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Re: Navigation System for a 2006 Inspire

Reply #1 –
Yahoo Message Number: 18808
Don: I can't recommend one but I can caution you to avoid the Pioneer unit. I have one and would love to toss it for something that works.
If I left the guidance up to Pioneer I would still be wandering around, lost in the hills of Oregon.
I had an Alpine unit about 5 years ago that worked like a charm. Unfortunately the monitor went bye-bye and it was less expensive to buy an new unit. I made a mistake and chose Pioneer.
My Honda has a factory installed unit that is flawless. I'm not sure who's software they use but the touch screen feature is extra nice and the guidance system really nails it!

Good Luck

Larry
Intrigue
10762

Re: Navigation System for a 2006 Inspire

Reply #2 –
Yahoo Message Number: 18810
Hello Brother Don,

I have enjoyed great utility with a Garmin GPSMAP-76C. I use it in conjunction with a laptop for planning, loading maps, etc. The Garmin software is fine, although I prefer to do the planning on Microsoft Streets & Trips and then plug it into the handheld with the Garmin program.

I like the handheld because I can easily pick it up and use it in the toad, in the kayak, in the boat, on the trail - - whatever. It is waterproof and seemingly bulletproof too. Fits in shirt pocket.

In the coach it sits in a RAM suction mount on the side window - - within arm's reach for scrolling through menus, etc., and within comfortable eye range. I installed a 12Vdc receptacle on the side panel for power without draping the power cord across the dash.
Some folks prefer a large screen presentation, but that usually comes with operator intensive options that are an accident waiting to happen.
There are plenty of choices out there, and the prices seem to be going down every month. Good deals can be had on the net.

Brother Jay

05 Inspire DaVinci 51457

Re: Navigation System for a 2006 Inspire

Reply #3 –
Yahoo Message Number: 18812
We use the Pioneer unit in the coach but for backup we have a Garmin iQue 3600 that we also use in the toad. Its a combination PDA and navigation unit. With the auto mount in the coach and the speaker plugged into the DC outlet it is plenty load. You can tell the City Navigator software that you are a truck and avoid U-turns and it will try to keep you out of too tight situations. I always double check the Pioneer route because it has a tendency to think we are a Porche and take us down tight city streets. I use Street Atlas and Streets and Trips for trip planning but the Garmin for navigation.

Bob

'05 Intrigue Ovation #11872

Quote from: Don Williams
>

Can anyone recommend a good navigation system for the 2006

Inspire? I

Quote
currently use a Delorme Street Atlas with an Earthmate GPS but

there are

Navigation System for a 2006 Inspire

Reply #4 –
Yahoo Message Number: 18814
I'm a techie junkie, so I have:

Delorme - don't like it, not flexible or user friendly in my opinion
Microsoft Streets and Trips - good for playing on the computer and doing routes, fast, easy to use, not expensive you can get it at Sam's. You can run GPS on this from your laptop if you have a NEMA compliant unit and have a serial connection. Some of the newer units are trying to do an interface with Serial and USB, so that could be an option I have not looked lately.
Garmin 2610 - very good unit, not as quick as Streets and Trips if you use it on the computer but excellent in the vehicle. Many good points of interests, many campground, golf courses. Last time I looked the Magellan units did not include as many campgrounds. You can take it from your RV to your toad so great when you are traveling around a new area.
Rand McNally- you needed to go between 2 sets of software to do trips or find street detail, I don't care for it.
I also have a handheld Magellan GPS unit, which is excellent for major roads, no points of interest.

Linda

98 Intrigue 10678

(still for sale so we can buy a new one :-)

currently use a Delorme Street Atlas with an Earthmate GPS but there are

some features that are annoying.

Thanks
Don

Re: Navigation System for a 2006 Inspire

Reply #5 –
Yahoo Message Number: 18816
We use the i way 500c by Lowrance. Works well for us. Easy mount to dash and easy transfer to the toad. Larger than normal screen (5" diag.). Includes MP3 music player that stores 5000 songs. We have not used the music player, but the voice and visual directions are very good. We mount ours on the right side of dash for non driver operation. This unit has all the bells and whistles that you would expect.

