Help getting started please

[tviall]

I am thinking of getting maps on to my PDA to help me with my cycling. I used to stick to the roads so my current set up (iPaq 2210, TomTom3, Mobile 2002, bluetooth) worked really well. But more recently I have turning off the road and going cross country with sometimes disasterous consequences, basically getting lost!!

The idea of a moving map that tracks my course and information regarding the severity of the hill in front appeals greatly but i am left with the old problem of what system.

I have shortlisted Fugawi and MM V5 for no other reason than they appear to be the most popular. Both will, I think, work on my current PDA but the static PC may cause a problem. I only have Win98 but MMV5 needs Win XP. Do I upgrade the static PC to XP or do I forego the latest version of MM and go for MM2004? I won't be using the system seriously and to be honest anything is better than nothing and I believe that 2004 is still a good system.

I live in the South East. MMV5 appears to cover the whole southern region from about south wales southwards. But I get the impression that 2004 will only cover the South East. These means that V5 will cover a greater area whereas I will have to buy 2 maps on 2004 to cover the same area.

I am very confused. Fugawi or Memory Map? MM2004 or MMV5?

Any ideas?

[AllyCat]

Hi,

There is also Anquet (a new version was released this week), and you can download trial versions of all three from their websites. But with no sample maps of your local area it's difficult to properly evaluate them.

I first bought a region of Fugawi because it gave nearly three times the map area of MM2004. It actually has a few advantages over MM2004 on a PC, but I was very disappointed with the implementation on a PPC, so bought my local region of MM as well. If you only want a "you are here" point (and a tracklog) on a moving map controlled by a GPS, then Fugawi is OK. But if you want to browse a map, it's a nightmare because:

When starting up on the PPC it always defaults back to the centre of the map (it doesn't remember where you were last looking). It does not have a "find place" facility and it doesn't use OSGB coordinates (try looking for the grid numbers or a place name by scrolling within a PPC screen). MM does all of these, and has more functions such as interrogating the elevation (and OSGB reference) of any point on the map.

Now that MM have increased the area of their maps in v5 without a great price increase, I would generally recommend them. However, the SE region of MM2004 stops just below the northern extremity of the M25 (and v5 doesn't look very different) whereas Fugawi extends about 60km further north.

With Win98, I think you still have a number of options, but you ought to check these with the MM technical forum before purchasing. You can still download a trial of 2004 (and v5 to see if it works for you) and you can use v5 maps on 2004 (but NOT vice versa). The license key seems compatible between the two versions (not surprising as v5 is a free upgrade except for the UK OS version).

http://www.memory-map.co.uk/board/

MM were recently selling the 2004 software+maps at half price, but I don't know if they still have any stock. If you buy v5, you can still download the latest 2004 software, if necessary, to use with v5 maps. I don't know if the PPC application itself is any different in v5, but defining the area of the map that you transfer to the PPC is more flexible with v5 (strictly the v5.0.2 upgrade). But even MM2004 is much more convenient than Fugawi, which rigidly limits each file transfer to less than 1600 square km (the same area as an OS Landranger map). Fugawi does have one advantage though, the MM files are about 50% larger for any given area.

Cheers, Alan.
_________________
Garmin GPS72H/76/60/45, Etrex H, Mapsource v6.5.
Acer N50,HP114,Loox N560,Dell x50,CF/SD cards to 4/32GB.
RoyalTek,Holux236,Navman B10 & Copilot(Globalsat) BT GPS,TomTom5/6.
Memory Map (v5.4.2 & v5.1.3 OS & Euro), GPS gate,OSGPSconverter.

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