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Topic: DeLorme Earthmate GPS (Read 1 time) previous topic - next topic
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DeLorme Earthmate GPS
Yahoo Message Number: 47391
I purchased a DeLorme Earthmate several years ago and tried to use it with my Palm PDA.  I had trouble getting the GPS signal on a hill top a few blocks from my home where it had a clear view of the sky.  My other GPS, a Lowrance Global Nav (now retired), worked fine at this location.  I also had trouble getting the GPS signal in the foothills above Pasadena CA where the Lowrance worked fine.  Well it turned out that the Earthmate was bothered by cell phone tower signals and sure enough, the hilltop was in line of sight of a nearby cell phone tower.  This problem may have been corrected in the Earthmate as my experience with it is a few years in the past. I sent it back after my field trials.
 I also used the street mapping package (StreetMap???)  that came with the Earthmate.  I checked out several "shortest distance" routes in my neighborhood and was surprised that I was routed over several rather steep public stairways that go between dedicated streets in the hills near my home and I was routed through alleys that were closed off over twenty years before.  Like any "high tech" application, the product can not be better than the data upon which it is based upon.  However the guy that is digitizing it off of the maps or aerial photographs interprets what he sees is what you get.  I also noticed that it always routed me to my nearby freeway at a certain on-ramp that was not the closest or most convenient on-ramp.
 You should not let a "high tech" application replace common sense or a current roadmap; or you can find yourself on an rough narrow unpaved road without turnouts going over an obscure mountain pass.

Terry Tanner

 
Why Wait? Move to EarthLink.

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