[viarailcanada]

Bonjour tous, hello all

I work for VIA Rail Canada away from home on the road and travel across Canada between Toronto, Vancouver, and north to Churchill for a living. I'm very new to both GPS and smartphones.

Less than a month ago, I acquired an 8100 through Rogers after explaining my need to the rep for GPS in remote areas, and was told not a problem... this device will suit you fine instead of other offerings from Palm, HTC, and HP.

BB maps, Google maps, Wayfinder will all work but my best bet will be TeleNav...

So I purchased an external receiver (Qstarz 32-32) and hit the road on my next assignment...

Interesting.... the first 2 recommended programs "died" as we left the suburbs and lost reception, only to pick up again 24 hours later when reception kicked in again approaching Toronto....

I contacted Wayfinder and was told the same will happen if I purchase their product.

So I called TeleNav customer service with fingers crossed, only to be told the same....

WOW! Talk about feeling screwed without even being kissed from Rogers....

I then contacted canadagps.com and "Tony" told me about "SPOT" with it's pre-load map capabilities...

Sounded too good to be true!

I tried the demo version which is very limited due to the time limit, so I pulled out the credit card and bought the full version with high hopes....

Only to find out that most maps that are sold (ie GEOTIFF.... etc) are only supported on the Windows Mobile platform and Palm OS.... the Java platform is not available....

The "SPOT" rep I then contacted proceeded to tell me that maps in the "worldfile" format are the only ones that can be pre-loaded.... otherwise I have to use WMS...

Which takes me full circle....

Twice you-know-what and still no kisses....

Not wanting to part from my crack-berry, I contacted Rogers for help only to be given an apology and a $100 dollar rebate towards a HTC TyTn....

I then called RIM and the csx rep I spoke with said he only knows of TeleNav and it's triangular formation that offers GPS... he was unaware of any other programs for Blackberry that provide this service...

Unreal....

Grrrr.... I've grown to love my 8100 and don't want to part from it but my work requires GPS outside of reception areas.... and I'm not a big fan of Microsoft.

Is my only option changing phones?

Or does anyone have any recommendations on how to purchase and pre-load "worldfile" maps onto my 8100....

Or even prehaps I've missed something here and you can fill me in...

Thanks for your help in advance.

C

[jwcraig]

You should check out Mobile GMaps. It allows you to cache maps downloaded from online map sites

wap.mgmaps.com

[Loimere]

Spot would work if they had a nice map loader. I have no problem creating world files as I have the software to do it, but it's long, tedious and a nice simple map loader, using google or who ever you choose as a data source (including WMS) would be nice.

It's just not there yet. I've also found a piece of software but it really is in beta, that allows you to load your own maps.

I think Rogers has to realize (and I'm in Thunder Bay) that 1 hour out of town, you're out of covereage and GPS coordinates do nothing for me unless I have a cached map to go with it.

[FF22]

Trekbuddy allows you to use maps from an SD card. You do have to create maps in advance. I have not explored its wider ability to use some form of atlas (linked, adjacent maps).

Loimere: is that beta you are talking about public?

[Loimere]

I just checked the site and the guy clsoed the site down saying he gave it up. Great.

Well on the good news front, I decided to go back and try Mobile GMaps. It never worked for me before but this latest version is pretty decent.

I was able to use the Map Loader he has on his site and it generated a folder of cache maps that I just put on my SD Card. Went for a walk at lunch and it also collects all the zoom levels from Google (Yahoo, MSN) you want.

I told it to never connect to the net for data and in the settings got the stored maps set up, works nice.

It tracked me the whole time, now if I can just get it to export a gpx file, I'm cooking.

[Loimere]

F2: Have you had much luck with TrekBuddy, just took a quick look and it looks like it might do the trick for me. I actually use GPSTuner for my Windows Mobile device and I like it. TrekBuddy looks like it will load *.gmi files and do logging. The Mobile GMaps doesn't quite do logging yet.

Looks like I will have to load them both out and do some testing

[FF22]

Trekbuddy seems to have features that I canNOT grasp - like its atlas function for multiple linked maps.

I am trying a bunch of programs but should try zeroing in on one or two to free up memory.

I like gps-ed but you need data for it IF YOU WANT TO SEE YOUR LOCATION. But it logs to the device but then allows you to upload and share (or not) your tracks and you could analyze them.

For instance:

si down | Author Ff2 | Mobile GPS Tracking Service

Amab | Author Ff2 | Mobile GPS Tracking Service

A hiking and a cross-country ski trip.

I do have a Garmin 76CS which has loadable maps and I have loads of maps for it. But playing with the BB is a different kind of fun.

Just added:

disco | Author Ff2 | Mobile GPS Tracking Service (bike ride)

[organman]

If you simply want to get from point A to point B on your travels without having to download maps, perhaps Nav4All might do it for you. It precalculates the route for you and then simply guides you along the route with simple arrow navigation AND spoken directions. I believe you would only need GPS reception for it to work. No need to keep downloading data for the maps, so phone reception is not necessary once you've got the route pre-planned. I haven't had any problems even in dead-cell zones...

[Loimere]

I took a look at Nav4All, it works decently for directions, but you have to start in a coverage area it seems. If I go out hiking and 99% of the time, I have no coverage where I'm going, it doesn't work.

The Mobile GMaps has worked well so far, but the TrekBuddy I'm still tinkering with. Should be able to play with it some more this weekend.

Still prefer my GPS Tuner on my iPaq so far though...