Re: Magellan eXplorist 500/600 Review



Keith wrote:

> THanks for clarifying. Well the Garmin's use averaging I think so that
> helps with the "wandering" ;-)

Actually it's Magellan that has position averaging -if that's what
you're referring to... It's hard to see the effects of position
averaging in the eXplorist, because it's so stable...

> Looks like we are going to be able to
> use SA Watch after all. Probably the best way to check the stability
> and accuracy of the position. I don't "trust" Garmin's or Magellan's
> "accuracy" calculations, not sure how Magellan come up with it, but
> Garmin's EPE is certainly not terribly "convincing" ;-)

You are exactly correct! I was able to run SA Watch on the eXplorist
after I induced this notebook to create a soft Comm port when the unit
is plugged in... I just told SA Watch to look at the soft port... You
also inspired me to do a little testing of the unit on my back deck:
http://www.gpsinformation.net/waas/Mag3-D/eXplorist2.html

However, inducing the notebook to recognize the eXplorist is no "mean
feat"... I haven't figured out exactly what combination of
plugIN-turnON-selectNMEA on the unit will produce NMEA on the
computer... It doesn't always transmit NMEA...???

So, I created a HyperTerninal file by first plugging in the eXplorist,
set it to the NMEA mode, and made sure it was sending NMEA to a MapSend
map. Then I configured a HyperTerninal file to connect to the soft COM
port (created by the unit), at 4800 baud, 8, N, 1, Flow Control -None.
-And also put a shortcut to it on my desktop. This way you can load the
HyperTerninal and tell if the eXplorist is actually sending NMEA and
save yourself a lot of frustration when it doesn't work.

--
Jack

Get general GPS information at: http://www.gpsinformation.net/
.

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