Garmin 2360LT. A dud? I think so...

It would seem that Garmin has the upper had on mobile navigation. I assume that they have also cornered the outdoor market as well, with their handheld devices. The word GPS and Garmin seem to click & stick together.


I had the opportunity to try out a Garmin 2360LT unit and I really hoped that I was going to be treated to a pleasant commuting experience by this device. This is one of the newer offerings from Garmin and it comes with lifetime traffic and a free map update up to 60 days after first satellite acquisition.

What interested me about this unit? A few things at first, before actually being able to put my hands on it.
-Voice command (since in Ontario it's illegal now to play around with electronic devices while driving)
-Bluetooth
-EcoRoute
-Traffic Trends

So away we went, first trip. Ok, a bit buggy. Without going into details, I plugged in the unit and found that I had a few software upgrades to do. Ok, fine - done. Back into the car.
Routing, at best, is mediocre. Yes, it will get you from point A to B, but sometimes in a very weird way.
My profile was set to bring me home using the fastest route, without U-turns, toll highways, off-road and ferries.
Traffic trends and the traffic receiver were on.

The first route was wrong. So wrong. For the "fastest" route it had me driving through a major city to the south end of it, then jumping on the highway for the majority of the trip home.

I can see the highway bit, but when the traffic system shows a delay in the area planned out, you would think that the GPS would re-route. I can think of several ways to navigate the area of congestion. Nope, I had to deal with the traffic jam.

And how about those phantom ramps and backwards highway entrances and exits? The entrance to our local highway, according to Garmin, is on the other side of the road (opposing traffic) heading down the ramp that brings the offramp highway-people into the city. Perhaps this was the "suicide" mode because if I followed the directions I would surely be in a bad situation.

Voice command - A welcome addition but lacks in accuracy and features. Get's bogged down and sits there with a spinning hour glass. Ok I just asked it for the nearest Canadian Tire. It sits and spins. And spins. One of the SLOWEST route calculation / recalculation I have dealt with. Disturbing.

It's supposed to learn my driving habits and places that I go and build upon it, of which I have yet to see. For example, it ALWAYS suggests one particular route when I know that the route I take is shorter and quicker.

Trust me, this is not the end. I am putting this unit to the test. I do not want to see people spending their hard earned money on something that could have been had for less than half the price. Stick around, part two will be out in a little while and you can judge from there.


J

Out of town

It was initially hard for me to wrap my head around the idea that being "out of town" or "out of the city" is quite an easy thing to do.
If you are confused, consider how long it would take you to be in an area that is surrounded by trees, a forest-like setting. Yes, you might have that where you are now, maybe even in a town or city, but what I am referring to is outside of a built up area.

When I first started playing with Google Earth, I was fascinated by the detail that some areas showed. Then, I began to explore locations that I thought seemed pretty small, at least, by looking at it from miles above, a forest can seem pretty small. That is, until you use the ruler / measuring tool. Dragging from one end to another of a wooded area, you can quickly see how much land you are dealing with. It might look small on the map, but inches on the computer screen can mean kilometers or miles. And this is what intrigued me. There are more wooded areas around town of significant size that I was only partially aware of. Having noted the location of some of these areas, I hope to visit them very soon.

I have, in the past, endeavored to visit some of the lesser known "local" forested areas and woodlands merely for the purpose of examining the habitat and environment, I've always marvelled at the deer crossing signs that I see on some roads, only to find that my closest dear is probably is a zoo, or even in a super market.
How close do you feel to the great outdoors? Has city living ruined it for you? Are you just itching to move into a more rural and laid back area? Well until you do so, take comfort in knowing that most people do not act upon their wishes, goals or dreams. Why? Well, money for one reason. The second is that I really do feel that we are a fat and lazy society of convenience and that we only do stuff if we absolutely have to. No, I'm not speaking for everyone, but again, it is merely just an opinion.

So when you get a chance, get out there. Enjoy it while you can.

J

Entourage CIS

This is a neat product, called Entourage CIS. It's a GPS tracking device that is subscriber-based ($179 per year or $14 /mth). It uses your local GSM / GPRS cellular network to relay the GPS data to the control center (Blackline GPS) and allows you to track the location of the device anywhere in North America.
The advantage of having such a device became clear after hearing about the horror stories of people losing equipment, trail cameras, equipment trailers, ATV's, etc.