Jim & Barbara Hosick
2005 40' Inspire #51225

Navigation System for a 2006 Inspire

Reply #6 –
Yahoo Message Number: 18817
I sell laptops and GPS navigation systems for laptops, just so you know up front, I had not planned on advertising, just trying to be helpful.

If you are looking for a system that works on your laptop, that is easy to use, very accurate and compares to units factory installed in Lexus and Acura SUVs I would suggest you try Copilot.
You get street detail maps and points of interest of the entire USA, and city to city detail for Canada and Mexico all loaded onto your hard drive.

A choice of a auto profile or RV profile. On the RV profile the program will warn of height restrictions below 12'feet 6" inches, and you can select to avoid propane restricted tunnels and toll roads.

The software has a choice of several displays, including "driver safety" where the map is replaced at 10mph by a dark blue solid screen with big white words for directions and yellow arrows, instead of trying to read a map.

When navigating you will get turn by turn voice directions and pictures of the turns before you get there, and a quick re-routing if you miss a turn.

At $265 for the complete package including GPS it is not the cheapest out there, but if you compare the quality of navigation and ease of use I think it is worth it.

The new version will be out at the end of the year, so anyone who purchases at this time will get a free upgrade for next year.

The MS Streets and Trips from Costco at about $25 is a very good value for a map, and a useful second source of information, but very poor for navigating

Chris Bradley

Computer Connections Inc.
1999 Intrigue 10807

1993 Affinity 4952 (for sale)

Re: Navigation System for a 2006 Inspire

Reply #8 –
Yahoo Message Number: 18822
Larry,

Thanks for the quick response, I was just about to purchase a Pioneer unit.
Lazydays is where I purchased my motorhome, they are recommending a Eclipse AVN 30D. I went up on the internet and viewed the unit. Looks good.

Thanks
Don

Quote
>From: "LARRY A HANSON" larryhanson01@...> >Reply-To: Country-Coach-Owners@yahoogroups.com >Subject: Re: [Country-Coach-Owners] Navigation System for a 2006 Inspire >Date: Mon, 17 Oct 2005 07:21:32 -0600 > >Don: I can't recommend one but I can caution you to avoid the Pioneer unit.
I have one and would love to toss it for something that works.
>If I left the guidance up to Pioneer I would still be wandering around, >lost in the hills of Oregon.

I had an Alpine unit about 5 years ago that worked like a charm.
Unfortunately the monitor went bye-bye and it was less expensive to buy an >new unit. I made a mistake and chose Pioneer.
>My Honda has a factory installed unit that is flawless. I'm not sure who's >software they use but the touch screen feature is extra nice and the >guidance system really nails it!

Good Luck

Larry
Intrigue
10762

Re: Navigation System for a 2006 Inspire

Reply #9 –
Yahoo Message Number: 18823
Agree on the Pioneer.

It is not very good or even user friendly.
It will take you right through down town areas. It should have RV or truck routing, but does not.

The Co-pilot system works much better, but is only avaiable on a PC, and the voice system they use is very hard to understand.

Russ and Jean
05 Intrigue
11883

Re: Navigation System for a 2006 Inspire

Reply #10 –
Yahoo Message Number: 18825
I don't reccomend Pioneer, very hard to use, not user friendly at all and full of bugs.
Ron 98 Allure 30185

Don Williams wrote:

Re: Navigation System for a 2006 Inspire

Reply #11 –
Yahoo Message Number: 18826
Thanks Chris. Appreciate the info. I have been using Delorme and MS for several years now and as you say they are good but leave something to be desired. I wonder if I could just use the Co-pilot software with my GPS which is a Delorme unit? Ron 98 Allure 30185

Chris Bradley wrote:

Re: Navigation System for a 2006 Inspire

Reply #12 –
Yahoo Message Number: 18832
Not sure which Pioneer unit you are being told to avoid, but I have the Pioneer AVIC-X1, and it truly sucks. Sure am glad I have a DVD player in my dash, that sould come in real handy while I am trying to keep this big rig between the fence posts at 65 mph. Way too complicated, but then so is the rest of this coach (talked about this before).

I moved from a Street Pilot III to a 2620 last year, and its pretty good. The hard drive just died, so its now just a 2610 (no total country maps anymore unless I buy a 2 gig CF card).
I download an old version of Metroguide anyway to it, the map set is way better for country roads when exploring in the toad.

