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Low Cost GPS Receiver and Moving Map PC Software Reviewsby Joe Mehaffey and Jack YeazelRevised: 20 June, 2000 (Corrected for SA elimination and other details) Quoted prices are US$ OTHERS GPSS Moving Map by Robin Lovelock of Sunninghill Systems: GPSS is now running in 115 countries, and you may download the software, and over 1 GBytes of mapping for these countries from the web site. You may also download sound files to make it speak Japanese, Russian, Italian and other languages in addition to English. GPSS is issued free to the public as a means of contacting businesses around the world who supply it in large quantity, or use it for more specialized remote tracking applications such as radio, cellphone, OrbComm and Inmarsat-C satellite communications. GPSS will run on any modern Notebook PC running Microsoft Windows connected to any GPS receiver with NMEA output. The system provides the ability to ride along as your co pilot while your multimedia equipped laptop tells you where you are and what the landmarks ahead are. A demonstration program sequence provided with the software demonstrates this ability. It calls out service stations, intersections being approached and the like. GPSS can accept user scanned maps and one demonstration showed a topographical photograph used as a map of the streets in a town. GPSS can also playback a track log in PCX5 format. The free USA maps provide displays of the major highways and street-level detail in limited parts of the USA and Europe in response to e-mailed requests from GPS users as follows: Support is provided for the street level mapping off the Microsoft Streets and Trips CDROM within USA, and AutoRoute Express 2000 CDROMs within Europe. The program supports a verbal command package for computer control as you drive along, but this is from another supplier at $50US. Software support for the US Tiger data is available from the web site. The audio output tells you where you are about every two minutes. This is really interesting for awhile, but annoying as time passes. There is no way to adjust the announce interval, but you can turn the audio on your computer off. ETAK SkyMap PCMCIA Card GPS/Moving Map Display System: For those who have been looking for a vector map system with higher resolution and map accuracy, take a look at the $300 ETAK SkyMap system. It is a system designed for automobile navigation with the use of a laptop computer and includes the ETAK PC Card GPS module, an Infrared Remote Control as well as a comprehensive map of the USA. The map itself is the most accurate vector map we have reviewed. SkyMap offers the feature of locating a specific metropolitan area address for you. An address (including optional house number) along with city, state and zip code is input. The program can then place a "map tack" on the specific location. Our tests showed that this feature requires a SPECIFIC address, and will not respond with any options for SIMILAR addresses. A comparison with Street Atlas 4/5 shows that the database contains more recently added streets. However, some addresses aren't "parsed" with address abbreviations in mind. i.e., Hunter's Knoll is listed as Hunter's Knls on the map, and the correct name won't locate the address. A non-existent house number will also result in a "not found" for the street. This problem can usually be worked around if you know to look for it. When using SkyMap with the PCMCIA GPS module, you may select displays with "heading up" or "north up". A system option will automatically center your current location on the map. The "auto centering" turns off when the map is moved manually. A GPS information panel optionally shows the Svs in view and the current lock status. The heading display shows only eight unique directions. Contents
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