SATMAP active 10

[ThistleWhistle]

Does anyone else think that 30 second intervals are too long to record waypoints? With Garmins, you can set to record every second, or use the Smart Record option, which saves waypoints at every change in direction. Both produce a very accurate record of your route.

The Active 10's 30 second recording leaves me with a lot of cut off corners, and twisty section's as straight lines.

A 'smart-record' style would be great on the Active 10, and would save me having to edit my converted routes.

[PloddinPedro]

[nonoftheabove]

took the unit out for a get to know how to use.
The walk is about 6 miles from base camp.
I bought a National Park card.
Well i didnt take the mini manual and did over half the walk before
I cottoned on to the fact that when IT asks you IF
you wish to view the map the RESPONSE should be NO.
Finger trouble :-((((

After that little hiccup it had left a snail trail but mostly in the resevoir that i was circumnavigating.
The sun is rather low and the screen was not terribly easy to read.
Anyway early days.
A few more local walks BEFORE i give it a real trial in 'virgin' territory

[ocam]

Although the A-10 isn't designed for in-car use, an advantage it has over Tom-Tom is that you can use it 'off-piste' in towns. I have it wedged between the window-post and the dash, so I can still pan/zoom. At the weekend I used it to get out of a traffic jam in the middle of Liverpool, without being told to go back to the pre-ordained route or having to wait to be given a new route.
It'd be nice if they could find time to develop a windscreen mount!

[nonoftheabove]

Repeated my walk of yesterday in the opposite direction.
Everything was spot on; the snail trail was where it should have been
etc.
My previous observation is due to the fact that I had the machine set on
shut down after several minutes.
So when i switched back on; the device did an approximation of WHERE it
thought i had been.

After resetting the device last night for On while so 'wishing'
no bother.

[Yasack]

[Yasack]

Hi All,

I have a general question to everyone here. I have purchased the 1:25K scale map for my county, but looking at the prices of maps etc. on the SatMap site this scale map is very expensive.

What I would like to know from you all is whether you think I could use the 1:50K scale map for general walking AND trips to the Lake District, Breacon Beacons etc, or do you think I should get the 1:25K scale? If you look at the prices for the Parks in 1:25K scale they are all £99.99, except the Cairngorms which is £124.99.

Each of these cards come in the 1:25k and 1:50K scale, but you can buy a card which has ALL 20 park areas for £39.99, but it is only in the 1:50K scale.

I don't want to splash out £40 for a collection of areas on a card that is not really the scale I should use or be happy with, but then again I don't want to pay £100 for an area which I will not be walking every week. That said I don't really want to be taking paper maps with me for reference, as this unit is supposed to replace them.

I would appreciate peoples feed back on this concern so I can make an informed decission on what to buy.

To everyone, thanks for your advice and help in advance.

Regards,


Richard

[Maco1]

[quote="Yasack"]

What I would like to know from you all is whether you think I could use the 1:50K scale map for general walking AND trips to the Lake District, Breacon Beacons etc, or do you think I should get the 1:25K scale?

Hi Richard,
- a couple of thoughts;

OS 1:25k is definitely the best mapping for walking. To be able to follow the line of every dry-stone wall, stream beds etc is extremely satisfying and definitely adds to the pleasure of being in the Great Outdoors.

Although expensive, they cover a large a large, seamless area. This allows rapid (and as detailed as you could wish for) panning of an entire national park in a way which is not possible with paper maps.

Do you know anyone with an Active 10? Swapping/borrowing is a good idea - a mate of mine has a unit and I tried his Lakes card which works fine.

I'm spreading the cost of 1:25k mapping by just buying as and when I need it ie probably a couple per year. Because I live on the border of 3 counties one of my first maps was a customised job, with my village as the centre. (I do loads of bike rides out from home.)

Hope this helps!
Regards

[robs1972]

[PloddinPedro]

I have used mine for one walk and four cycle (road) rides. My experience is that when walking, screen visibility is reasonable, primarily because the user automatically positions the unit at exactly the right distance from his/her eyes and at 90 degrees to the sightline. When walking, my only problem was strong sunlight falling on the screen - I had to shade the screen and/or turn up the backlight.

However, on the bike things are more difficult. The unit has to be at 90 degrees to sightline, so has to be mounted quite precisely on the handlebars. If it's set at an angle, reflection, even in average light, renders it unreadable. I couldn't for example, mount mine on the handlebar stem for this reason. My experience has been that I need at a minimum of 70% and probably 80% backlight to be safe.

It might be argued that some of my problem stems from using 60 year old eyes! Maybe, but I can say only that the Garmin doesn't present these problems and I never need the backlight on at all. Oddly, the more light that falls on it, the more easily readable it is. They seem to have cracked the "non-reflectice screen"issue.

Using the backlight at such high levels has a disasterous effect on battery life. Using fully charged 2700M/Hr NiMH AA cells gave 1hr 28mins before losing one of the four battery condition blocks and approx 4hr 30mins saw the unit exhibit "Battery Critical" and auto shut down. When I purchased my unit, I spoke on the telephone to Satmap and was told I could expect real world battery life of about 8hrs from the Energizer Lithiums as supplied or 13 to 14hrs with the rechargeable lithium polymer battery pack. I didn't think to ask about NiMH batteries, unfortunately.

[robs1972]

[nonoftheabove]

[ThistleWhistle]

Or you could just press the bottom left soft key...
_________________
www.olivercoatsphotography.co.uk

[FrequentFlyer]

I see the scroll bar on their web site mentions counties at 1.25000 scale, but no mention of how to order one...or have I missed something here. Also, they talked about being able to order a bespoke map....like you can with OS, but again I see no way of being able to do this ?
I've written a nice note to Santa, and have put put one of these devices on my Christmas list. As a long distance walker I hope I won't be disappointed ....unless you know different ??

[michael100]

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!