I set it on the dash using the sandbag mount, and it works great, either in the toad or in the MH, as someone pointed out.

Some like the laptop on the dash trick, but I can't get into that.
The Magellen units seem to be pretty good too, although I have not had one, been with Garmin since my GPS 40 (no built in maps, just a dot moving around the screen).

I would vote against a built in GPS unit, not matter what brand, but that's just me.

John and Terry
2005 Affinity

Re: Navigation System for a 2006 Inspire

Reply #13 –
Yahoo Message Number: 18839
Hello John,

Are you familiar witht the Street Pilot 2720? I've been looking at them. I don't know what the difference is in your 2620. The 2720 can be bought for $828.00 or less. What do you think.
Thanks,

R. D. Vanderslice

06 Allure 470 -31294 (Worlds Finest MotorCoach - Not even close!)
Rockwall, Texas

Re: Navigation System for a 2006 Inspire

Reply #14 –
Yahoo Message Number: 18840
The 2720 adds voice recog I think. So you can say "where's the nearest McDonalds ... and it can say "why, your too fat now". At least that's what it would say to me.

I don't need that kind of feature I guess, I know I'm too fat.

My wife got me the 2620 because she got tired of me whining when I would forget to upload detailed maps to my SP III. Good idea, but I don't like City Navigator much, so I ended up loading maps from my old version of Metroguide. We did use the built in maps when we needed the latest road info and Points of Interest. The maps are preloaded on a 2.2 gig "microdrive" CF card.

A 2610, an unlocked Metroguide CD (or City Nav CD) and a 2 gig CF card are about the same as the 2620 I think, at least close. You just have to load the maps yourself. Hint ... use a USB card reader, not the Garmin unit, to load maps. USB 2.0 instead of the USB1.1 that the 2610/2620 uses.

Garmin has lots of new stuff also, not sure what I would buy now.
I don't need my GPS unit to tell me the route, I can get lost all by myself thank you. I just use it as a moving map display and for the points of interest, and rest stops.

Goto www.garmin.com and poke around. I have dealt with both gpscity.com and thegpsstore.com and both were ok.

You will need the external antenna in a motorhome for any of these units I think.

John and Terry
2005 Affinity

Quote from: R\. D\. Vanderslice
>

Hello John,

Are you familiar witht the Street Pilot 2720? I've been looking at
them. I don't know what the difference is in your 2620. The 2720 can be bought for $828.00 or less. What do you think.

Quote
Thanks,
R. D. Vanderslice

06 Allure 470 -31294 (Worlds Finest MotorCoach - Not even close!) > Rockwall, Texas

John wrote:

Not sure which Pioneer unit you are being told to avoid, but I have

the

Quote
Pioneer AVIC-X1, and it truly sucks. Sure am glad I have a DVD

player

Quote
in my dash, that sould come in real handy while I am trying to keep > this big rig between the fence posts at 65 mph. Way too

complicated,

Quote
but then so is the rest of this coach (talked about this before).
> I moved from a Street Pilot III to a 2620 last year, and its pretty > good. The hard drive just died, so its now just a 2610 (no total > country maps anymore unless I buy a 2 gig CF card).

I download an old version of Metroguide anyway to it, the map set

is

Quote
way better for country roads when exploring in the toad.

I set it on the dash using the sandbag mount, and it works great, > either in the toad or in the MH, as someone pointed out.

Some like the laptop on the dash trick, but I can't get into that.

The Magellen units seem to be pretty good too, although I have not

had

Quote
one, been with Garmin since my GPS 40 (no built in maps, just a dot > moving around the screen).

I would vote against a built in GPS unit, not matter what brand,

but

Quote
that's just me.

John and Terry
2005 Affinity

Visit your group "Country-Coach-Owners" on the web.

">Country-Coach-Owners-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com >

Re: Navigation System for a 2006 Inspire

Reply #15 –
Yahoo Message Number: 18843
Oops ... I was wrong about the speech recog feature.
'Text to speech' feature apparantly anounches upcoming streets, etc, according to the garmin site.

Too bad, that voice recog would be cool, my Pioneer unit does that.
Zoom out, etc, commands can be vocalized. Of course, I have never used it, but its cool anyway I guess.

