Doh, DeLorme Earthmate VERY inaccurate

G_Loc · 12-12-2003, 04:50 PM

So I received my Earthmate in the mail today and installed everything...

I had my laptop in my room and it locked on to the satellites and whatnot, only thing is that it was showing my position about 3 blocks south of where i was!! I figured it was a bad lock or something, so i went outside and drove around for a bit. Still the same thing. It would show my position about 3 blocks south of where ever I went! What's going on??

Oh yea, the street atlas software is missing a road on the next block over from my house. sad part is that this area has been developed for the past 6.5 years or so

So far, I'm not impressed.

hijinks21 · 12-12-2003, 05:05 PM

i've found its not the gps unit... its the software.. it blows.. That happens to me is i use S&A It once showed me 4 blocks away and then finally got my posistion when i was driving then wondered off again. I've run other mapping software and everything's been great

G_Loc · 12-12-2003, 05:11 PM

Don't take this as a request for warez or anything, but is there ANY GPS software that has a trial version? I don't really need voice navigation or anything too fancy. It just needs to highlight the route to an address and show my progress on the map. I wanna try different programs and make sure they'll work with the Earthmate before I go out and buy the one that works.

I have Streets and Trips 2001, but it doesn't wanna work with my Earthmate. Too bad...

G_Loc · 12-12-2003, 05:29 PM

Ok, Street Atlas 2004 completely sucks big time.

So far I've found 2 missing roads, two mis drawn roads (one of the two roads is running through a lake), and a major mall is missing. All this only within blocks from my house. I don't think I can trust software with such blatant errors on things that have been around for a few years already.

G_Loc · 12-12-2003, 05:39 PM

oh wow, apprently this thing says my lat and longitude are N43 48.4910' and W70 9.8440, which are both somewhere in maine, but yet still shows my position 4 blocks away from where I live

whyyyyyyyyyyyyy cant anything ever go right for me?

Seraph · 12-12-2003, 06:45 PM

your location is probably right. The maps used by software sucks. I use it too but so far it's not too bad for Chicago. I also use a cheap Rand McNally TripMaker. That seems to work better but maps are older.

NightHunter · 12-12-2003, 06:56 PM

THis is a well known problem with there software. You should allways read reviews before purchasing anything you may want to rely on. The best software for reliability ease of use and accuracy is hands down Iguidance. I have tried quite a few now from co-pilot(expensive, poor map displays, Hard to use menus in low resolutions, proprietary gps sensor doesnt work with other gps software, and co-pilot software doesnt work with other gps sensors), street atlass 2003 and 2004(innaccurate)Spelling, ms streets and trips(same in-accuracy problems, only updates every 15 seconds), Map point(Expensive Bloated and No good for small touch screens), and the rand mcnally software(needs internet connection).
Iguidance on the other hand(Great menus designed specifically for touch screen, Accurate Navtech Data Driven Maps, Clear displays with sizable fonts, voice prompts) only lacks voice control which doesnt work that well in the car anyway. So you make the choice and decide which is important to you.
Just my little FYI

G_Loc · 12-12-2003, 06:58 PM

I went out for a longer test drive and it worked quite well once I was about half a mile away from home... On the way back, however, once I got to within half a mile of my house it crapped out. You're right, it has to be the maps. I was driving and all of a sudden my position was waaaaaaay too far south.

blasphemy!

G_Loc · 12-12-2003, 07:01 PM

Well I got this mainly for the GPS receiver.

There is no trial or demo version of iguidance is there?

Is the Earthmate receiver any good? I couldn't really find much in terms of reviews and they mostly just complained about how much of a PITA it can be to get to work with other software.

rgardjr · 12-12-2003, 11:42 PM

Quote: Originally Posted by G_Loc

Well I got this mainly for the GPS receiver.

There is no trial or demo version of iguidance is there?

Is the Earthmate receiver any good? I couldn't really find much in terms of reviews and they mostly just complained about how much of a PITA it can be to get to work with other software.

I've read the earthmate won't work with iguidance or routis (they're pretty much the same program). Check out http://www.gpspassion.com/forumsen/ for more information about routis.

Ricky327 · 12-13-2003, 05:18 PM

I went out for a longer test drive and it worked quite well once I was about half a mile away from home... On the way back, however, once I got to within half a mile of my house it crapped out.

G Loc,

Is there many tall building around your area? On my garmin GPS16 I found that it become very inaccurate when driving through city with lots of building close to each other...it can also loose signals. From what I understand the signal bounce around and confuses the GPS calculations. This is also true if you dont have enough satelllite locked into...Ill say you need atleast 6 to get a good accuracy although the minimum is only 3.

As the other says it is possible that the map is not very accurate...but I find it hard to believe they made a map which is so wrong. Navtech is supposed to be the most accurate and complete.

cproaudio · 12-13-2003, 09:12 PM

It's not that its possible that the map is wrong. THE MAP IS WRONG!!! I-5 doesnt run through the lake. It runs along the side of the lake.

Ricky327 · 12-13-2003, 09:18 PM

thats major.

I guess someone got to tell them this.

wi77iam · 12-13-2003, 10:05 PM

Are you using the CD for the map data, or did you install the map data onto your harddrive? When you zoom in or out to other resolutions, does I-95 move back over land?

After installing map data to my hdd instead of using the CD, I noticed at certain resolutions that parts of the map would be off. It turned out that it was a bad install of the data - some data files were missing.

Check it by using the CD for data. If it's OK then re-install the data files.

chut · 12-14-2003, 12:08 AM

or, you could get a snorkel!