thinking of buying the dongle
any recommdations
which is best
autoroute or google
do i need an extension lead for better reception
any pitfalls
any other comments
(not use me gob or paper maps, those comments are very boring and tedious)
whats up, the satnav screen not big enough 
, anyway i thought about this a while ago and downloaded autoroute 2010 and thought it was a load of CRAP
Google’s great but you need to be online for it to work
another problem is that it ilegal to use a laptop when driving
whats up, the satnav screen not big enough
with my eyes i need a 50 inch widescreen lol
just messing about really,got a £25 paypal voucher so looking for something to spend it on. 
dont really need a dongle cos i have truck on me tomtom 520 but can’t think of owt else to buy.
I HAVE TO MUCH MONEY 
Hey man, 3G Dongles are just too slow. It will never download fast enough to use as a SatNav. I had an Orange one when they first come out. Couldn’t even watch youtube on it.
If you want to rationalise your tech get a good phone with a Nav app until WiFi really does get full national network coverage. Good luck.
Al
I would agree autoroute is crap,go for snooper s7000 7" screen is great if you can afford it.
I found autoroute to be very good - although ■■■■■■■■■■ on a laptop - maybe better on a net book - all you need it s bluetooth GPS and its great - the whole lot was easy to see and you can plan alternative routes due to the size of the screen and being able to se whats coming up-
but i have to say since getting a snooper with truckmate i haven’t used autoroute - although i have on occasion used another similar programme called Memory Map - but thats an OS based map - and i was using it for finding farms which are not marked on GPS sat navs - and neither were forest tracks-
cheers
Steve
Folks, within the next five years National WiFi will be running like Radio 2.
Buy your tech wisley…
Autoroute is fantastic, and I’ve just bought a faster laptop specifically for running it. You can see the ‘broader picture’ unlike the traditional navigator. It’s like having a conventional map open next to you constantly centred on your position.
I use a Navibe GM720 GPS receiver (made by Prolific - I think all the GPS-mouse type devices probably use only one or two manufacturers chipsets so I just chose the cheapest unit I could find). The drivers supplied worked on my old XP machine but not on this W7 one. Still, it was easy to find a working w7 driver on the net. The driver installs a USB to virtual com-port, and to get it working it was of course necessary to ensure that Autoroute is listening on the same port that the GPS device is sending on and that the boad rates are the same.
I’m off next week on another multi-drop / collection tour of Europe (and UK is on the agenda!) and wouldn’t be without autoroute. As an example, on my last trip I was in the middle of Brussels, south of the town centre. My next drop was in Essex. The TomTom kept trying to take me North through the town centre (3t weight limit). However I could see on Autoroute that there was an arterial road fairly near me that would take me out to the ring. The TomTom just doesn’t give that sort of overview.
There is a free 60 day trial of Autoroute that you can download from Microsoft’s UK site.
By the way, I’ve also got a 6mbps 3G/3.75G mobile broadband connection which is very cheap to use locally in Finland but it would be prohibitively expensive to use it roaming. This rules out any practical use of Google maps for my needs.
Hi Zetorpilot, your set up sounds cool. The worst thing about compact SatNavs is the loss of an overview.
Personally I just use the Navigator on my phone to find a street location and then just use my road atlas.
I’m lucky that I grew up without SatNav so I don’t really need it (especially in the UK). We have drivers at work who depend on it totally who really do say,
“I dunno mate, I just followed the SatNav”.
Have a safe trip, Al
205:
if your using a laptop as a satnav, you should read THIS first
Mine’s open next to me, not in the way of the windscreen. It’s safer than a map (IMHO) as there is no fiddling around - the “map” is always “open at the right place” so a quick glance is sufficient. There is no need to touch the laptop once it’s all set up. That has to be a lot safer than getting lost and having to park a big motor in a city centre and start leafing through an A-Z.
Pc makes a great satnav. I use an old dell sx260 mounted in a locker and connected to a screen mounted on/in my dash. The Dell runs at 12 volts so is hooked up to a 24 to 12 volt dropper. Add a usb gps and a presenter for controlling the system (saving up for a touch screen).
The advantages for me are that by using a bit of software by franson called gps gate I can connect the gps two several map/navigation applications at the same time. I use Autoroute for overview and a cracking bit of software called navmii for turn by turn directions, tried directions navigator software but did not like the graphics.
I have a home made bit of software that keeps track of my driving time and duty hours and the pc gives me access to internet and email when parked up
thats a proper job
Oh yes! And once you get the touch screen - wow!
There’s a lot of resources on the net (for example VB API’s / classes) for handling NMEA sentences (ie input from a GPS receiver) programatically. I had thought of making a simple alarm application that kept track of the time the vehicle was moving ( ≈ driving time) but digi-tachos have pretty much made this idea redundant. Also I had 10 years of programming for a living and still don’t really like the idea of doing it for fun .
I had a look at Navmii’s website, it looks very interesting, not a bad price either!
I’d be very interested to hear if anyone has found any open source / linux navigation software that’s useful for trucking. There’s one or two projects out there- Navit with OpenStreetMap looks worth keeping an eye on.