# Satellite Navigation Systems



## Dave

I don't have a sat nav in the car, but I was thinking of maybe getting one. When I went to Italy last year, all the German cars have them already built in as standard.

Several things have put me off it rather than using the wife with an road map (and you know how useless women are with maps!) 

Firstly, there are these stories:

Ananova - Sat nav palace gaffe
A school coach tour to Hampton Court goes instead to Islington.
Sat-nav dunks dozy drivers in deep water-News-TimesOnline
Locals make a killing when the Sat Nav directs drivers through a Ford.

Then at my sister's wedding reception, my cousin told me how the reason he was late was that it had directed him down several country lanes, into a field between two electricity pylons, among the cows, and proudly announced "You have arrived at your destination!"

Does anyone have a good word to say for them?


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## mosaix

Dave, there's a recent Consumers Association Which? report on them. There doesn't seem to be too many problems with the latest ones.


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## Rane Longfox

Dave, The important thing to remember about Sat-Navs is that while they're very useful for unfamiliar territory, you _can't_ just take what they say at face value. Whenever we use ours, we set the route the night before, check where it's taking us against a normal map, and then use it. It's not a god-like device, and most people seem to think that as soon as it's turned on they can blissfully ignore things like road signs, because "the little voice didn't tell them to stop at the junction" or some such.

Seriously, if it goes to the wrong destination, the driver has only themselves to blame for not checking the damn thing first!


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## Dave

Rane Longfox said:


> ...most people seem to think that as soon as it's turned on they can blissfully ignore things like road signs, because "the little voice didn't tell them to stop at the junction" or some such.


Yes, there was another report of a woman turning at a railway level crossing and driving up the railway line. She caused chaos, blamed the sat nav and got away with that as an excuse!  
BBC NEWS | England | No charge for sat-nav rail driver


Rane Longfox said:


> The important thing to remember about Sat-Navs is that while they're very useful for unfamiliar territory, you _can't_ just take what they say at face value.


Just that that is the only time I would really need to use one, as I'm fairly good with directions anyway. The Wedding was a little out-of-the-way, but if all the out-of-the-way places are not accurate, I see little point in having one. 

_Which_ is usually a good test of things. I expect that these are just teething problems.


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## Steffi

> Several things have put me off it rather than using the wife with an road map (and you know how useless women are with maps!)



Dave!!!... 

I'll have you know, I never get my husband lost... 

Seriously, we've never thought about having one, especially when we were doing a shoot in a little village in Shropshire and one lad was late because his dad's sat nav took them to Gloucestershire.


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## Allegra

Dave said:


> IThen at my sister's wedding reception, my cousin told me how the reason he was late was that it had directed him down several country lanes, into a field between two electricity pylons, among the cows, and proudly announced "You have arrived at your destination!"
> 
> Does anyone have a good word to say for them?


 
LOL that's hilarious (sorry I know how it was annoying and inconvenient)!


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## Dave

I think this one beats all the other Sat Nav stories:
Ananova - Lorry driver's sat nav gaffe

I still didn't buy one. I wrote off my old car since then anyway.


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## Highlander II

I'd never get one b/c the voices annoy me and the idiot things yell at you to turn when you're not anywhere near the turn!  Hence turning into fields and the like.

However - they tend to beep at you loudly if you exceed the speed limit in an area where it knows what the posted speed limit is.  My dad has one and I hate it.


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## Pyan

There can be real problems, though - there was a case in the Borders not so long ago, where an ambulance crew that didn't know the area obeyed the sat-nav, and nearly killed a heart patient by travelling the 50+ miles that it directed them to the hospital instead of the 15 miles direct route....


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## TheEndIsNigh

Well I wouldn't be without one now. I travel on business a bit and it gets me to most places. You have to be aware it can make mistakes and is only advice. What really annoys them I have found is that if you deliberately ignore them they suddenly start to ignore small things like one way streets and no right turns.

Another thing is to get it set up right. My son was driving with it once and he ended up coming of the toll road and then back on at the same junction because the slip road was a shorter distance than the toll road at that point. Yes he did pay twice.

The in car ones I'm not sure how you update them with the latest info.

As a traffic camera warning device they are the best this since radar traps. Though the mobile ones can still catch you out. No I don't speed but when they deliberately change from 50 to 30 just to catch you I get  pi**ed off.


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## Pyan

TheEndIsNigh said:


> As a traffic camera warning device they are the best this since radar traps. Though the mobile ones can still catch you out. No I don't speed but when they deliberately change from 50 to 30 just to catch you I get  pi**ed off.



Heh - have they started putting a mobile one just around the corner from a fixed one up there yet? 
Catches quite a few drivers that speed up again as soon as they've passed the "known" one, as you can imagine!


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## Lenny

In which case, you do away with things like Road Angels and anything that works based on GPS and known co-ordinates of cameras, and instead get a radar and laser detector, the best of which can pick up the waves emitted by all forms of camera (fixed, mobile, motorway, and those cruel average speed cameras over long distances) in about a mile radius.

Some of the best ones are made by the US company Beltronics, can be configured for EU and UK waves (as different cameras and waves are used in each territory), and I don't think they're _completely_ illegal yet. 

Can't say that I know of any that also double up as sat navs, though.


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## mosaix

Highlander II said:


> I'd never get one b/c the voices annoy me and the idiot things yell at you to turn when you're not anywhere near the turn!  Hence turning into fields and the like.
> 
> However - they tend to beep at you loudly if you exceed the speed limit in an area where it knows what the posted speed limit is.  My dad has one and I hate it.



1) The voice on mine can be changed. 

2) The voice on mine tells you how far away the turning is and also displays the route ahead on a 3-D map. 