Very small and drawing only 20mA of current @ 12 volts, this is definetely something that could run for a very long period of time in the bush, possibly forever, should you incorporate a small solar panel to keep your 12v battery charged.

The unit also incorporates an internal battery to give it a few days of run time should the external battery fail. A simply 2-wire hookup is all that is needed (positive and negative) and arming / disarming is done by a RFID key-fob that works up to about 20-30 feet away. Basically, the GPS device senses the presence of the key-fob and it disarms when it is near, and arms when it is no longer detected.

The monitoring costs might seem a little steep, but the features are plentiful. Through a web interface, you can see the exact position of the device, the battery condition (strength) and if the object is moving, the direction/heading and speed.

While it is still new, I am going to run it through the paces and see how well it performs.
It was a web deal from "The Source" that was being offered at an AMAZING discounted price of $49, regular $374 (The Escort GPS Site has it listed online at $399!!!!!)

Yes, it's not a typo - as of today, Dec 21, 2010 it is still available while quantities last @ $49. When I ordered mine I had it shipped to the store and it arrived 2 days later. Shipping to store is free of charge.

Here is the link:
http://www.thesource.ca/estore/product.aspx?language=en-CA&catalog=Online&category=GPS_Locators&product=1914522

Life

A chain of events took place yesterday, of all days, Remembrance day. And it is no indication of what has yet to come but disturbing non the less that the reminders are inherently built into the name of the day.

It’s a tough time of year, moving at the speed of life, sometimes things just creep up on you and yet sometimes your mind just wanders, hoping for the best but expecting the worst.

Christmas is coming soon and its a time to reflect on past life experiences. Friends, family, joy & sorrow.  A good friend lost his mother earlier in the year and it was a trying time for him to come to grasp the situation and work through it. He did it, but I’m still sure he feels pain, as anyone should.

And so we look upon our past experiences. Our friends. Our families. We are all moving at the speed of life and as we move on, that speed limit is being increased……day after day……Sometimes it’s refreshing to just put on the brakes for as long as you can and absorb and enjoy what is around you.

Something is out there….

I took a bit of time to travel to an area of Ontario that has always intrigued me, so much so that I considered camping out for the weekend to try and come to terms with what was going on there. Do you ever get that creepy feeling – the feeling like you are being watched? You try to satisfy your curiosity for what might be out there by going back and confronting your weaknesses? Or do we even consider calling it a weakness?

I cannot say for sure that whatever is out there defies description and is not meant to be found. I think that at some point, we will come across a formidable being that has eluded us for years. Until this happens, I will always be wary of the fact that there is something out there, watching us. Why do I think this? Well, it’s that feeling I get, particularly in this one specific area. No other place in Ontario seems to do this to me. To the average person, it would just be a considered a typical heavily wooded area that is somewhat remote.

To me, I think that it is home….home to a being that thrives on being elusive, yet lurks just around the corner, keeping an eye on you.

Might sound silly, but I’m sure that we have all had that “feeling” that something isn’t right and something is watching you.

Hoaxing?

No doubt one would seemingly want to get as far into the bush as possible to fire up their research on the subject we all want to learn about yet seem to know little about. Yup, our hairy friend. Why do we think it is drawn into the depths of the forest and that we have no other choice but to follow behind and find it in this habitat?

Well we do have a choice. And it certainly does not live in the middle of nowhere. We are getting sighting reports from all around the world of these things moving about  - many reports occurring during the daytime, which begs the question, is this thing nocturnal?
Some of the activity we have heard about, whether it happened recently or long ago, has taken place during the night time. I can tell you that if I were a hoaxer, I would do the same - I would carry forward activities during the evening which would conceal my identity. So lets back up a moment - of all these reports we have received, happening during the daylight, why do we continually believe that Sasquatch may be a nocturnal being?

I do not think it is. I think that opportunity exists during the evening hours but our friend is well adapted to life abroad during the daylight hours.
But getting back to the hoaxing thing - where do we stand with this? Are we spending the time looking at photos or videos to observe this species, or are we simply dispelling it from the get-go and saying to ourselves "lets find the flaw in this and send it on to others".

