GPS Alternitives

[fipdublin]

Hi All, I'm new to posting on this site. I've been a lurker gaining lots of great ideas from you all. Thank you for being so generous with your posts. I'm the proud owner of an '04 ST just getting back into riding after a 25 year pause. I took the MSF Course recently and found it to be a great learning experience after being away from riding for so long.

Anyway, my question is about the different kinds of GPS appliances that are available today. The reason for asking is it would be nice to use the tool for other things rather than just GPS on the bike. I see that Garmin has an iQue PDA that is Palm based, also the possiblity of using a Windows based handheld with GPS software, etc. Just wanted to see if others have been down this road with other devices other than the popular 26XX and 27XX series Garmins.

[Blrfl]

I sprung for the Lowrance iWay 500c because it takes care of the two biggest things I want on the bike at the moment in one nicely-integrated, waterproof package: maps and tunes. From what I've read so far, Lowrance seems pretty good about adding new features, so maybe there's potential for them to add other things like trip, service and fuel logging.

After a shipping SNAFU, I'm finally expecting mine on Wednesday. I'll post a full report after I've got some miles with it.

--Mark

[curmudgeon]

Since you are looking for alternatives might I suggest MAPS. :D
They have worked for centuries. :rolleyes:


Phil

[Kennedy]

I use a Dell Axim x 50. Does a little bit of every thing for me. Don't like that it wont plot a course for you, do like it connects to my home machine and updates all on its own.
Mounts to the bike using a PDA cradle that I put a magnet on the base with a few little rubber feet so it just sticks to the tank.

[haysenglehart]

I bought one of the brand new Garmin Quest 2's, has all maps loaded for North America so no computer down load necessary. It's very small, waterproof, (to 10 feet, but I'm not planning on taking it diving!) and very easy. Comes with a suction cup mount and cigar lighter power for the car. I bought the special motorcycle wiring kit which allows you to tap into the bikes power and has an external headphone mount so you can hear the directions. The really great thing about it is you can easily remove it and use it in a car, no sweat! I just traveled to Indiana and took it and the car adapter with me. Worked perfectly!
For mounting I used the RAM mount, perfect. By the way, it has an internal lithium battery that is supposed to be good for 20 hours. Great for hiking or fishing trips. Very compact, good screen, very easy to use. Highly recommeded, by me, of course!
Garmin just announced that the got two contracts to supply Garmin units to Harley and Honda.... The Harley unit is the same as mine but in black with the Hardley logo. I understand the GoldWing uses the Garmin system for 2006. Good luck!

[crazykz]

I've used some of the PDA ones and find them very hard to use because you need to use a stylus with them. They are also limited on memory but the same could be said for some of the GPS's out there. Some of those alternativ solutions are also not very tolerant to rain and the elements.

Honestly it does depend on what type of riding you do but overall I've found that unless you already use a PDA or other device on a daily basis it's a waste of money. I'm of school though where I buy things that do one thing and do it very well. In my opinion find a GPS you can afford and find another device to satisfy your other needs.

I'm probably saying this though because for my needs I need a full featured GPS unit but I still think what I'm saying has some validity.

Curt

[basco]

I have done the PDA route and don't do it. I tried the wire antena and the bluetooth one and both are POS. If you get them to work thats one thing keeping them working while driving is another. The set up time each time you use it is long. PDAs are not waterproof and are not durable. I was fed up enough to return the bluetooth one and bought a Garmin 2610

[Bones]

Since you are looking for alternatives might I suggest MAPS. :D
They have worked for centuries. :rolleyes:
Phil

Dead reckoning works great, too. If you always knew where you were going, how much fun would you have exploring?

[Blrfl]

If you always knew where you were going, how much fun would you have exploring?

You should try one of those new Heisenberg GPS units. They're great for exploring.

--Mark

[Putt]

You should try one of those new Heisenberg GPS units. They're great for exploring.

--Mark

I was gonna use a dousing/divining rod, but I thought it
might be best to keep both hands on the bars..


