Costco. Device works great, mostly for point to point, but not finely defined enough for Geocaching. 5) When the Garmin refers me to stores, it may be outdated by years, even with on-line updating of the device. The pizza place I was referred to, is now a housing development.
DwayneEMTP Posted June 13, 2013 Posted June 13, 2013 Yeah, man, I learned quickly how much things had changed when I went through New Orleans on my way to work the BP oil spill...Even the freeways weren't where they were supposed to be, according to my outdated GPS...
island emt Posted June 13, 2013 Posted June 13, 2013 Remember a GPS unit is only as good as the database info it uses to locate something. When we did E-911 gps mapping of all roads and residences we found that the state maps and data were often off by quite a bit. We were using a level 2 system which is usually reserved for military level use. Accurate to within 6 feet. level 1 is within 1 foot. Most common handhelds use level 3. It all depends on how many satellites they use to triangulate off.
Just Plain Ruff Posted June 13, 2013 Posted June 13, 2013 I have a friend who works for Garmin and he told me that they do not make the maps. They contract out to a third party and that company is the one who makes the maps. It is up the them to provide you with the maps that you need and to keep them updated. It is also incumbent upon you to keep your maps updated and it's not the maps or the GPS's fault if you do not keep your system updated. it is becoming industry standard to provide GPS devices with lifetime map updates (usually quarterly) but the device I purchased from my friend at the Garmin employee (hefty) discount gives unlimited updates (hint -weekly updates). The GPS device he sold me was based on the Level 2 mapping system I believe. (love having a friend working for Garmin) And remember one other thing, If you live in an area where two states sit side by side and you are on the border, there are two maps competing with one another so you will be getting a lot of recalculating. Keep that in the back of your mind. For example- Kansas and missouri in the Kansas city MO/KS area. Along State Line road. Driving down that road you have missouri on one side and kansas on the other. Every minutes the two state maps have to compete with one another to give you the correct location so they recalculate a lot. Go about 1 mile into one state or another and the requisite correct state map will take over and all will be well. My friend is a treasure trove of GPS info as well as if anyone here needs info on the Garmin Aircraft GPS devices let me know (His specialty is aircraft GPS).
ERDoc Posted June 13, 2013 Author Posted June 13, 2013 (edited) Maybe your friend could get us an EMTCity discount. Just sayin. I just found my first geocoin and was pretty excited (nerd love). We're going to drop it off in a cache when we go to NY this summer. Edited June 13, 2013 by ERDoc
Just Plain Ruff Posted June 13, 2013 Posted June 13, 2013 He gets 8 discounts a year. Do you have a specific GPS device you are wanting? I might be able to leverage a discount for a specific doctor friend of mine. As long as that doctor agrees that if he ever gets to baltimore he buys the first round.
ERDoc Posted June 13, 2013 Author Posted June 13, 2013 Drinks sound good. I was out in Baltimore over spring break, for about an hour. I had enough time to get off the plane, hit the head, get to the gate, count the kids and get the next set of boarding passes out. Beautiful city from the air.
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