General GPS Navigator Experiences

GPS units are often useless without an additional map product

It is common that you need to buy an additional map product to be able to use the mapping facilities of GPS navigators. This is also the case with Garmin units, which invariably require you to buy a Mapsource product because the base maps of the GPS units are too coarse to be of any real use. You should include the additional price of the map in a price comparison between GPS navigators, as the maps are really an integral part of them.

Cars making GPS difficult

Many cars have window coatings to keep the heat of the Sun out of the car. Unfortunately this coating also keeps the GPS satellite signals out of the car cabin, making gps use impossible. Most cars with window coating therefore have an opening without the screen behind the rearview mirror, in which you can fix an external GPS or GPS antenna that you can connect to your GPS navigator or PDA via a cable or using a Bluetooth wireless connection.

GPS in buses

When going on a bus as a passenger and wanting to use your gps you are usually in luck. Most roofs in buses are made of fibreglass that does not stop the gps satellite signal, giving you almost as good a signal as if you were standing outside the bus.

Urban Canyons - City Navigation

Using a GPS navigator in a city can be a big problem, because tall buildings block the signals from the GPS satellites that your GPS navigator needs to calculate where you are. And the buildings make navigation less precise because the satellite signals can be bounced off one or more buildings, making its travel time between satellite and GPS navigator longer, and thereby giving a wrong distance between satellite and GPS navigator, and a (more) wrong location. Try to stay as much away from buildings as possible and at the center of the road, to get the best and most precise signals possible under these difficult conditions.

GPS systems on PDA's are temperature sensitive

GPS systems running on a PDA mounted in a car windshield is a problematic solution when the sun is reasonably strong. Not because of the gps systems, but because of the PDA's. They have problems handling the heat from direct sunlight. It happens again and again that the PDA stops working at some point because of the heat, and of course it's frequently just at the end of the trip when you really need the gps system on it to work so you can find your final destination. These are experiences made with PDA's from iPaq and Fujitsu-Siemens but is probably a general problem. PDA's have operational temperature ranges meant for office use, not the baking sun in a car front window.