Putt...

[STeve1300]

Hi All, I'm new to posting on this site.

Welcome!

I'm just getting back into riding after a 25 year pause.

It seems there lots of us on this site that have re-entered riding on an ST:biker:

Anyway, my question is about the different kinds of GPS appliances that are available today. The reason for asking is it would be nice to use the tool for other things rather than just GPS on the bike.


I have the non-color Garmin etrex legend and use it for camping & hiking as well as traveling in the car, on the bike, and on vacations. I rarely use it for everyday riding and it fits my needs well. It is very basic. It clips on in seconds when I want it, and I keep it stored in the bike. It is also water resistant.

[dond]

I toss some dried chicken bones on the ground and they tell me what to do. Good juju.

[trueblu]

I Have been looking at using a GPS but am wondering how useful they are. can anyone tell me how they use them and if they have practical value.

[Blrfl]

I Have been looking at using a GPS but am wondering how useful they are. can anyone tell me how they use them and if they have practical value.
None whatsoever. They make a good counterweight for the satellite radio receiver on the other side of your handlebars. :D But seriously...

Even an inexpensive GPS receiver with no map in it can be useful. Say you're on a main road and you see a side road that looks intriguing. Before you make the turn, you tell your GPS to make note of where you are (sometimes called marking a "waypoint"). Then you start exploring and get yourself completely buried in a maze of back roads. At some point, when you decide you've had enough, you tell the GPS you'd like to go back to where you turned off. Even without a map, you'll be able to see where you are relative to where you started and can continue exploring roads that take you in the general direction of the waypoint. I take a receiver with minimal features on business trips and mark waypoints for my hotel and where I'm working and use the same method for finding my way back after exploring the local restaurants. Even without a map, it works just fine anywhere in the world. There are similar applications for pretty much anything you can do outdoors. My wife and I bought one for my brother-in-law after he got severly lost while hunting. Now he doesn't go out without it, and uses it to record where his tree stands are, where he's bagged deer and where the good fishing spots are.

Many will also show your current speed and heading (if you're moving) and can keep track of how much time and distance you've covered.

The mid-range units get you basemaps, which cover the major roads and the ability to upload detailed maps of selected areas. Go up another step and you get into built-in detailed maps, color, larger displays and auto-routing ("show me how to get to 123 Maple Street from here").

For me, the big thing is having a lot of maps in one compact package. I use GPS extensively at work (for precise time recovery and location surveys, but only rarely for navigation) and finally sprung for an auto-routing unit to use personally. It will be nice getting that pound or two of maps out of my right saddlebag.

--Mark

[crazykz]

I Have been looking at using a GPS but am wondering how useful they are. can anyone tell me how they use them and if they have practical value.

Well you kind of highjacked fipdublin's thread but I'll bite. (BTW, fipdublin, if you come back to this thread; where are you in WI?)

I use mine all the time because I'm in a urban/surburban area I'm going to areas that I never frequent and I don't know. All I need is an address and I can punch it in. That gets me there and then three button pushes gets me home. I used it twice for that this week. For weekend riding I find that I use it for taking roads I probably would have never taken if I didn't have the GPS. I don't mind getting lost and not using it but I've noticed I find more roads that are good for riding and hook me up with other connector roads by using the GPS rather than getting onto roads that are great but lead you into suburbia hell with stop signs every 20 feet.

Most people don't do the long distance stuff and rallies but I use it a lot for that. I'll just put that in there. The other part of that is that the speed on the GPS is more accurate and I use that over the one on the bike all the time.

On long trips when I'm interstating it and I need to find gas, although it isn't 100% accurate, it has a listing of the exits on the interstate I'm on and a listing for each exit of what's there. It's about 80% accurate but at least it gives me an idea of whether I can push it down the road or I better hit the next gas station I see. It has a decent directory for hotels, gas, shopping (you know, for the SO), etc.

