Euro maps. Oh dear...

[Zmurf]

My wife's A Class has a MB-badged Becker TrafficPro SatNav device (voice, diagram, no maps). With the whole of Europe on the one CD you can plan a route from Aberdeen to Naples. How does TomTom's European maps compare?



Seeing as I have yet to use the unit other than for local journeys, I'm a bit concerned at the potential problems I've found.



1. MAPS DON'T LINK

The European maps are delivered on a set of 8 CDs with a variety of map sizes for each country.



The first problem as mentioned before on this forum is that you can't link maps together, so if you try and be clever by loading three 16MB maps of France instead of one larger 64MB map, you will only be able to use one of the maps at a time. And therein lies the problem, for in most cases your route is likely to lead across map or country borders.



2. MAPS END AT THE BORDERS

In most cases the maps stop dead on the border. You might be halfway across the Rhein on Strasbourg's Pont du Europe, but that's where the map stops. Seeing as TomTom knows *exactly where you are*, why can't it load the next appropriate map?



Our journey in a couple of weeks time starts in the UK, then France, maybe Belgium, Germany, Switzerland, Italy. The next day starts in Italy, then Switzerland, then Italy again. The third day is Italy, then Switzerland, Austria, Germany, Lichtenstein and finally Switzerland for the fourth time. The last part of the day three (CH, A, D, LI, CH) is covered by one map, but otherwise we're in for major swapping.



3. IMPRECISE COVERAGE MAPS

It seems the initial planning is best done in Autoroute, then load the TomTom maps you will need by comparing the tiny bitmapped coverage picture (in the installation routine) to your route. Needless to say, the coverage picture isn't precise enough for this, so it's a case of 'suck it and see.'



4. MAP NAMING CONVENTIONS

You won't believe this one! If you have loaded the mapping files for the South-East of Great Britain, and then load South-East of France, or the South-East of Germany, etc., the latter load overwrites the first as the map directories are simply called 'South-East'.



The work around for this is to first copy the map files to a folder on your PC or server, then rename the directory. I changed the German/Austrian/Swiss 'South-West Navigator Map' folder to 'DACH_South-West Navigator Map', then downloaded it to the PDA by dragging it in Windows Explorer onto the storage card.



Whilst the map is now in it's own unique directory, it still came up within the TomTom map selection dialog as 'South-West'. That had to be fixed otherwise how would you know which'South-West' was which? The solution was to first rename the South-West.pna file within the DACH_South-West folder to DACH_South-West.pna. Now the map has the correct title.



5. MAINTAINING FAVOURITES & ROUTES

I should state here that I have yet to fully explore POI and GPSAssist, so there may be other (or better) ways to do this. Please don't hesitate to jump in...



If you have to remove a map directory to make space for a new map, you can maintain your favourites, the current route and maybe other settings, by first copying the NavigatorSettings.cfg file back to your PC or server. Then when you load it the next time, everything will be as you left it.



Another idea (which I have yet to test) is to maintain several routes (e.g. for our four Swiss legs) within one map directory by generating the route, then making a copy of the .cfg file. We might have thurs.cfg, fri-am.cfg, fri-pm.cfg, etc. On Friday morning, you rename the NavigatorSettings.cfg file to something else, then rename fri-am.cfg to NavigatorSettings.cfg et voilá.



Before playing around like this it's probably as well to make sure TomTom isn't running [>Settings >System >Memory >Running Programs] and stop it if it is.



ACTION FOR TOMTOM

If TomTom can't enable some form of cross-map linking, the company needs to provide maps that are a mix and match of the existing ones, e.g. 'Central France plus South-West Germany', or 'North-West Italy plus Switzerland'. Otherwise the system is useless for anyone who lives near a current map boundary. These additional maps will mean even more CDs, but perhaps it's time to move to DVD.



It's also vital that TomTom extends each map's coverage by 20 miles or so to provide a decent overlap.



As I wrote, I have yet to use the system in anger and would appreciate any tips.



