Friday, May 6, 2016

Higher Tech

I have been looking for an excuse to buy a new GPS for some time and while browsing the Internet yesterday I found a factory reconditioned Garmin Nuvi 2597LMT at GPS City in Calgary. After taxes and shipping it came to $175 CAN, exactly the same as if I ordered it from the USA and paid the exchange on the money. I read up on the bells and whistles like voice command, real life directions and a really nice video lane control that shows you two different ways which lane you should be in my mind was made up. I had to have it. It will be here in a few days.

Now that I have a stable address for six months, I ordered some stuff from eBay. A coil of RG6 cable and compression ends to do some work on TV cable both in the house and the motorhome and a replacement head for my Philips Shaver that I dropped and broke the other night as well as a few other trinkets.

I still have to deal with the two Starchoice receivers that have been misbehaving. I guess I should deal with them next...

6 comments:

  1. Can't wait to hear about the battle with Shaw.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I have the Garmin 2595LMT, almost the identical unit to the 2597LMT. Bought it last summer for $119 on Amazon.ca. That was a fantastic price though, and unlikely to be seen again.

    Once I figured out all the bells and whistles, I love it! Took it all through Mexico and the states...worked perfectly.

    ReplyDelete
  3. While you are waiting for it, go to Garmin Basecamp and study because that is how you plan a trip and send it to the device. It is not user friendly or intuitive. It has a steep learning curve. It is one of the reasons I met the nice Transitos in Centro of that town on the way to Roca Azul. It insisted I go back to where Robin bought purses several hours earlier and Google Maps insisted I go to the Cuota. I'm finally getting better at it and will end up being happy with it. Good luck!

    ReplyDelete
  4. Permission to revise and extend my remarks: if you just want to go from Point A to Point B, the Garmin will do it with ease. The challenge arises when you know the route you want and you just want the GPS to track you and that route is unconventional. You have to force it in Basecamp and then make sure the receiver doesn't mess with what you planned. That is the rub. It is doable - it takes practice.

    PS: example of forcing. I want back roads but there are some places on the route where Interstate makes more sense. If you click avoid highways, it totally avoids them. Etc.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Steve, they need a "Common Sense" button.

    I am always reminded of the Canadian couple who used their GPS a couple of years ago to get from the BC interior to Las Vegas and ended up on a snow covered mountain road in Washington State where he died trying to walk out and she survived for three weeks on melted snow, a couple of chocolate bars and cough candies. She said they followed the GPS instructions. Garmin asked for the GPS so they could see what went wrong but I never heard what they found.

    ReplyDelete