To me if you ride and you can afford even an entry level one I recommend picking one up. If you don't want to blow even $150 then put them money into good maps where you ride and mark them up with your roads. The GPS, depending on the model, will let you save routes and waypoints on your computer so if you've marked them before you just punch them in and go. Sometimes I'll be at a friends house in the sticks and what to get to another friends house in the sticks so having their homes already marked in my personal waypoints makes it easy to do a shortest distance between the two and discover a bunch of roads that I would probably never hit on my normal rides.

It's a great toy with some real functional purposes that can add to the fun of riding, let you ride longer without struggling with directions and maps, let's you find things you need to find that maps simply don't have, and gives you a way to save all the fun places you ride and visit. If you want to be a purest once in a while then leave it at home. For me I've made it my best buddy for riding. It talks to me in that sweet female voice and let's me know it's ok... I'll get you there if you just follow me. Everything is going to be alright. Breath easy you big baby. Was that an over share? ;)

You wouldn't believe the jams in the middle of the night in the middle of nowhere that she's pulled me out of. To each his own man. You have to decide for yourself.

Curt

[STeve1300]

It talks to me in that sweet female voice and let's me know it's ok... I'll get you there if you just follow me. Everything is going to be alright. Breath easy you big baby. ;)

You wouldn't believe the jams in the middle of the night in the middle of nowhere that she's pulled me out.
Curt


Obviously Curt has the Pay-Per-View model :D

[trueblu]

It talks to me in that sweet female voice and let's me know it's ok... I'll get you there if you just follow me. Everything is going to be alright. Breath easy you big baby. Was that an over share? ;)



Curt[/QUOTE]
Well your elequent words and images of a sweet female guide sure got me going so I purchased a Magellan 700 GPS this weekend. Lots of FUN! It has a windscreen clamp which fits onto the front of the tank quite well. It wobles a bit and I wonder if this will affect the internal Harddrive. Nice thing is that it easy to transfer to the car as well as use on the Bike. Something else is that the speaker does not have an earphone jack so I can't plug it into my helmet sound system (JM 2003). Any comments?

[CruisingDog]

I have the iQue 3600. I have to disagree about the horsepower since it uses a 200MHz Drangonball CPU. Basically it's plenty fast at calculating directions and routes. Maybe not as fast as the modern GPS units but it's adequate for what I need 99% of the time.

Here are my comments about the IQue [plusses and minusses]

* Battery is only rechargeable. You can't replace the batteries in an
emergency.

* Since the batteries are only rechargeable you can hook up the DC
cigar charger. Problem is that the little jack plug is very fragile. As it
happens the center metal piece of the connector (on the PDA device)
snapped off in the barrel of the jack plug on my last trip [yesterday!].
Fortunately I was able to reverse engineer the "USB plug" and make
a better DC connector when I got home. This is now more vibration
proof [ie won't fatigue since it's a contact connector not an insert
type]. If you need details on how to make one of these, please
ping me an email. The plug is the same type as the USB connector
that you get in the accessories/travel kit.

UPDATE:

I found a website that sells the power connector that I have just
rigged myself. It also has AC connectivity in it through the USB.
Pretty nifty if you have an iQue 3600.
http://www.boxwave.com/products/easyfinder/buy-best-garmin-ique-3600-accessories_28.htm

You would need the VersaCharger and the USB cable for a standard
Cigar adapter (it also includes AC so that you can charge overnight!!).

* Map coverage is great. I use 2 SD-cards. 256MB and a 128MB. The
256MB card has 4-5 US States with routing and detailed info on. I
use the other for the areas where I 'might end up'. The base maps
have all the main roads and interstates on so you can use these if
you don't need detail. I swap cards when needed.

* Audio option can be used to listen to some music. I don't have a large
enough SDcard for songs as well as maps. I would need a 1GB card
for that!

* Screen is big and very easy to read. Resolution is better than most
factory units. Its a 320x200 pixel display, 256 color.