Tim

[frank]

I have the tomtom2 navigator with german maps, and consider buying the package with european maps, as I often travel between denmark (where I live) and germany. I asked the TomTom support if it possibel to choose a region covering both the south of denmark and the north of germany, so I wouldn't have to switch maps each time I cross the border? And if it's not possible with the current version, how long will I have to wait for a new release?



They answered:



"Dear Frank,



Thanks for your mail.



Currently it is not possible to plann cross border routes with Navigator (you will have to switch maps)

For the moment we have no plans to release cross border route planning. We have however filed your suggestion and we will use it as input for future releases.



Regards,



TomTom Customer Services"







My next consideration came as I read the manual.

It says the GPS receiver needs up to 45 min. to get a

"first fix" when you go to another country.

If this means I have no signal for 45 min. each time I cross the border, then buying the Europe Maps makes no sense. Then perhaps I should rather look for another navigation software?



I posted the last question also, but have got no answer yet.



Does anyone have experience with "GPS-receiver-fix" when crossing borders?



Frank

[Dave]

I don't know why they say 45 minutes, this is way off target. If you went from Germany to Australia, and the receiver was switched off, then the satellites it has in the almanac database in the receiver will be different or in different positions in the sky. Most cases you can get away with a cold fix <1m, but in some cases a full alamanc will need to be re-downloaded which can take up to 12.5 minutes. If it has problems downloading a full almanac, then it could take longer, but in most cases you won't see it over 15-20 minutes.

[Zmurf]

You don't need to turn the GPS receiver off when you switch maps, so there's no delay problem. Even if you had to turn the receiver off, as you are in the same area it will only take a few seconds to find them again.



Tim

[SteveW]

I used Autoroute to decide where I was crossing the border and set a POI at that point on both of the maps. Just head for the POI and when you cross the border change maps.



Steve

[frank]

Thanks



I think I will buy the European Maps and get started...



Frank

[TonyP]

Another problem is that TTN has great difficulty recalulating minor deviations from long routes. On a 500 mile route TTN took a couple of minutes to recalculate the way back to the motorway down the slip road from a service station. The time seems to increase exponentially, once there is only 200-300 miles to go the recalc time is again acceptable fast.



I had thought a "major roads" map of all of Europe would be a good option, but there might be problems with the directions if some of the minor roads were missing. A "third exit" might become a "first exit" if the first two exits were residential streets

[Matey]

I use TTN2 and drive often into France from The Netherlands. I can load Benelux and France and switch maps as I cross the border, but as is known I cannot plan a complete route across two separate maps.



This switch takes about 1-2 mins to reacquire and never requires a reset. TTN2 latest sw gives a big finger button to change maps (but then leads you the existing small type screen that needs a stylus to actually make the change....arrgh!)



One idea for TT might be to allow cross map planning at home on the PC (like AutoRoute) and then only load a custom map that covers the entire route (plus say 20 miles each side) across all borders.

[russgunn]

Don't forget also that the French seem to constantly change their road system along with the road numbers. Before I had GPS last year I bought a brand new good old paper road map of France for a trip and found it was out of date when I got lost on an E road that had become a A road, or something!



On another note...Won't it be great when Tomtom, Navman and the like release software with highly detailed maps of all of Europe that can fit onto one memory card? I know the software doesn't exist yet, which is a shame considering I have an 8GB XD card in my hand which is smaller and faster than SD!

[onur]

Even if Tom Tom has no plans to release cross border route planning, it would be nice to introduce an 'Europe inter- country base map' covering main roads with much less details. So people can use the base map while traveling between the countries and then switch to relevant country map.
_________________
Onur
Axim X5 400MHz, Kingston 512MB SD, GlobalSat BC-307 CF GPS, TTN 3, GPS driver 2.6, CheckPOInt 2.02

[TonyP]

The Benelux map isnt very big but costs the same as other countries. I think it reasonable that Benelux includes some areas of the surrounding countries.



Last weekend we were touring in the south of Belgium, and kept getting lost because we had wandered into France. The weekend before I was returning home to Brussels and I would have liked to have found an alternative route to avoid a traffic jam on the French motorway.



Also the entire French map is 215Mb and leaves little space to squeeze another map on a 256Mb card. It would be useful if Corsica was on a separate map, making mainland France a bit smaller.

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