(version 13 European Map)
I purchased the AvMap Geosat5 Blu well over a year ago when they just released the road maps of the Isle of Man, on first look they were great, quite accurate in fact, but problems soon became apparent, the major issue with the Isle of Man map coverage by TeleAtlas was that it did not include the facility to look up Post Codes, even though when you were parked outside of a known address, the information displayed upon the screen would display the correct Post Code.
Foxglove Close being displayed as Foxglove Croft
There were (and still are) issues with road names either being incorrectly spelt or not even existing at all, details of these were passed on AvMap and even after over a year, TeleAtlas have not sorted out these issues, that aside, the AvMap is a superb device, not only enabling clear reading of the roads ahead, but with its built in APRS mapping, this is a real must for those RayNet people, as it clearly displays where other mobile stations are (providing they are also using APRS equipment) and also including such information as the call sign of the operator within the vehicle, where they are heading to, present speed and direction and any other information that you wish to transmit.
Where it really comes into its own, is that an operator can not only view where another APRS station is, but he can then ask the AvMap to plot a route for the other operation and then using the Kenwood Radio you could tell the operator where to turn and which way to go to reach their destination, thus help guiding them into a location that they do not know that well, and if they do not own a SatNav device such as the AvMap, as long as they have a radio that will transmit APRS then they can be guided to any location. It is also possible to plot a course to the other operator, and whilst driving to their location the display on the AvMap will display both your location and that of the other APRS contact that you are driving towards with a very high level of accuracy.
AvMap displaying the location of 2E0TGS
As of the 20th February 2010 AvMap finally got an up to date map information from TeleAtlas, this included the long awaited Post Code search facility that every other SatNav device takes for granted, and sure enough it was tested with as many known Post Codes that I knew, and although after a shaky start, and a few rushed updates, it works, most of the Isle of Man is supported to a full 6 digit Post Code, but for some reason a few addresses would not allow more than 5 digits’ to be entered, but even this would at least put you at the end of the relevant road or at least very close by.
I must admit that I had actually re-boxed the unit and was using a Garmin device instead for some time, mainly because there mapping included Post Code lookup as standard to the Isle of Man (and 6 digit lookup throughout the Island) and also the odd road name that was either miss-spelt, Croft instead of Close, or missing entirely, was not a problem on the Garmin device, and I still have to say that as far as the road names and the postcodes, the Garmin devices are much more accurate, but are a pain to get working with APRS equipment, with only a few of the more costly units achieving this, and because of this you are limited in regards to screen sizes and displays. The AvMap has something that the Garmin devices does not even come close to, and that is its display, it really does put the Garmin or Tom-Tom SatNav’s to shame. It’s display, and menu system is so faultless and very easy to master and customise. If you needed to choose between the two makes, the AvMap certainly have the edge as far as Big Screen with loads of features.
You can feed Video into the unit, such as a reversing Camera or a DVD Player for instance. It does come with Bluetooth as standard but to be honest this is a total waist of space, the unit does not come with the ability to plug in and external microphone, and when tested with the built in microphone, although the unit was very easy to use with your mobile, the reports of all they could hear was the engine noise and to get then to hear me over the background noise you would have to lean forward so that you were about 2″ from the unit, thus meaning it was verging on dangerous whilst driving. I think the unit could have least had an external socket for this and to be supplied with a good quality noise cancelling microphone would have really pushed this above any of it’s competitors, but it is only a small feature.
Another minor gripe with the unit is that somedays it will take around 5-10 minutes to lock into enough satellites’ to start plotting your course on the unit, and other days it is instant, There are no reasons for this as the unit is not moved around in the car, and the only thing that I can think is that the device does not like the bad weather that we have on the Isle of Man, as the days that it does play up, they are normally overcast, i.e. normal weather the Isle of Man… I am hoping that an External GPS Antenna from AvMap will sort this out, but about 1 month on my supplier is still waiting to get them in.
The only BIG issue with the unit is it’s battery life, this is totally pathetic, the unit will count down to 30 seconds when you switch off the engine, this is a normal power save feature and it is really useful, if you then remove the unit from the car and take it say into the house to show to someone, when you switch the unit on and start to use it, it will completely die on you after around 47 seconds (give or take 2 seconds either way), and this is after the unit has been in the car and connected to a 12V supply for over a hour. I have asked AvMap about this but it looks like they don’t have an answer for this as I have not yet had a response on this.
HF, VHF, UHF and AvMap
My conclusion is that after well over a year, the AvMap GeoSat5 Blu now is what I term as a very useable SatNav unit, the ability to seamlessly link this to a Kenwood TM-D710E and use to plot other APRS stations, including information on them really is a great feature, easy to configure and great to use. It does still have issues, but most of these are because of TeleAtlas regarding wrong names, and missing road names, even when they exist. It is so worth the cost though, for RayNet it is invaluable, and I would go so far to say that they could not really be serious without it, at least for the mobile units, APRS offers so many features for use by RayNet and even other organisations, I have seen it used to log runners on a marathon at a checkpoint and transmit not only that the runner has travelled through a checkpoint but also the time that the passed the checkpoint. There are endless uses for APRS, and Civil Defence, Support for Coast Guard and Police Searches of large areas of coastlines, and as seen in other countries where Disasters can very real indeed, APRS communications and Mapping comes into it’s own, and Kenwood and AvMap are certainly a very gifted combination.
The Radios hidden underneath a false floor.