Sorry for the misinfo ...

John and Terry
2005 Affinity

Re: Navigation System for a 2006 Inspire

Reply #16 –
Yahoo Message Number: 18844
I have been a long time user of Delorme SA. I started using it with a Garmin GPS II and version 3. There have been a number of changes Delorme made in the software I did not care for. Especially when version 9 made major changes to the softwarecode that changed the whole package. It became very user unfriendly. Then after that they began making improvements until this year with SA 2005. It seems their contractor who provided the POI dta wanted more money for the package and Delorme and them did not see eye to eye. So, the SA2005 package got POI data that was extremely outdated and lacking any recent improvements. Hpefully, that will be rectified in SA2006.

During a recent trip from Florida to Alaska I had a chance to use three different mapping programs. Delorme SA2005, MS Strees & Trips 2005 and CoPilot Laptop 8 with their GPS receiver. I used the CoPilot receiver with all three software packages since it was a USB port connection. It worked very well. However, I cannot say the same thing about the CoPilot software. The data is out of date, inaccurate and totally useless. I would not waste time or money to even consider it again. I even purchased the Canadian data files and they were only searchable. They are not displayed on the map while in motion heading down the highway or even in the planning the route mode. Also, the software would not share the screen with any other software. Since I also run VMSpc Silverleaf software, I like to see my engine and tranny data as we travel.

MS Streets & Trips, while abit cumbersome to use, was quite useful and accurate in its data. It had the most complete Canadian data of the three. The software seemed to lock up occasionally when the GPS tracking feature was turned on and used for long periods.
Apparently, there was a buffer size limit that was causing it. Once I started occasionally saving the file, the lock up problem went away. Sharing the screen with my VMSpc is tight in trying to size the frames, but it will work. All in all you get the best bang for the buck with MS Strees & Trips.

Delorme SA2005 had very little data for Canada available. Only major Canadian highways shown and no POI's at all. The screen adjusts nicely to fit and share the screen space with my VMSpc.
While I do not care for some of the recent problems with the Delorme products, it is overall the better of the three from a functionality point of view. Hopefully the POI's will be updated and eventually the data for Canada will one day be included.

Jim Hughes

2000 Allure #30511

Quote from: Linda Robey\[br\
]
I'm a techie junkie, so I have:

Delorme - don't like it, not flexible or user friendly in my

opinion

Quote
>

Microsoft Streets and Trips - good for playing on the computer and
doing routes, fast, easy to use, not expensive you can get it at Sam's. You can run GPS on this from your laptop if you have a NEMA compliant unit and have a serial connection. Some of the newer units are trying to do an interface with Serial and USB, so that could be an option I have not looked lately.

Quote
>

Garmin 2610 - very good unit, not as quick as Streets and Trips if
you use it on the computer but excellent in the vehicle. Many good points of interests, many campground, golf courses. Last time I looked the Magellan units did not include as many campgrounds. You can take it from your RV to your toad so great when you are traveling around a new area.

Quote
>

Rand McNally- you needed to go between 2 sets of software to do
trips or find street detail, I don't care for it.

Quote
>

I also have a handheld Magellan GPS unit, which is excellent for
major roads, no points of interest.

Quote
Linda

98 Intrigue 10678

(still for sale so we can buy a new one :-) >

Inspire? I

Quote
currently use a Delorme Street Atlas with an Earthmate GPS but

there

Re: Navigation System for a 2006 Inspire

Reply #17 –
Yahoo Message Number: 18845
The built in units are difficult to use while in motion. My copilot can easily use the laptop and tell me real quick when I am going in the wrong direction.

Jim Hughes

2000 Allure #30511
 

Re: Navigation System for a 2006 Inspire

Reply #18 –
Yahoo Message Number: 18848
We use the portable Garmin 2620 with a hard disk memory for all of the US. Seems to be a very popular unit with a satisfied customer group. http://groups.yahoo.com/group/GarminStreetPilot2610_2650

Has landed us in many driveways as planned. Can be set for bus, truck, automobile etc. Many RV parks are in data base along with services and food establishments.

Great corrective routing, screen is useful, voice commands are excellent.

Dean

95 CC Magna