* It's expandable. I have all my Palm PDA things on it. Saves carrying
an address book and all the other stuff.

* Takes time to set up so that it's menus appear logical. The setting
up of the iQue button is the most important thing to do. Once you
'get' this functioality, the device works so simply. Very easy to flick
between directions, map, find location and the Odometer.

* Not waterproof. I take a sandwich bag with me so that I can seal it
up if necessary.

* Screen needs to have a protection cover on it. By this I mean the
'screen protector' thingies, that allow you to still use the PDA pen.

* PDA pen functionality on the maps is great. Draw a box around the
area you wish to zoom-in on and bingo, it zooms in. Nice touch.

* Works very well with the RAM ball mount. Very secure.

* Great for other things. Work; Car [there's a sand-bag mount for it]
which sits on your dash board and a Cigar adapter with an amplifier
so that you can hear the 'directions' voice.

* Software Crashes occasionally. At least on V2 OS. I've just been
using V3 on my last trip and din't see any crashes. Maybe it's been
fixed. Today I've just uploaded the latest V4 OS. So we'll see if
that makes things better or worse.

* The RAM mount makes it easy to remove for storage. This also means
it's more 'stealable' !! I always take mine with me when I go
somewhere.

Here's a link to my GPS mount. Please look at the GPS piccies.

http://groups.msn.com/ST1300US/utahtrip2004.msnw?Page=1

Basically I rate the iQue3600 very highly. The power connector is the design flaw [for motorcycles] but can be remidied by using the USB power adapter listed in the link above. Don't use the DC jack on a motorcycle, c'oz it breaks easily!

[CruisingDog]

It talks to me in that sweet female voice and let's me know it's ok... I'll get you there if you just follow me. Everything is going to be alright. Breath easy you big baby. Was that an over share? ;)
Curt


I want mine to say: "No, the other left honey!" ;-)

[CruisingDog]

Well your elequent words and images of a sweet female guide sure got me going so I purchased a Magellan 700 GPS this weekend. Lots of FUN! It has a windscreen clamp which fits onto the front of the tank quite well. It wobles a bit and I wonder if this will affect the internal Harddrive. Nice thing is that it easy to transfer to the car as well as use on the Bike. Something else is that the speaker does not have an earphone jack so I can't plug it into my helmet sound system (JM 2003). Any comments?

I would check about the Hard Drive and Motorcycles. These types of devices aren't rated for motorcycles from what I gather due to vibration. Solid State cards are the way to go.

I have no evidence of this, I'm just relaying what others have said.

[Blue STreak]

re: the Magellan.

I'd not only worry about the hard drive, but I don't believe that unit is waterproof. If you never ride in the rain, not a problem, but if you get caught in a downpour even once it could become a very expensive paper weight.

I ride with a Garmin 2610 and a 2 GB CF card. With 2 GB I can download all the U.S. and Canada mapsets. I think the 26xx and 2720 probably have the most sophisticated routing capabilities and biggest POI databases, but if I were going to buy today I might consider the Quest 2.

One thing to think about is whether you want / need the ability to do routing on the PC. When I'm building my own routes (as opposed to letting the GPSR autoroute), the big screen, mouse and keyboard on a PC makes it a LOT easier. Not all GPSRs offer that capability.

BTW, the two things I like best about using a GPSR: If I really need to get to somewhere I haven't been before, it beats the heck out of just a map. The map will help you plan a route, but won't tell you if you've just missed your turn, or tell you how to get back on route if you've taken a wrong turn.

And if I'm just out riding, I feel much more free to just take a road and see where it goes, because I know I can rely on the GPSR to get me back no matter how lost I get.

[ligito]

"I toss some dried chicken bones on the ground and they tell me what to do. Good juju."


Will Jujubies work, too?

[Putt]

"I toss some dried chicken bones on the ground and they tell me what to do. Good juju."


Will Jujubies work, too?

