Out in the sticks?

[Baldlygo]

I am getting tempted towards purchasing a PDA GPS bundle and am very pleased to be able to read comments and reviews on this site - very helpful thank you.

I think TomTom will be the best for me and I take on board the advice to get a 256 memory card and good mount.

It seems that most GPS users are driving around in big cities and the reviews all concentrate on locating streets. However I would be very pleased to hear comments about driving out on small single lane road in the countryside. Or to put it another way for people looking for farms with horse manure rather than a city wine bar ;)

I live on the edge of Shropshire and walking distance from Wales so is TomTom going to help me get from one village to the next if there are a maze of single lane roads and the only signposts point to places with unspeakable names (except the lane you have just come down!)?

[Natashap]

Well I don't know about Tom Tom but when I used Mapopolis recently and asked for the shortest route it was great fun to be directed down country lanes. No horse manure I'm afraid but plenty of roads with grass growing in the centre. The problem was that the farmer's tractors do tend to take up all the road. Mapopolis is a computer generated voice and the pronounciation of some of the road names requires imagination for a correct interpretation. Quite amusing though!

[White_Fox]

I have TT3 and MemoryMap OS2004, they are very different, TT being a true route system, MM is effectively OS map on the screen showing all the features you would find on a paper map. In the country I find this better.

Also if you deviate off the road in TT it says satellites are unreliable wheras MM just shows your postion on the map exactly.

Drawback or not (depends how you look at it), MM always orientates to north, so if you are traveling south, you will be moving down the map, it's OK once you are used to it

Both TT and MM have good websites describing their products, worth a look.

Thats my pennyworth

[andygrove]

It all depends on wether you want to be able to use it off road or not. As White_Fox says, TT3 is pretty much useless unless you're on a road, although my experience is that it attempts to put you on the nearest road, but gives up if you are nowhere near the road. Also, there is absolutely no detail off the roads, just a coloured background.


Memory Map is much more detailed but won't give you any street routing ability. TT3 does country lanes pretty well, at least in my area. My parents live in the back of beyond and although I know where they live I'm sad enough to use TT3 to get there. It always seems to route me the best way, from whereever I am coming from.

Hope that helps

Andy

[Baldlygo]

Thanks for the replies.

I'm not really thinking of using it off-roads - its just that some nearby routes are very small roads. For example I traveled from Tan-y-pistyll to Llanarmon Dyffryn Ceriog the other day and at one cross-road met someone else who was also lost! Actually I have been looking up the names since to be more accurate. Where I was going from was the waterfall near Llanrhaeadr (one on the 7 Wonders of Wales) and Llangollen (which most people have heard of). I particularly wanted to go the shortest and cross-country route. So can anyone say whether their systems would have kept me on the right track?

Another question is how Pocket PC users load and run their applications?
If I have TomTom 3 loaded would I be able to use memory-map os2004 maps in the same memory? ..or would I need to load it separately?

I like the look and features of memory-map download for the PC but files seem very large.

[andygrove]

Not knowing the area very well I'm afraid I can't do a demo route to see exactly how it would route it. If you could give me more details of the start and finish points then I could give it a try.

If you're not going to use it off road, then IMHO Memory map is not the right app. You may as well get a paper map as you will still be "reading" a map and making all of the decisions yourself. The obvious benefit is that you know exactly where you are on the map, but you can do that the old fashioned way

Also, if you know the limits of where you are going, you can download only the area of the map where you will be in Memory Map, thereby using a smaller map size.

Hope that helps

Andy

[White_Fox]

TT will always keep you on the right road, only sometimes it has a knack of not understanding that a bypass even though longer, would be the easier route. But you get used to that. I am sure in Wales it would have helped you.

Yes the maps in MM do take up memory, so what I do is just download to my PDA SD card the area of the map I am interested in, it is so easy.

Sugest you first go for TT for car navigation, and then once you are familier with it, consider adding MM or similar to suplement it. Thats what I did.

MM is great if you are out walking in the countryside or like me doing some off-road, the footpaths and tracks are sometimes hidden by unco-operative farmers who do not want people going cross their land even though it is quite within our rights to do this.

MM also shows much more detail that I find useful.

Load your TT and MM programs into the main PDA memeory and load the maps from your PC onto the SD storage card, minimum size 256Mb, costs around £35.
I think the 512Mb are about £85

[icsys]

For what its worth...

Llangollen to Llanarmon Dyffryn Ceiriog.

SmartST routes you down the Bache Mill Road (for 1/2 mile), left onto Allt Y Badi to Glyn Ceriog (3 miles).
down the B4500 through Pandy and Tregeiriog to Llanarmon Dyffryn Ceiriog (4.5 miles)

Distance = 8 miles

Not sure if this is useful.
_________________
Ian.
iPAQ 2210 | Navman 4100 BT Receiver
Navman iCN 635
TomTom GO
Anquet OS mapping

[Baldlygo]

Thanks icsys.
You have picked the bit which is on bigger roads and we were ok with an ordinary map. It is the first bit which was difficult from http://www.pistyllrhaeadr.co.uk/ to Llanarmon Dyffryn Ceiriog.

[icsys]

(A)Llanrhaeadr to (B)Llanarmon Dyffryn Ceiriog.

The plotted route takes you through Llangollen.

So the first bit... from Llanrhaeadr, down the A525 to Ruthin (incidentally there are many smaller un-named roads on the map which you could navigate and the software will re-calculate the route on-the-fly) From Ruthin, follow A525 (Wrexham road) for approx 6 miles then turn right onto A542 to llangollen.

Distance 27 miles from A to B
_________________
Ian.
iPAQ 2210 | Navman 4100 BT Receiver
Navman iCN 635
TomTom GO
Anquet OS mapping

[barryd]

Hi, not knowing the area at all, this was my experience using TomTom Navigator 3, in map view and searching by address...

Can't find Tan-y-pistyll as an address, but can find Llanrhaeadr-Ym-Mochnant. Show on map and look around for a Point of Interest marking the waterfall, but find nothing. Simulate having tourist paper map (by going to your web link to see where waterfall is). Now scroll up TomTom map from Llanrhaeadr for 4 miles along "Waterfall St" then "unnamed road" that ends at Tan-y-pistyll waterfall. Set this as departure point, and save it as a Point of Interest for future re-use.

Can find Llanarmon-Dyffryn-Ceiriog, set its centre as destination point.

Calculate route, get same result whether I ask for fastest or shortest route, at 9.3 miles and 21 minutes. The route is 2.8 miles back down the unnamed road towards Llanrhaeadr, then left onto another unnamed road for 1500 yd, cutting across north of Llanrhaeadr, to join the B4500 and go up it for 5.6 miles to destination.

Is this a good route?
_________________
Barry Davies

[Baldlygo]

[barryd]

[icsys]

It looks like I initially found the wrong Llanraedar... I had the one between Ruthin and Denbigh

After finding Llanrhaeadr-Ym-Mochnant, I did the same as barryd and got the same route 9.3 miles
_________________
Ian.
iPAQ 2210 | Navman 4100 BT Receiver
Navman iCN 635
TomTom GO
Anquet OS mapping

We see you’re using an ad-blocker. We’re fine with that and won’t stop you visiting the site.
Have you considered making a donation towards website running costs?.
Or you could disable your ad-blocker for this site. We think you’ll find our adverts are not overbearing!