GPS Shows Off Road

 

I just completed a visit to Canada and Alaska. Both my Garmin and our traveling companion's Garmin showed the vehicle off of the road quite a bit while in the Northern areas of Canada and in Alaska. I have the latest updates to my system. Is this because of poor calculations way up North or are the data not as good as in the lower 48?

Maps probably not complete

I get that every now and then in new highway construction areas. There is really no good way to keep maps up-to-date in those areas until the construction is complete. Too many "detours" (for example northbound traffic temporarily routed onto southbound lanes while northbound is finished.

It makes sense to me!

jimymc wrote:

I just completed a visit to Canada and Alaska. Both my Garmin and our traveling companion's Garmin showed the vehicle off of the road quite a bit while in the Northern areas of Canada and in Alaska. I have the latest updates to my system. Is this because of poor calculations way up North or are the data not as good as in the lower 48?

jimymc wrote:
"Is this because of poor calculations way up North or are the data not as good as in the lower 48?"

Make sense to me! Email NAVTEQ and ask that question, they have a more accurate answer.

--
Using Android Based GPS.The above post and my sig reflects my own opinions, expressed for the purpose of informing or inspiring, not commanding. Naturally, you are free to reject or embrace whatever you read.

Bad satellite Reception

Go back to GPS basics. To know you are driving on a road, the GPSr needs to maintain a good position not in one location, but continously in a succession of locations.

GPS satellites broadcast their signals over a wide area at low power because the electricity available from onboard solar arrays is limited. On the ground we receive an inherently low-level signal.

A good position depends on a view of five satellites. The more satellites you have high in the sky, the stronger their signals will be. When satellites happen to be nearer to the horizon, their signals will be weaker and more subject to interference from tall buildings, mountains, trees with leaves, or even rain.

I do not know whether the same number of satellites is located nearer the poles as in the more populated areas.

To make matters worse, from now through the next three years we are approaching an increase in sunspot activity. A solar storm began August 1, 2010 and is continuing today. This has the capability to interfere with GPS reception 24 hours a day, not only when the sun is out. Twice in the recorded past there have been solar storms strong enough to disable all radio communication. This means NO GPS!

http://www.almanac.com/sunspotupdate

http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2006/10...

Did you make your trip to the far north after August 1st?

dobs108

It does that to me

It does that to me frequently and I live in Canada just an hour from the Can/US border.

GPS Shows Off Road

I had that experience in Indianapolis the other day, I was on a road parallel to a major highway and it indicated I was to the West of both of them. I told my buddy it was due to the Coriolis effect (tongue in cheek) or maybe Doppler shift. For a second he thought I was serious.

Running up to Fort McMurray on the back road

Running up to Fort Mac, on the back road, which was blacktopped a couple of years ago ... my Garmin says I'm running on a dirt road ... which, given the state of the road before it was blacktopped, wasn't far off the mark.

--
Garmin 205, 260W, 1450LMT, 2460LMT, HEREwego for iPhone ... all still mapping strong.

Ahhh...

Ahhh... On-Road, yet Off-Road. Brings back fond memories from 2005.

What I remember best is the last photo for Wednesday, June 8 [here](http://jimdavis.name/13001.html)

Just kidding, Dear. (Wife took the photo).

Need to do that again, soon. Real soon.

--
It's about the Line- If a line can be drawn between the powers granted and the rights retained, it would seem to be the same thing, whether the latter be secured by declaring that they shall not be abridged, or that the former shall not be extended.

.

If it was just one of my navigators I might blame the device. But it happens on all of them - daytime, nightime, a year ago, now . . .,

Let's start with the obvious -

1. GPS satellites are not geosynchornous, so a bunch of them are always overhead. Doesn't matter where you are on the globe, the constellation is designed so that there are always enough overhead to get a fix.

2. Solar storm or no storm, the key to GPS is the time it takes for the signals to travel from the various satellites to your GPS - that is fixed and not subject to impact.

As far as I know solar storms will only interfere with the signal strength (raising the noise floor), resulting in loss of acquisition, but they don't affect accuracy.

3. I have noticed lots of registration errors with the mapping in recent years - even my home has changed sides of the street in the sense that as I approach my home it says that it is on the left instead of the right and a bit of research implies that the map was shifted in my area by about 150 feet to the north.

I also note that the Trans Canada Highway is 'in the wrong place' consistently - it always thinks I'm on the service road when I am travelling 'east' from my home into town - that makes the traffic receiver miss reporting delays on the highway because it doesn't know that that's where I am.

During summer road trips I see similar things in smaller towns in the US - makes finding POIs in the affected towns interesting.

Hawaii is another place with messed up mapping.

