Horizons Unlimited - The HUBB - Samy's Geek-Tread on GPS Navigation Hard and Software

So, I just wanted to share my Navigation quest. I just won the bid on a Africa Twin and some Forums were a great help so I decided to share some of my experiences here too since it may help others. I'm a average wannbe traveler, wannabe mecanic and wannabe geek, fighting all the struggles everybody fights. I claim to have a reasonable common sense, but am far from being an expert of any kind. These are my personal experiences, follow instructions at your own risk!

For cellphone navigation (so far on Ladcruiser HJ61 and KTM EXC in Morocco and Chevy Silverado in Oman) Android phones have worked great for me lately. I started off with Defy+ (Threw it, froze all the time, not enough memory) Went on to Samsung (Not enough memory) Cat B-15 (Rooted it to define the MicoSD as internal memory, not enough ram with a lot of apps, great for basic Navigation and Email/Whatt's app, perfect for double sim, run internet via local prepaid internet and still be reachable on your home number) but will bug when added Facebook ap and the like, and now ended up with a Sony Experia Z3 compact.

The Praise of the Z3:

Even the Z3 has just one sim slot that's the way to go for me. Water proof (I swam with it at a pool for like 2 hours. Approved, including underwater selfies and stuff, droping the phone on the pool floor with self timer and swimming over it)
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On a shaky bike the screen may be too small, so I will probably upgrade to a standard size Z3 (In Oman they even come as dual SIM versions too, couldn't fid that in Switzerland) Optionally you can buy a charging station (unfortunately when in the Charger Dock the screen is automatically rotated to panoramic wiew, that's a minus) witch I am going to integrate in my phone holder (so far a project, update on that will follow) so Rain and dirt are no danger, just flush it off under the tap.

Software:

OSMand:
I used olaf map for morocco on aaasus tablet before, but was surprised how much more detail the Open Street Map offered in most places. THIS TRACK in Morocco was on OSM!!!! (see my EXC holder for the CAT B-15)
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I run OSMand for onroad and on track navigation Payversion lets you download as many maps as you may need, you pay once and install it on every phone you buy ever after. GREAT! Oly downside: It's incapable of calculating routes more than like 180 to 200km. (Works fine here in Oman since Salala to Mascat it's 1100km but only few roads it could get lost in calculation. Europe or just any place with more roads won't work. As soon as you get close (150km) turn on navigation and it will lead you to where you want to go.

Orux:

However, in my job as a Tourguide here in Oman I have to drive longer stretches away from any road or piste in the Rub al Khali desert. Here I much appreciate the beam I can add to the arrow witch lets me put my Vehicle in the exact Direction I want to go, memorize a feature at the horizon and then not worry about the GPS anymore untill I am getting reasonably close to the memorized feature. This gives me a very good overview of where I want to go and I can just concentrate about where to cross the Dunes. Extra feature: MOBAC can download tiles from various map sources and with a little bit of googing and geeking around (and ask the right guys from the Buschtaxi forum (Flashman and TimHilux were a great help) you can load those tiles into the Orux mapfolder and view offline when on thetrip.

Sovietmilitarymaps:

If I will travel on my Africa Twin one day Insch' Allah I won't take my 17" MacBookPro with me. That's where Soviet Militarymaps comes handy. That program allows you to swap between Google, SMM, Bing, OSM, Open Cyclmap and so on WITHOUT CHANGING THE SELECTED ZONE ON THE MAP WITH 2 TAPS. Great for planning a little excursion ath the hotel when you have internet connection running, it only does that when connected. You can make waypoints and create tracks, export to Orux and/or OSMand thou and use them offline then.

Hope that inspires people to download the bove programs and play a little. OSM free version is limited to 5 maps, no recording of tracks, but Orux will record and it's completely free. Sovjet maps also comes as free version with limited features.

To be continued...

Link to the (german) Forum where I learned about Mobac: Buschtaxi.net • MOBAC + GOOGLE = Geht doch (ein HowTo)