Garmin GPS V
 

Anyone managed to get hold of one of these yet?

If so worth the extra money?

Ta

Julio

I have the GPS III+ which I've used extensively on and off-road. I just got the GPS V and used it on a x-country trip the Reverse Pony Express. (www.dhpmoto.com/reverseponyexpress).

The V was much better than the III+ in this situation as it had more memory space for detailed maps and also had auto-routing to major destinations in the US.

This came in handy when coming to a city and needing to find an address. I rarely looked at a map using the GPS to guide me to every destination on the fly.

Regards,

David H. Park www.dhpmoto.com

I have one to.

The autorouting works good.
Just fill in a city or adress and it will leed you there.
It came with the European basemap and a cityselect CD (to autoroute on streetlevel)from The Netherlands, Belgium, Luxemburg and France. for a $ 160,-- extra you become the cityselect from whole Europe.

I use it both on my KTM and in my car.

Freek (netherlands)

I have a StreetPilot III mounted on the handlebars of my motorcycle. The StreetPilot III provides the same autorouting functions as the GPS V, but it has a colour display that is much larger than the GPS V.

My recommendation to anyone considering a GPS for a motorcycle would be to purchase the StreetPilot III, not because of any difference in features, but because of the larger display. I think it would be difficult to refer to the smaller display of the GPS V if it was handlebar mounted and you were depending on it for 'close-in' navigation through intersections, bypasses, etc.

It is also important that you consider your own visual acuity when making a selection of a GPS for motorcycle use. I'm over 40, and because of that, my vision does not adapt from infinity (looking at the road) to 60 cm (looking at the GPS) as fast as it used to. I can compensate for this by zooming the display on the StreetPilot III to a larger setting. On the GPS V, the display is pretty small to begin with - if you zoomed it in, you would not be able to see very much of the map around you for orientation.

Note also that digitized map coverage of areas outside of Western Europe and Canada-USA is quite limited. Garmin has a product called "World Map" which has reasonable coverage of all major roads (e.g. national highways) in the world, but this product is over 5 years old now. I found it was quite satisfactory this summer when I toured through Slovakia and Poland. However, looking at the coverage of, for example, Algeria south of the Atlas mountains (an area I am very familiar with from my work), there is not much there at all, just the N1, N6 and N3. Better than nothing, but certainly not sufficient to navigate by.

You can preview what coverage WorldMap does or does not have of your planned route at Garmin's website. Go to this link: http://www.garmin.com/cartography/mapSource/ and choose "MapSource Map Viewer"

There are some good ideas for how to mount the GPS on various types of motorcycles (with pictures) at this link: http://www.cycoactive.com/gps/gallery/default.htm

Lastly, these GPS units eat batteries - the StreetPilot III is only good for about 2 or 3 hours on a set of 6 AA batteries - therefore it is essential that you purchase an external power plug and supply the unit with 12 volt power from your bike.

I just got my GPS V set up today. I used to use an eMap, which I loved, but the GPS V is a MUCH better piece of equipment.

I would spend the extra money for a GPS V or GPS III if you're going to be in the city and can use MapSource, otherwise I'd stick to something simpler to just mark waypoints.

The routing features of the GPS V are amazing, the screen drawing is much faster compared to my eMap and the screen is much higher res than the eMap as well.

As for battery usage, all you have to do is get the proper cigarette lighter adapter for your GPS, snip off the cigarette adapter and wire it in to your bike. Or better yet, fit the female end of a cigarette adapter on your bike to get usage of anything that plugs into a cigarette lighter. If you get a cable from CycoActive, the guys there can show you how to do it.

Wright

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Wright Bagwell http://www.geocities.com/wwbagwell/



[This message has been edited by wbagwell (edited 04 January 2002).]

Hi Guys

Bit the bullet and bought a GPS Garmin V last month for my trip to Morocco. Got a Touratech version with rally mount as was going to be doing loads of riding on the Pistes. I problems with it freezing on screen before I left the UK. Tried various things to the power supply to see if I could find out what the problem was. Eventually even tried running it from my plug adaptor but would still not work for long before it crashed.

Eventually I removed the Power cable completely and run it on batteries which was a pain on the piste as when you hit a large bump or corruation it would switch off and they did not last for long.

When it was working it was great, anyone else had any problems with their. Will take it back to Brackens this week to get it changed.

Cheers

Julio

Wondered if anyone else was having issues with their GPS V as I am.

Using the base map only the unit shows me running on average .1 miles paralell to the road I'm on, I realise that positional errors are to be expected but surely not to this degree!? Also I got the impression from the manual that the 'lock onto road' function of the unit compensated for this by planting you on the nearest road in the map rather than your true calculated position... this doesn't seem to work or happen on my unit. Does the accuracy improve and the 'lock onto road' function start to work with the more detailed maps from Mapsource uploaded to the unit? Anyone else found the same issues, or have any ideas or could my unit be faulty?

Help & advice gratefully received

Paul

Hi Paul,

I have the GPSIII (not the +). It also has the base-map.
Just like yours, I seem to be driving beside the road sometimes. gues those guy's that build the road made a little mistake http://www.horizonsunlimited.com/ubb/wink.gif

The base-map is a referance-map only and not absolutly correct. So it's not a problem if you camp in the middle of a lake, or drive beside the road.

