The PocketGPSWorld.com Meetup report

[MikeB]

The PocketGPSWorld Meet-up at the Driver Transport Training Day

Yesterday saw the PocketGPSWorld meet-up at the DTT (Driver Transport Training) day at Tangmere airport in West Sussex. Despite the typical English summer weather, lashing down with rain, wind and plenty of sunshine, all involved had a good time.

The picture to the right is a well disguised shot of me attempting to drive an 18 wheeler HGV. No reversing involved: I had enough room to do a 180 U turn on the runway.

I know this was just a short taster, but I was supriesed by a number of things:

First was how easy it was to actually drive. You have this image of these big tough truckers, with bulging muscles, but you definately dont need to be to drive a truck. In fact I climbed into Alex's cab and was amazed how comfortable it was.

Next was the limited visibility available to a truck driver. Alex had set up a demo of how a car can completely dissapear in a lorry's blind spot. It should make anypne who saw it think twice about sneaking up the inside of a lorry. I am used to driving with a caravan attached to the back of the car, but the back of an articulaqted lorry is way further back, and it is very difficult to judge distances.



VOSA
Amongst the other display there was the VOSA (Vehicle and Operator Services Agency) team. VOSA has been set up to oversee the compliance of vechicles to approved standards. For truckers which is where they mainly base their operations this means keeping to the allowed driving hours, and the roadworthiness of the truck. For us car drivers they are responsible for the commisioning of MOT stations and ensuring the standards are met.

Interestingly we also discovered that VOSA have the right to stop anyone driving on the roads, not just truckers.

The picture above shows one of the new camera vans. These have colour and infrared cameras which can read numberplates at a range of up to about 100 yards, day or night independent of the actual weather conditions. They also have powerful onboard computers which can recognise he number and query a master database highlighting the state of the vehicle's tax, insurance, MOT and operators license within 0.4 of a second.

Currently this is only used for lorries but in the near future this will be used for private cars as well. The implications for those law breakers is clear. There is no reason that these cameras need to be mounted in a van with bright stripes on them. They could be on disguised poles beside the road. Big brother is coming.

PocketGPSWorld.com
Of course PocketGPSWorld.com was there as well. I took my Chrysler Voyager, and an array of GPS devices and applications. Fortunately the tailgate opens and provides a display area as there were no indoor tables or stands available.

From left to right you can see:

iPAQ 5450 with the Navman 3450 GPS Sleeve running a pre-release version of Co-Pilot 5 Live.

iPAQ 2210 with Globalsat BC305 GPS in the Seidio 2500 holder running Destinator and Memory-Map.

TomTom Go, with the released version of Navigator software and both UK and MRE maps.

XDA2 running TomTom Navigator 3.03 and the Traffic plug-in.

Palm Tungsten T3 running TomTom for Palm and also Maptech Outdoor Navigator.

Nokia 6600 loaded up with Wayfinder.

About 10 BT GPS devices including the latest Emtac Trine.

Tim Buxton (one of our moderators) also brought along an iPAQ 5550 running SmartSt Pro version 2 with USA maps, and the latest release from Navman the PIN, a version of the Mitac preloaded with SmartSt Pro.

We also had a lap top loaded up with Copilot 7 Live Laptop, Memory-Map and loads of others.



Although not overly well attended there were quite a few people and a steady stream of people interested in GPS applications. As this was a trucker's event there was a lot of queries about GPS applications specifically for lorries. Unfortunately there is not much available in the UK at the moment.

The event was judged to be a success and the organisers were talking about repeating the DTT day later on in the year.
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Mike Barrett

[Oldie]

I had hoped that Mike was running a car boot sale. I would have snapped up that TomTom Go unit. Well, at least I was able to try it on the dashboard of my car - and it fitted very nicely

Thanks are due to Alex, Mike and Tim and to VOSA for the coffee

[BoPeep]

Glad to hear that you had a good time.

It was a shame that we couldn't attend this time, but I think we would definitely be interested in attending if they do hold another similar day later on in the year.

Bo Peep.
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TomTom 730
HTC Desire - Co Pilot Live Premium (Europe)

[Tim Buxton]

I thouroughly enjoyed myself but thought, like Mike, that there weren't enough people there. Still, we learned a lot about what VOSA can do, and we also appreciated the shelter and refreshments they had on offer. Thanks to Alix for the view from his cab and letting us attend, to Mike for all the stuff he had to demo and to Oldie for keeping me company!
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Tim

[alix776]

glad you all enjoyed it folks theres plans afoot for a much bigger and better advertised one again before the end of summer hopfully ill make it down for the next one
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currently using aponia truck navigation on windows phone. Good bye IOS don't let the door hit you on the way out .

Oh the joys of being a courier.
device Lumia 950 xl

[MikeB]

We have just announced the date of our next Pub Meet. This time we are in Stratford on Avon.

If you would like to see GPS gear in action and chat to the PocketGPSWorld.com team and moderators why not come along to our Pub Meet and have a chance to win some[ FREE GPS gear then click here for details.
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Mike Barrett

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