Yes they will!!! Not only that, but they can be used for a
quick sugar fix!! However, I have noticed, that after a
couple of times on the ground (for directional purposes)
they tend to get a bit "crunchy"..

Putt..

[Blackdog]

Knowing where to go has never been a problem for me. Finding my way home is another story. GPS is better than chicken bones because it won't leave a greasy stain in your pocket and unlike chicken bones won't attract bears to your camp. LOL!

[Redeye]

I would check about the Hard Drive and Motorcycles. These types of devices aren't rated for motorcycles from what I gather due to vibration. Solid State cards are the way to go.

I have no evidence of this, I'm just relaying what others have said.

Garmin actually stated this on their site at some time in the past.

[Blrfl]

I would check about the Hard Drive and Motorcycles. These types of devices aren't rated for motorcycles from what I gather due to vibration.

To save myself some copy-n-paste, see my comments on that subject here:

http://groups.msn.com/st1300us/luggage.msnw?action=get_message&mview=0&ID_Message=71351

Garmin says no, Lowrance says yes, don't know about Magellan.

--Mark

[jeffmiller]

I would use nothing other than the Garmin 2610. Mount it whatever way you want, but the 2610 is water resistant and does not use a microdrive. Trust me, coming from an IT background, the microdrives are very succeptible to vibration/impact failure.

[crazykz]

2610 with a compact flash card. No microdrives. They are temperature sensitive and hate vibration. Had a friend try one and pitched it to get a compact flash card.

Curt

[BillA]

IF you have a powerful enough PDA AND use it regularly, perhaps for work or by habit can be a very nice solution, otherwise use that money on a good GPS specific device. I have a Dell Axim x50v it is the VGA version of the x50 and the screen is drop dead gorgeous, crisp, and very clear. This has a 624 MHz processor, very quick. Enough of the specs. I do use a PDA for work and wanted a good turn based GPS solution for travel (Car and Bike). I use On Course Navigator software for the turn based directions; it will get you from point A to point B every time perfectly. If you miss a turn (on purpose or otherwise) it will re-calculate almost instantaneously. The friendly female voice (there may be others) easily tells you at the very best moment based on your speed to “turn left in 600’, etc. This software comes at a price $160.00 is what I believe I paid last year, but is has been worth it. It is almost magical how it guides you along, while showing every McDonalds and sewing machine repair shop along the way. It even has a Motorcycle biased setting you can use for directions. This setting will pick scenic and rural roads and not interstates or highways if at all possible. It even has a walk mode which will route you and ignore one way streets because the sidewalks are both ways, neat. I use a GPS receiver which came with Microsoft Streets and Trips, though I purchased a Blue Tooth micro cradle for the receiver, works perfectly, always. (BTW no riding in the rain with this gear). I also have Streets and Trips installed, it does not have turn based directions, but has its own charms. I can also hit the internet (while off the bike) with the built-in wireless in any major city (or apartment complex for that matter), there are so many un-secure and public networks available now days. I can fit a movie or two on a 1GB SD card for watching while calling it a day and listen to MP3s or WMA audio while riding and having the directions called out to me. All in all a nice combo, for a geek like me. If all you want to do is hear the directions and or music and not look at the map you can put it in your inner shirt or jacket pocket.

Sorry for the long post, though I really love the combination of this PDA, receiver and the software. This is not the cheapest way to go or the most practical for most. I wanted to share my solution.

[805gregg]

join aaa get free maps all year about 45 bucks.

[jeffmiller]

Then get yourself a good HMO for when you go MIA from reading them as you are doing significant MPH. Give me a Garmin 2610 ANYDAY!

[MikeP1300]

After seeing Curt's farkling masterpiece, I felt a bit.... inadequate. So, embarassed and ashamed I set out to BE like Curt. One problem, I ran out of money after only one farkle, but it's the best damn gps-like thingy in the world.
It's always on, doesn't need recharging, easy to use, and it's cheap.

Eat your heart out Curt, you don't have one of these. But, I'll be glad to buy one for you.

Mike P