--
Currently have: SP3, GPSMAP 276c, Nuvi 760T, Nuvi 3790LMT, Zumo 660T

I have had

similar problems down here in the Great State of Texas.

--
Not doing anything worth a darn.

off road in canada

couple of comments
#1 construction / realignment of road
#2 I have heard @75 north GPS does not work even flying so the satellites are probably farther down the horizon
#3 less population = less frequent updates?

I also experienced the

I also experienced the anomaly here in Texas last week. These occurred in areas that previously were represented correctly. The last time i drove the route, it was back to normal.

Have this issue here also,

Have this issue here also, update vehicle for Google is driving around the island gaining videos in 360 as they go. Vehicle was barged over from Oahu and has been for quite some time.
Maybe when they get done, my gps won't show me off-roading while going over saddle road!!!
Virgo

--
Virgo53 Nuvi 780/265W

.

If Google ever supplies Garmin with maps, perhaps your wish will come true. These days they get their maps from Navteq - so be on the lookout for Navteq vehicles.

--
Currently have: SP3, GPSMAP 276c, Nuvi 760T, Nuvi 3790LMT, Zumo 660T

nuvi 255 in the field

[IMG]http://i232.photobucket.com/albums/ee8/richmond2000/gpserror.jpg[/IMG]
http://i232.photobucket.com/albums/ee8/richmond2000/gpserror...
driving on route 6 NW of Winnipeg used GPS visualizer and google earth
for pic

.

richmond2000 wrote:

http://i232.photobucket.com/albums/ee8/richmond2000/gpserror...
driving on route 6 NW of Winnipeg used GPS visualizer and google earth for pic

Take a look at the imagery date in the lower left corner: April 23, 2002! May be a bit out of date!

--
nüvi 3790T | Those who make peaceful revolution impossible, will make violent revolution inevitable ~ JFK

Off Road

Recently I was in Houston TX on the way to San Antonio on I 10. Just out of Houston my GPS kept showing me off the hwy. Like I was traveling on the feeder road as they call them in Houston.....Not so comfortable seeing it that way due to crazy drivers and heavy traffic.

--
Garmin GPSmap76CS / Nuvi 200W

Opposite

Most of the time it is just the opposite for me. I hate road lock.

maybe just a bug

jimymc wrote:

.... Garmin showed the vehicle off of the road quite a bit while in the Northern areas of Canada and in Alaska. ...

I had a very strange occurrence with my nuvi just this last Friday. I was in North Carolina, traveling back home on major roads that the nuvi had just properly navigated earlier that day. It started insisting that I was off-route and that I should turn right, but I knew that I was not off route. Kept playing with it and it eventually started showing me driving off-road and continued to try to get me to reroute. I ended up having to turn it off and then back on again, and when it came back to life it was reporting that the highway was just where I thought it was.

Perhaps this wasn't your problem, but if you were on paved roads that we not new within the last few years I would suspect you might have hit a bug similar to what I saw.

What day?

TheProf wrote:

I had that experience in Indianapolis the other day, ...

What day was that? Any chance it was Friday, September 10, in the evening before dusk?

?

How did you know ? LOL

is that a yes?

TheProf wrote:

How did you know ? LOL

If you are saying "yes", I guessed it might be because that was when my nuvi started claiming I was west of where I really was. Curiously, I was the navigator on a N.C. trip to the coast and back, and the driver also has his GPS (a TomTom) running, and he didn't indicate that there was any problem on the TomTom. So I'm wondering if it wasn't a bug just in my nuvi, but something strange from the satellites that both of our nuvi's reacted to.

Bizarre.

--
It's about the Line- If a line can be drawn between the powers granted and the rights retained, it would seem to be the same thing, whether the latter be secured by declaring that they shall not be abridged, or that the former shall not be extended.

Solar activity report

This report of no activity is for September 9th through 10th. We were talking about August. Solar activity generally increases and decreases over an 11 year cycle. We are just beginning a period of high solar activity over the next 2 years or so. Solar activity is like the weather. It comes and goes. Going forward the statistic probability of solar storms will increase.

How much this will affect our GPSr remains to be seen, since the last time solar activity was high, 11 years ago, we did not have the widespread use of car-based GPS. In early August, my nuvi 760 was doing very poorly getting a good position. For the last week or so it has been very good.

dobs108

Report it to Navteq

cbwatts wrote:

Running up to Fort Mac, on the back road, which was blacktopped a couple of years ago ... my Garmin says I'm running on a dirt road ... which, given the state of the road before it was blacktopped, wasn't far off the mark.

