Lost in the City

G300PBV · Posted: Thu Aug 07, 2014 11:23 pm Post subject: Lost in the City

I bought a Garmin 3598LM about a month ago after using ALK Co-Pilot on my HTC One X phone for about a year. The Co-Pilot let me down a couple of times, so I thought I'd buck the trend and go for a dedicated SatNav.
Tuesday this week was the first time I'd used the Garmin on a route where I genuinely needed assistance; a meeting in Manchester City Centre.
The Garmin got me there ok, but the journey back was a different story.
I tried to use it to find where I'd left my car. It couldn't get an accurate enough fix and so failed miserably. So I put it back in my bag and used Google Maps on my phone, which had no trouble finding it.
Once back in the car I selected Home and once again it was getting it's knickers in a twist trying to find a satellite. I ended up driving the wrong way down a buses only lane (my fault really, it wasn't just the SatNav having an off day), according to the map I was driving through buildings, over waste ground and all the time with the road tantalisingly a few feet away. It was permanently recalculating and when I passed the car park where I'd started from for the second time I gave up and tried to follow the road signs.
Eventually I found my way to Mancunian Way heading for the M602. Yet, it was still showing me driving through buildings etc. At a set of traffic lights I stopped the route, turned it off and back on again, selected Home and it was happy.
Has anyone else experienced this? It surely can't be tall buildings that scramble it, my phone and Google Maps worked ok and it was still brain dead when I was well away from tall buildings.
I don't expect this for something I paid £300 for!

sussamb · Posted: Fri Aug 08, 2014 5:31 am Post subject:

Did you allow time for the nuvi to get a satellite lock or just 'drive off', sounds like you did. If you did then it could simply be due to it never getting a proper satellite lock.

Then while stationary at the traffic lights it got a lock and got you home OK. My Garmins (I have 3) get a satellite lock fairly quickly but you may have been somewhere where that didn't happen ... multi storey carpark, surrounded by large buildings etc etc.

I've had no trouble using mine in London.

ratman633 · Posted: Sun Aug 10, 2014 9:58 pm Post subject:

Hi, I think sussamb reply is most likely what happened, I had problems with traffic data retrieval on Friday, so on Saturday I wanted to try it again but didn't actually need it for the journey so I just jumped into the car, added the first route in the general direction I was going from my history and away I went. My 2598 was just as you described, spinning around, off the road and recalculating all the time. It just happened that a few hundred yards down the road a skip lorry was trying to get into a driveway and I had to wait a few minutes while he dropped it off. Once I set off again all was well. I guess it had time to find the satellites while stationary.

BigJohnD · Posted: Tue Aug 12, 2014 5:49 pm Post subject:

I agree that in that area of Manchester (A57M, A57, M602) the Garmin gets confused. One explanation is the elevated section of motorway with roads underneath.

It seems to miss that the primary dual carriageways go straight across the massive junctions, and the software usually routes the driver round the roundabout when there is no need.

I don't think it's a satellite engagement/lock-on issue, as I've usually driven 40+ miles to get there and stopped many times on the way, including re-connecting after driving through the Mersey Tunnel.

sussamb · Posted: Tue Aug 12, 2014 6:49 pm Post subject:

While that's a valid point the OP states her satnav was struggling to get a fix so the issues appear different.

M8TJT · Posted: Tue Aug 12, 2014 8:40 pm Post subject:

Not sure about the 'her'. Google G300PBV. Just as a point of interest, I don't look much like my avatar either. Very Happy

sussamb · Posted: Tue Aug 12, 2014 9:12 pm Post subject:

M8TJT · Posted: Tue Aug 12, 2014 11:18 pm Post subject:

On second thoughts, it wasn't that interesting.

PhilHornby · Posted: Wed Aug 13, 2014 12:57 am Post subject: Lost in the country too

sussamb · Posted: Wed Aug 13, 2014 7:01 am Post subject:

Have you set it to 'avoid unpaved roads'?

But as this thread is about 'lost in the city' we're a tad off topic

M8TJT · Posted: Wed Aug 13, 2014 9:20 am Post subject:

I don't think so. PH's post is about the Garmin not following the road that you're on. The fact that it is happening to him in the countryside indicates that it is not just limited to the city, so as building canyons do not come into play here, it seems a general problem not limited to the city.

sussamb · Posted: Wed Aug 13, 2014 10:08 am Post subject:

Well that's not quite how I read it. The OP had a problem because he/she moved before she/he had a satellite lock. Once stopped a lock was acquired and then all was OK.

Navigating rural roads is another issue. Setting to avoid unpaved roads will help, however rural roads are rural roads and they're chosen when a GPS believes they're faster. Often of course there is actually a longer, and faster route, but just like reading a map you do need to check rather than follow blindly.

Of course it also depends on your point of view. When I'm in rural Cornwall I often don't want to be on dual carriageways, but prefer the rural roads, it's one of the reasons I go there Very Happy

Edit: re-reading PHs post I confess Embarassed

to missing the point about losing lock and not picking up where he was. I have seen that happen once, when I was trying a dashcam which seemed to interfere with my Garmin. Thankfully I didn't like the dashcam Very Happy

Without knowing PHs exact circumstances I have no idea what caused it, although the area looks fairly hilly so maybe again satnav lost lock for a bit. We had a response car in the ambulance service that was notorious for that, the engineers never found out why as it used the same system as in most of our other cars/ambulances.

PhilHornby · Posted: Wed Aug 13, 2014 5:39 pm Post subject: Not meeting expectations.

This is the Google map view Street View of that location. As you can see, there is no sensible way to turn left as instructed, and I didn't even attempt it. The Nüvi didn't acknowledge any loss of satellite lock at this point, it just showed me running parallel to the road I was actually on. Immediately prior to the 'missed turn', it had supposedly known exactly where I was.

The last time I encountered this kind of issue, it was 2007 and I was using Tomtom software on a iPaq PDA. Interestingly, a Garmin Streetpilot 510 of the same vintage never exhibited such foibles - other than when the maps were out of date. In those days, the Garmin far exceeded my expectations.

This is the crux of my criticism: technology has moved on and so have expectations. This particular Garmin doesn't meet mine Sad

Last year, I watched with wonder, as a Samsung Galaxy TAB 3 got a satellite lock at 600mph on a Boeing 757 (I wasn't even in the window seat). It then held that lock all the way from San Francisco to Washington without the slightest problem.

If I say "OK Google, navigate to Castleford" (on my £60 ZTE phone); it does. If I try the same trick on this Nüvi (even in a quiet environment), I invariably get a response such as "Did you say Valletta, Malta?" or similar, utter nonsense.

	PocketGPS
	Web