Yeah I'm sure that happens every day.
Then you have one fellow come by (as it has happened in the past) who saw something - it moved, wasn't a bear - and video or photos were taken. GREAT!!!
That poor fellow; He already became stereotyped as a hoaxer the moment he clicked SEND in his email. What a shame.


There is stuff out there that is meant to be shared. Please have the strength and wherewithal to come forward with it. Those who laugh or dispel your information are shallow, if you are indeed sincere and honest. Share with us and reap the benefits of your discovery and knowledge.

Connected

Being connected nowadays is a pretty easy thing to do. From social networking sites to cell phones, text messaging, email, VOIP & cheap long distance, we really have no excuse for not being connected.

Of course, we still need to respect the privacy of those who feel the need to stand back from all of this connectivity. It seems to be the baby boomer generation but I have also noticed that some of the younger groups, albeit only a few that I personally know, are stepping back from the stage and taking a deep breath.

It can be a tiring and time consuming process to stay connected. Some even go as far as losing focus on things that are more important than sending that twitter or writing on someone’s wall. It all adds up to what you actually want to achieve. If you are simply doing it just to gain status and make more friends, well maybe you should go back to the basics. Making a phonecall or sending a simple email then meeting up for a coffee or beer, or whatever you may have done in the past before this technology swooped down upon us, but now, we are letting it control our lives and literally mandate our decision making process and associated actions.

For those who take it all in stride and can control their exposure and adaptation of such new technologies, maybe even leverage them to their benefit while still "being yourself” – well my friends, kudos to you.

And for those who take all this technology and really look at it with a microscope, methodically breaking it down and seeing how you can make it work in ways that would really be beneficial or unique – that’s great too. I guess in the end, all I am saying is, don’t let it run your life. Your still an individual. You are unique. You are one.

I was encouraged to write this blog post by a situation that caught me off guard a little while ago. You see, I had been experimenting with urban WiFi radio links to try and get a better understanding of the concept of low power communications in an environment that offered some challenges. These challenges included localized interference, lack of line of site communications. Speed degradation due to link latency. My ultimate goal was to create a WiFi audio / video link between my home and my boat which is about 900 meters away – but in a location that has LOADS of wireless access points and routers, man-made and natural interference and of course, it’s close to being line of site but not exactly.

Now you may ask why? Well, if you work the common demons out during your testing such as those described above, transplanting your operations to the field – in the middle of nowhere, will certainly see a system that will perform extremely well in an ideal environment. No local WiFi, noise or other sources of interference. Nailing a solid radio link for 1km + should be quite simple. And I am happy to say that I have indeed achieved reasonable streaming performance over a link of that distance – in the city. So to imagine what I can do in the field, well, those wireless cam’s and data links to other camps might not be a pipe dream.

The next test is the LOS (Line of Sight) test where I will orientate the directional antenna towards the Niagara Escarpment, to the north of me, clearly visible and without any obstructions, to see if I can launch a signal via a 10dBi bi-polarized antenna with 600mw of power to a monitoring post that measures out to be roughly 18km or approx. 11 miles.

Now for those of you who have followed some of my work and perhaps Simply Sasquatch radio, you may recall that we did a radio test with some FRS / GMRS radios from my home to the same location (the escarpment) using Hi, Medium and FRS Low (500 mw max power). I was in communication with a fellow who drove around the escarpment to dispel the myth that manufacturer’s claims about range on FRS/ GMRS are over-stated. Nope – they are not – as long as you are line of sight (or literally line of sight). We could hear eachother perfectly on all power ranges and channels.

So given the fact that the walkie talkies are driving very inefficient rubber antennas that are not directional, we did pretty good with that test. Now, we are moving to a directional antenna system that offers gain – 10dBi – and a power outage that is slightly higher than FRS (500mw); We are going to be using 600mw – which would give us an ERP (Effective radiated power) of 3.6 watts or 5.63 dBW or an EIRP (Effective Isotropic Radiated Power) of 6 watts or 7.78 dBW.

Mind you, we are operating at a higher frequency which is something we need to consider because the radio wave does not travel, penetrate and bend like the lower frequency walkie talkie, but it is certainly worth the test – and if we are successful, it brings a whole new world of opportunity to field research and remote viewing / surveillance and communications.

Connected. Now this is to our benefit. This is something that will be neat to try and even better to implement as part of our research arsenal.