EGNOS Test with Q2

[BeatO]

Hi M8s

I've done some tests with the EGNOS turned on here in Switzerland. As from the EGNOS Page, the two SATs used for Europe (Garmin ID 33 and 39) are now life since about a month.

My tests while driving around and occasionally keeping an eye on the GPS status screen shows that it really uses both of them and gets a lock on them quite often. If so, it show a "D" at the left end of the bar and at the top of the screen it reads "3D differential" with a precission of between 2 to 4 meters. When loosing those two, it reduces the accuracy it thinks it has to about 5 to 9 meters.

The funny thing is, that when EGNOS is turned off, it thinks it's precission is around 4-5 meters while with EGNOS on but without a lock to them it show 6-9 meters. Proves again that this precission reading is to be treated with some kind of scepticism.;-)

BeatO

[bumpkin]

[Skippy]

[BeatO]

On the other hand, thinking about it some more, the improved accuracy doesn't help in most of the cases anyway, I think.
For one, I use it while driving, so an accuracy of 4-8 meters is good enough "in the open field". And if you're at places without the unrestricted "side" view, chances are you won't get the EGNOS signal anyway.
And while walking, I don't think it makes a big difference eigther.

So unless someone really need a high precission, this is kind of a "nice toy" feature and not what makes the unit a lot better. (And for that, there are probably better units for high-precission measurements 8) )

Never the less, I quite like my Q2! :D

BeatO

BTW: What would the Q2 make better would be a better handling of blind spots, esp. tunnels. It takes ages until Q2 stopps "running around" on the map long after it lost reception. If the automatic recalculation is turned on, this results in quite a few re-calculations.

[Skippy]

[BeatO]

Hi Skippy

I guess you don't have a lot of tunnels around your place, so the "ask before" setting is probably the best solution for you. Here in Switzerland, esp. in some parts of it, there are too many tunnels and therefore Q2 asks about every time entering a tunnel, if you answer to the call with NO, it sometimes ask another (or even two) time again, although Q2 can't have any reception and is just going wild.

So my solution to that, I've turned automatic re-calculation of completely. If I really need to do it, I can initiate it in about three keypresses myself.

I think, the best would be to have a mode, where the Q2 stops "quessing" very fast when not having a good sat reception and stop running around. But that's probably just a wish...

BeatO

BTW: Entering a tunnel, aprox. 2 secs into it, no bars are shown on the GPS info screen anymore. But the Q2 keeps on "driving" through the map, sometimes at an awfull fast speed and of-road in any direction for about another 10 secs or so. For me, this is just plain stupid engineering of the software causing that, as the Q2 knows it has lost reception.

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