Go to Navteq and report that that road is now a paved road. It could take a year or more, for the update to reach a Garmin update, but if us users don't keep them informed, the odds are slim that they will change it.

I have had success with most of my submitted changes. Took about a year total. where possible I supply proof such as Google Street View pictures or photos etc.

--
DriveSmart 65, NUVI2555LMT, (NUVI350 is Now Retired)

I was

dobs108 wrote:

This report of no activity is for September 9th through 10th. We were talking about August. Solar activity generally increases and decreases over an 11 year cycle. We are just beginning a period of high solar activity over the next 2 years or so. Solar activity is like the weather. It comes and goes. Going forward the statistic probability of solar storms will increase.

How much this will affect our GPSr remains to be seen, since the last time solar activity was high, 11 years ago, we did not have the widespread use of car-based GPS. In early August, my nuvi 760 was doing very poorly getting a good position. For the last week or so it has been very good.

dobs108

I was referring to this post

Frovingslosh wrote:
TheProf wrote:

I had that experience in Indianapolis the other day, ...

What day was that? Any chance it was Friday, September 10, in the evening before dusk?

The last 75 reports are here- http://www.swpc.noaa.gov/ftpmenu/forecasts/RSGA.html

A nice overall archive here- http://www.swpc.noaa.gov/alerts/solar_indices.html

And Todays is here- http://www.swpc.noaa.gov/today.html

N.B. - Ahh. I found just what the GPSr/Sunspot sleuth needs, I think wink http://www.swpc.noaa.gov/alerts/archive.html

--
It's about the Line- If a line can be drawn between the powers granted and the rights retained, it would seem to be the same thing, whether the latter be secured by declaring that they shall not be abridged, or that the former shall not be extended.

Off the Road in Alaska

I also had the experience of my TomTom constantly showing me off the road. I have a hard time believing all the theories I have heard as to why. For one thing tracking was perfect in Northern Canada, or when I was in Anchorage or Fairbanks or Wasilla. In fact there were no problems on the Parks highway from Anchorage to Fairbanks.

There was also quite a bit of discussion in the newspaper that new maps needed to be developed of Alaska because all maps of the state are known to be highly inaccurate.

I talked to a number of locals about the problem - and I was told that Garmin had some upgraded Alaskan Maps available for an additional charge and that those maps solved the problem. You had to contact Garmin Tech Support. I have not tried it myself - but will before going back again.

--
Steve S.

It was this day

Frovingslosh wrote:
TheProf wrote:

I had that experience in Indianapolis the other day, ...

What day was that? Any chance it was Friday, September 10, in the evening before dusk?

It was the day when the moon was in the seventh house, and Jupiter aligned with Mars...... It was the dawning of the age of Aquarius!!!

--
Being ALL I can be for HIM! Jesus. Kenwood DNX9980HD Garmin 885t

me too

On a trip from Florida to Alaska had the same problem west of Edmonton Canada on Hwy 16, have never seen something similar anywhere else in my nuvi260

--
Garmin 38 - Magellan Gold - Garmin Yellow eTrex - Nuvi 260 - Nuvi 2460LMT - Google Nexus 7 - Toyota Entune NAV

Fog will do that to me sometimes

I guess the little guy in the satellite can't aim properly at my Freelander, and I'm only hit by a bounced beam ? Oh well, that's why I have a Landrover anyway - to drive off-road !

--
Ain't nuthin' never just right to do the things you wanna do when you wanna do them, so you best just go ahead and do them anyway ! (Rancid Crabtree, from Pat F McManus fame)

which is it?

spera wrote:

Fog will do that to me sometimes

Is that outside the vehicle nature fog or inside the vehicle self generated fog? redface

--
Garmin 38 - Magellan Gold - Garmin Yellow eTrex - Nuvi 260 - Nuvi 2460LMT - Google Nexus 7 - Toyota Entune NAV

Not just there.... We visit

Not just there.... We visit friends in the mountains of NC quite often, and have encountered areas where the Garmin says it's off road, or house is past end of road, or Garmin thinks we've gone off the road when we haven't...

Eventually it will be updated.... Just don't hold them to it....

--
A 2689LMT in both our cars that we love... and a Nuvi 660 with Lifetime Maps that we have had literally forever.... And a 2011 Ford Escape with Nav System that is totally ignored!

Do we know each other ?

flaco wrote:
spera wrote:

Fog will do that to me sometimes

Is that outside the vehicle nature fog or inside the vehicle self generated fog? redface

I believe you still owe me those two dollars and twenty-seven cents... You rascal you !

--
Ain't nuthin' never just right to do the things you wanna do when you wanna do them, so you best just go ahead and do them anyway ! (Rancid Crabtree, from Pat F McManus fame)