Microsoft streets and trips with GPS

carchrism5 · 03-29-2005, 09:59 PM

hi, i've been looking at microsoft streets and trips with a GPS usb antenna and i just need to verify some stuff, when the usb GPS antenna is hooked up and streets and trips is running it will show where you are on a map on the screen and provide directions to a destination. Also are the directions voice prompted, meaning the directions are spoken to you. thank you

nismo3z · 03-29-2005, 11:15 PM

Nope....no voice commands

Sonicxtacy02 · 03-30-2005, 06:36 AM

I wouldnt recommend the package... The software is not good for in car use and the GPS mouse is not efficient with its long warm up period and poor connection.

kiltjim · 03-30-2005, 08:31 AM

It isn't going to give you directions to the destination from where you are either. It is only going to give you directions from beginning to end.

neon_eddy · 03-30-2005, 08:33 AM

POI are great .. but other than it's a POS.. I Know I blew the $130 on it..

Sonicxtacy02 · 03-30-2005, 08:40 AM

Quote: Originally Posted by neon_eddy

POI are great .. but other than it's a POS.. I Know I blew the $130 on it..

I got it for $80 and i still feel duped. But for anyone who does have the GPS mouse. I found a way to change stuff on it thru Sirfdemo to improve signaling and response DRASTICALLY.

neon_eddy · 03-30-2005, 08:57 AM

really.. please expound! ..

I can usually get my 6 or 7 sats with routis .. but I had some issues this weekend.. I'm just gonna say it was sun spots though..

and I'll be honest I didn't buy it.. I "bartered" for it.. but the retail on it was 130 w/GPS mouse

I ended up using the phyros drives too.. I couldn't get it to work with the MS ones

Kato · 03-30-2005, 09:18 AM

Yeah please enlighten us, Sonicxtacy02. I have one of these as well.

Sonicxtacy02 · 03-30-2005, 10:05 AM

Ok, you need a copy of the latest SirfDemo.exe. Open the program and its gonna ask you to select your com port and baud rate. Your defaults should be already listed so just hit ok. Then you'll have to hit the connect button ( little button that looks like two wires unplugged). From there go to Action/Synchronize protocol and baud rate . After you hit that look on the title bar and it should do some testing with various baud rates. It should stop on 4800 (the only one that works with our GPS). Click save. Click ok.. exit program. On the way home from work (before i did this) the most sats i had was 3. On the way to work today (after) i averaged 9. Also seemed to speed up the time it took to display to iguidance. Hope it works for you!

Sonicxtacy02 · 03-31-2005, 06:47 AM

Lemme know if my trick works for ya. Maybe we could sticky it or somethin.

cdm · 03-31-2005, 08:31 PM

I use mappoint and/or streets; both are installed. The latest version of each has the option to track your location and point the map accordingly. 2003 and below didn't rotate the map neither did they move it as you travelled around.

Quote:

I wouldnt recommend the package... The software is not good for in car use and the GPS mouse is not efficient with its long warm up period and poor connection.

Hit and miss. Warm up time is no better no worse than others ( ~ 2 seconds). It is the best map to look at and see where you are and plan. Frankly you do not really need voice if you have a decent screen and can put a lot of info at one time on the screen.

Yes problem is it is not efficient and requires a keyboard (which i have so that's ok).

One thing i totally agree with is the connection. Not sure whether it is my hacked up garmin cable running all over the undercarpet or what but sometimes streets would freeze like 3 times in a row. It is GPS related because it never happens when you are not tracking it. Then other times, it would track for 6+ hours without a glitch.

weird.

poseur · 04-14-2005, 10:35 PM

Quote: Originally Posted by Sonicxtacy02

Ok, you need a copy of the latest SirfDemo.exe. Open the program and its gonna ask you to select your com port and baud rate. Your defaults should be already listed so just hit ok. Then you'll have to hit the connect button ( little button that looks like two wires unplugged). From there go to Action/Synchronize protocol and baud rate . After you hit that look on the title bar and it should do some testing with various baud rates. It should stop on 4800 (the only one that works with our GPS). Click save. Click ok.. exit program. On the way home from work (before i did this) the most sats i had was 3. On the way to work today (after) i averaged 9. Also seemed to speed up the time it took to display to iguidance. Hope it works for you!

excuse my ignorance, but where do you get SirfDemo.exe form? microsoft?

Sonicxtacy02 · 04-15-2005, 08:43 AM

www.sirf.com is where i got it.. just google sirfdemo.exe and it'll show up. its free.

Mattkins99 · 04-15-2005, 11:35 AM

I guess I'm fortunate I only paid $60 for the MS Trips & Maps with the GPS mouse. It does work well, but for in car use, it's not that good.

I don't have any connection issues with the GPS mouse, except when I start it up in a parking garage. Once I'd on the road so far it's worked flawless... however, I've only had my carputer setup for about 3 days now.

The software does have the main problem of not not being small touch screen friendly. The zoom buttons are way to small and clustered with a bunch of other buttons. Also you really don't want to try to turn on GPS (with all the options down the creating a trail) while driving... because you'll end up hitting a tree.

I'm looking into other sofware now.

poseur · 04-15-2005, 04:15 PM

cool, thanks I guess I could've found that myself, was just wondering if perhaps there were different proprietary versions for S&T orwhatever...

A friend of mine's letting me borrow his S&T setup, and I was noticing the antenna delay quite a bit, also, I've got the antenna just sitting ontop of the rear shelf inside the hatch of mycar and it occasionally has problems finding sattelites from there. Going on a roadtrip this weekend, I'll post up results.

Thanks again!