GPS question

[narkolitar]

Hi, sorry to bother everyone but,
Can I use GPS without quick gps and how? What is the best program for Eastern Europe, I plan to there and I would like to use this device (can I find maps for that area).
Thanks

[Bassey]

Not sure about the Eastern Europe bit (specific countries may help) but you can certainly use the GPS without downloading the Quick GPS data. Quick GPS just downloads some tables telling the device where each of the GPS satelites will be over the next seven days. Then, as long as the time is set corretly on your phone, it knows roughly where the satelites will be so doesn't need to spend so long calculating it's position.

Without QuickGPS data, your device will take quite a bit longer to get it's initial satelite lock and calculate an accurate position (it can take as long as 1-15 mins in heavily built-up areas) but after that there will be no difference.

With QuickGPS I can get a position to within 12 meters inside 2mins.

[waveydavey]

There are actually very few GPS companies that cover eastern Europe. I believe Garmin do them for their mobile XT product but you'd have to email them about it I think.

Th eother option of course is google maps.

[neilm]

Nav'n'Go include the whole of Eastern Europe in their iGO8 product, though its comprehensiveness makes it a bit pricey at €150

[narkolitar]

Originally Posted by neilm

Nav'n'Go include the whole of Eastern Europe in their iGO8 product, though its comprehensiveness makes it a bit pricey at €150

Thanks, unbeliveably fast answers
Can you point me in ther right direction? How do I use GPS without quick gps?

[Bassey]

If you have a GPS enabled application then, generally speaking, you tell it you have an Internal NMEA GPS device (often on com4) in that apps settings. The GPS should then switch itself on.

I'm running both MemoryMap and CoPilot 7 on my Touch Cruise and it really is that straight forward. Once it's in the ap settings, running the app turns on the GPS.

[neilm]

Originally Posted by narkolitar

Thanks, unbeliveably fast answers
Can you point me in ther right direction? How do I use GPS without quick gps?

The link to Nav'N'Go's map coverage page is Here and you can follow the links to more product details.

As you can see, it includes maps for 42 countries of Eastern and Western Europe

QuickGPS was developed at the time when inbuilt GPS receivers were quite limited in reception, and took a long time to get a fix. It uses your cellphone positon data to locate you roughly, and download some of the satellite data in advance.

Later devices have a much better GPS system, and typically get a fix within 2-5 minutes, even without QuickGPS; I have a personal dislike of QuickGPS anyway as it depends on getting accurate cell location data, which sometimes is not as accurate as it ought to be, resulting in wildly inaccurate GPS location, therefore taking even more time to get a fix, as the genuine data from the satellites has to overwrite the incorrect data.