are these quirks...............

[birdseye]

or do I have a problem with my new quest?

I find that on a few odd occasions, the graphic on the screen as you approach a junction doesnt match the instruction. So the graphic might indicate a complicated turn right whilst the instruction says "stay left on the ....".

This also occasionally happens with the voice, but I find the voice so irritating that I turn it off now anyway.

And it sometimes seems as if the Quest is lagging a 100 metres behind hwere I am, so I get to junctions before it does so to speak (no wonder the voice is female). Not a problem if there is a single junction but when you get to something complicated, then you can be approaching one direction change when its giving the details of the last one 30 metres back.

Net result is that I used the Quest on a 1oo mile cross country run today and took a wrong turning 3 times. Is this just the probs of a newbie or what? looks to me as if its a bit short of infallible!

 

[Twotter]

Net result is that I used the Quest on a 1oo mile cross country run today and took a wrong turning 3 times.

But did it get you back on track after 're-calculating' ?

 

[Mouse]

or do I have a problem with my new quest?

I find that on a few odd occasions, the graphic on the screen as you approach a junction doesnt match the instruction. So the graphic might indicate a complicated turn right whilst the instruction says "stay left on the ....".

This happens occasionally on my Streetpilot 3. I think the picture that it displays is the previous junction, I am guessing that there's a buffer holding the picture, and the processor hasn't got around to updating it yet. Even on the slower SP3 though, it doesn't happen often.

 

[PanEuropean]

I've never used a Quest, so I can't comment on that one. But, I have a lot of experience with the SP III, SP 26xx, and am now riding with a SP 2720.

From time to time, I have also encountered situations where the obvious activity that needs to be executed is a right turn, and the picture will also show a right turn, but the GPSR will be saying (in the text instruction, and the sound as well) "Keep left on road". At first, I thought the GPSR was screwed up, so I doubled back on my track and ran through the exact same route again, but more slowly. Such are the joys of beta-testing - if you find a bug, you have to be able to document it thoroughly, and submit track logs.

Every time I have doubled back and run through the problem route a second time, though, I have realized that the text and voice instruction "keep left" was correct - I needed to first keep left in order to get into an exit lane or to get into the correct lane position on a multiple lane road, so that I could then accomplish the second task in the sequence, which was to turn right. The confusion arises because it is not always 'visually obvious' that the first instruction was issued for the purpose of manouvering you into the correct lane position (or onto a ramp) so you could make the (very obvious) turn that you were looking at on the picture.

In summary - I think you identified the cause of the problem yourself - you are new to using the unit. Once you gain a little experience with it, and pick up on the nuances of how it moves you into position on multiple lane roadways, you will then have one of those 'ah-ha!' moments, and appreciate why it is telling you to move left when the picture is showing - a bit further ahead - an obvious right turn.

What might help you sort out these confusing prompts is to have a look at the 'distance to go' number whenever you get what appears to be a contradictory instruction. If the distance to go shows 100 feet to the turn, but the turn on the picture is obviously farther ahead than that - the GPSR is simply manouvering you into a lane position in preparation for the upcoming turn.

Michael

 

[birdseye]

Thanks for your replies - I think that you're right Michael. But I suspect that the cartography in the UK off the major M and A roads is not 100%. Usually the problems I have described occurr on minor B and C roads, and its definitely not a case of getting me into a lane position. Usually, there's only one lane possible!

But there is also an issue of speed of response. I have a lot of experience over many years of marine GPS / plotters which is all that the Quest / 2610 really are. But at sea your speed is 5mph or thereabouts and unit response time doesnt matter. At bike speeds it does. So when 2 junctions come within yards of each other, the Quest seems to linger on the first junction and then be too late for the second.

Plus it seems to treat some bends as junctions and vice versa. But that has to be the cartography.

As you say, I shall have to learn its tricks.

 

[Mouse]

Plus it seems to treat some bends as junctions and vice versa. But that has to be the cartography.

I think this might be a question of standards. In the UK, we say following the road you're currently on is going "straight on" regardless of how the road actually bends. Taking a turning to the left, even if you don't actually need to alter your course to do this, is always "turning left".

I believe that in the US, this is different, they would describe the second situation as "straight on". If the road bends to the right and there's a turning on the left, following the road is "turning right".

I might be wrong here but this is what my Garmin seems to think

 

[Rockbyter]

I have found this on my quest only with the voice off. The junctions are just too close and don't update until the pointer has moved passed the turn a certain distance. The voice may say "turn left then immeadiate right" or something like that and without the voice you miss the second bit.

 

[PanEuropean]

Hi Mouse:

I hear what you are saying... I have encountered that situation before. Birdseye hit the nail on the head when he mentioned 'the question of cartography'. The cartography is not always consistent in how it handles a situation where the primary road veers left or right, and a secondary road continues straight ahead. Sometimes this results in no prompt at all, sometimes in a 'turn left/right' prompt when what you really need to do is simply follow the main road as it curves left or right.

I do know that on the GPSRs that I have been responsible for moto testing (the SP III, 26xx and now 27xx), they will handle multiple successive interchanges up to the Vmax of a ST1000 (about 135 MPH) without difficulty, 'cause I always test this function really thoroughly in Germany. Right now I am working on fine-tuning the 27xx in this respect. The Garmin guys have tried to improve the sequencing of next turn prompts by 'tightening them up' a bit - this is great in city traffic, but not so great at felony speeds. I am going through, on average, 2 beta builds a week as we work on this. The Quest uses the same underlying source code as the other units - but, I don't know how the thing performs, because I have never used it.

I tried testing two different GPSRs at the same time last summer (a 2650 and a 296) and it was really difficult to do a good job on two units at a time, so, this summer, I am sticking to the 27xx only.

Michael

 

[DodgyGeeSer]

Quick question on the subject of cartography.. I was using my Quest the other day to navigate to a particular point, when I was directed to make a U-turn, when in fact the turn was an extremely sharp left turn (N53 22.127 W6 26.077).

Is this a problem with the cartography, which I should report to Garmin, or a problem with the Quest, where the road to the left is potentially drawn too close to the straight through road, and is confusing the device?

 

[PanEuropean]

I'm going to take a guess here that because the roads are only about 15 yards apart, and the normal position fix accuracy of a GPSR is about 15 yards (without differential augmentation), the GPSR got a bit confused and thought that before you even got to the turning point, you were already on the new road, but travelling in the wrong direction.

I don't think there is anything that can be done about this kind of thing. You are working right up against the limit of position accuracy - all it would take is a few seconds of tree cover to block the satellite reception prior to reaching the intersection, and the GPSR would go into 'predictive' mode and assume you were continuing to move in a straight line. Because the first road is slightly curved, prediction of movement in a straight line would put you on the second road (i.e. it would assume you had crossed over the verge between the two roads).

Be grateful there is no tree cover above multi lane expressways...

Michael

 

[DodgyGeeSer]

You're good.... you're real good...
I didn't even mention the tree cover...