Also, even without SA (selective availability, the random error) your receiver is only acurate up to about 15 to 30 meter's. This becourse of the (non) acuracy of the internal clock. Also the "spread" of satelite's in the sky can course deviation's.

Only with D-GPS and a (really) expansive receiver you get an acuracy of about 1 to 3 meters.

So: Nothing to worry about.

I don't know about the "stick to road" function, but I can imagion this only works with the loadable maps since the base-map is (like said before) just a base-map. No grid's etc...

I hope this helps.

Maarten

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- www.maartensworld.tmfweb.nl -

Thanks mmaarten

I'll percevere! travelling round the Pyrenees in a couple of weeks so I unlocked France from the MapSource discs.... I think I will just put up with the errors as $178USD is an awfull lot of money to unlock the UK as well, perhaps will do that next year when planning starts for my trip round west & east europe in 2004.

I spoke to Garmin and they said the same as you, the base map is only a reference, they told me that once I upload the mapsource data to my unit all the problems will dissapear.... well without spending $178USD I'm not going to find out until I get to the south of France, I will let you know whether what they say is true when I get back http://www.horizonsunlimited.com/ubb/smile.gif

If that is the case though, Garmin should have had the foresight to fit the GPS V with removable data storage as even 19mb of memory will only hold a few maps. When I was planning my route through the mountains and back up through France I only had space for 6 maps...... less than 50% of my intended journey! That means that when I do the much longer route in 2004 I will probably need to carry a laptop as well if I want the GPS to do any more than tell me where I am!

Regards
Paul

Well... I percevered.... Used my GPS V round the Pyrenees and through a couple of large French cities with the mapsource city select maps uploaded... couldn't fault the unit... stayed locked onto the road i was on without exception and the accuracy was unbelievable!!! rode into Toulouse and GPS V took us straight to the motor rail terminal without any missed turns or nav errors, met up with another couple of groups of bikers there who were rather upset as they had ridden round the city lost for a couple of hours before finding the station, it took us around 10 mins from the edge of the city!!

Mind you.... I don't think my suspension will ever fully recover from the way my bike was strapped to the train.... I could hear her wimpering in pain as they COMPLETELY compressed her suspension front and rear........... OUCH!!!!!!!!

Looks like I'm gonna have to splash out and get the rest of europe unlocked!!

Paul

I had problems with the routes I'd made.
They were too long. The software was 2.02
Now I have the 2.04 downloaded, it works fine.
You can download it for free on the Garmin site.

Freek

Hi All

Have got It back and will hopefully test it out. Apparently it was a software problem with the unit.

When I checked the Garmin site I was surpried to see how many fixes they have had to put in place for the unit. I wish i would have been told about the limited number of waypoints problem before I left fro Africa.

So fingers crossed it won't switch off or lock when I used the power supply off my bike. Saying that though it was really handy when it worked.

I may try it on my trail bike CRM 250 when I'm off roading to give it a good test. The bike does not have a battery, so would it work off the electrical supply when the bike is running.

When you use the unit with only batteries,and hit any large bumps etc it either switches off or locks.

cheers

Julio

Hi All

Loaded the latest software upgrade and used it this weekend.

Still locking or switching itself off with batteries or power direct from Battery.

Will send it back to Bracken again to see what they say.

Will keep you posted

julio

Hi Julio,

Try this: Remove the batteries and run it from the power-socket.
Vibration and bump's couse the batterie-contacts to fail and even burn-in after a while. When this has happened (after a few hours driving) they will even fail when standing still. (and they are very hard to clean!)

If you absolutely need to run on batteries on the bike, try to increase the spring-presure by placing a shime underneath it. Also taping the batteries together (increase mass) might help. Also cover the contact's with accu-greese (vasaline) to prevent the burning-in.

The freezing could be coused by the frequent (many times per second) fluctuating (and therfore switching) power... but here I am just guessing. The older models had no problem with "freezing". Just burning and switching off.

Hope this helps
Maarten

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- www.maartensworld.tmfweb.nl -

Just a quick reccomendation for the GPS V. I bought a ruggedised version from Cycoactive (http://www.cycoactive.com) in the US and use in my Land Rover and F650. And I find the screen size just right. I could do with something bigger in the car though. The only gripe I have is that there's not enough memory on this unit. As soon as I load the New York maps (of course I live write on the join) I've used half the memory.

I took a little tumble last week of a bridge 6ft vertically down into a river (lesson learned: heavy bike, thunderstorms, gravel roads, and small bridges on sharp corners don't mix!). The GPS was partially submerged and got a bit beat up when I fell. But as soon as I dried it out and powered it up, it worked! Which saved me $400 for a new one. Now if only the same had happened to my brand new $2000 laptop which was padded and sealed in a waterproof conatiner http://www.horizonsunlimited.com/ubb/frown.gif

Cheers,
Nick.

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www.nickt.com
96 BMW F650
96 Defender 90 300TDi
97 NAS D90
98 Camel Trophy 110