3) The beep on mine is subdued and can be turned off. But why would you? It's saved me numerous speeding fines.


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## Dave

I mainly drive in London traffic. What is this speeding you speak of?


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## Ursa major

I expect it involves going into second gear, Dave.


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## The Procrastinator

Funniest experience I had with one was during a trip to Canberra with my best mate. We'd parked under the national art gallery and when we got back into the car and reactivated Roger (thats what we call him, fondly) he couldn't work out where we were. By the time we got outside he'd decided we were in Sri Lanka and only had 16000km to go to get back to our hotel.

But aside from that kind of ridikkulousness, I wonder sometimes if we are going to spawn generations of people who don't know how to read normal maps anymore! Satnavs can be really handy, but they can also do some weird things. Pays to have the road atlas still.


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## TheEndIsNigh

Lenny said:


> In which case, you do away with things like Road Angels and anything that works based on GPS and known co-ordinates of cameras, and instead get a radar and laser detector, the best of which can pick up the waves emitted by all forms of camera (fixed, mobile, motorway, and those cruel average speed cameras over long distances) in about a mile radius.
> 
> Some of the best ones are made by the US company Beltronics, can be configured for EU and UK waves (as different cameras and waves are used in each territory), and I don't think they're _completely_ illegal yet.
> 
> Can't say that I know of any that also double up as sat navs, though.


 
The problem with those is that they go off for all sorts of other reasons. I have one from some time ago and it went of for pelican crossing and almost any police activity rarely for radar traps since it relies a lot on reflected waves from other traffic and if theres no traffic it's usually too late when it beeps. Then they introduced the forward facing cameras that don't use any thing they just time the car on an engraved graticule on the lens. Thats why you usually see the road marking after the camera with those they have nothing to do with it (As far as I know)

Amazingly when I was in the states 1980 there was a well publicised case where a hand held radar gun fine was successfully appealed. The defendant claimed the radar principle was rubbish in most cases. The judge was unconvinced until the put an electric fan on the judges bench. HE then pointed the radar gun at the judge and was shown to be doing well over the speed limit. The judge dismissed the case immediately. Yet they still get away with it and I don't understand why. (the fans blades travel quite fast -enough to give a Doppler change - Every car with a fan at the front could argue this defence or at least have it tested)


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## mosaix

The Procrastinator said:


> I wonder sometimes if we are going to spawn generations of people who don't know how to read normal maps anymore!



Undoubtedly there was a time in the past when one guy said to another:

"Mark my words, these new fangled maps will lead to nothing but trouble. We are spawning a generation of people who can't make their way by the stars or distinguish between one footpath and another!"


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## ktabic

Most people can't read maps anyway, especially not proper OS maps. Despite our ability to go further, faster, most people don't. The journey has become a trip to the destination, rather than part of the experience itself.


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## Happy Joe

I was wondering along as I wandered about an area where we occasionally camp in the Rocky Mountains and came across some folks of the positionally challenged persuasion. It turned out that their GPS had died (batteries failed or maybe it just broke).
They did have a map and a compass but had no idea how to use them and had not looked at the map when they left their car. They had not paid attention to the surroundings or the beauty around them but had just followed the GPS. As a result both they and their car were lost (they did not know where either was).
After asking some questions and puzzling over the map for a few moments I pointed to a position and told them "You are here." that a marked jeep trail was about 1/4 mile "thataway" and told them to follow this creek to a well traveled ford then take the Jeep trail to their parking area. They were amazed that I didn't need a GPS and had no map or compass but could find my way through the woods.
Enjoy the journey, the destination is just the end. (Life is kinda like that, too).

Enjoy!


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## TheEndIsNigh

Happy Joe: Yes this will soon be happening (probably is) with boats and navigation systems. I know I fell foul of it on a recent holiday when I was a bit casual about my position opn a flottila. 

One thing though in fairness the to the car it wasn't lost. It knew exactly where it was.


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## Dave

Bumping thread rather than making new one.

I just read this: BBC News - UK 'over-reliant' on GPS signals, engineers warn and I thought that there must be a science fiction story here somewhere.

Millions of people suddenly unable to find their way back home. Delivery trucks stranded in unfamiliar towns and cities. They have no paper maps any more. They don't know road numbers or street names. They couldn't use a compass even if they had one. They ask the locals, but they are just as confused.


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## Ursa major

Am I allowed to mention that my WiP1 has this very situation (though not with cars and not on roads)?

Losing maps are the least of our problems**. What will happen when there are no physical copies of anything and the power goes off for a long period of time? or documents are all somewhere in a data cloud and so can be edited to suit the politics of the day?






** - I'll always have plenty of paper maps. Before I could drive, I had road maps of places I couldn't visit (because they were behind the Iron Curtain). And I just love those DeLorme topographic state atlases. But that's obsession for you.


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## Dave

Shades of '1984' and 'Fahrenheit 451' there, Ursa, but I'm sure you've read those.


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## Ursa major

Just before they vanished. 









(By the way, my WiP1 comment refers to a navigation system problem, not the deleting of books.)


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## Esioul

Are you talking about a laser scanner Lenny? Those are expensive!

GPS is useful, but it's also useful to know how to read a map.


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## Lenny

Not sure if it's a laser scanner (though it does throw out warnings when a laser speed thing goes off), but this is the model I was thinking of back in 2008:

Beltronics Euro 550 Speed Trap Devices UK - GPS Laser Speed Trap Detectors Jammer Speed Camera Detection Radar Detectors

Very expensive.  Works an absolute treat, though.


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## Interference

The Procrastinator said:


> ...I wonder sometimes if we are going to spawn generations of people who don't know how to read normal maps ...



I wonder if, when they invented maps, some wondered if we'd spawn generations of people who don't know how to navigate by stars?


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