Programming The GPS

I ran a simulator test of how well the mapping done on my laptop with MS Street & Trip was accepted by my Lowrance iWay 500c GPS and my worst fears were realized.

Not surprisingly, but disappointing nonetheless, the conversion of the routes from MS Street & Trip to the GPS passed only the waypoints but not the routes connecting them.  Each system applies its own algorithm to plot the routes taken to get between waypoints so, they are not the same. Therefore, it is best to do your route planning first on the "big" screen and then again, manually, on the GPS itself.

Thus, for 7 hours yesterday, which was fun actually, I learned better and faster ways to manually plot longer and longer sections that forced the GPS to recognize my preferred routes.

After floundering some, it turns out, I can select a waypoint from the map by tapping the touch sensitive screen.  so, I can zoom in and tap the screen at my house. A little arrow pops up with a note that displays my address and I press "Add to route". I zoom out to a 9 mile view, and trace the road, by sweeping my finger along the screen, to the first turn and zoom in and tap the screen just after the intersection and another arrow with a note displaying the house number and street at that point pops up. I press “Add to route". After the machine does some thinking, I have a green line marking the first “leg” of my journey. This has forced the GPS to make the turn to a new road that I wanted. And, then, it's on to the next “turn” and the next ...

But, here's the best part, if I'm plotting on a divided highway, the GPS tells me whether I tapped the south,north, west or east bound lane. That's a great help since, if you are headed north and accidentally "added" a south lane, the GPS would, not knowing any better, dutifully take you to the next exit and loop you back. That is not good tour strategy. To avoid this, I can zoom in closer and re-tap the screen until the arrow note reads something like “US 15 N” and I know I'm in the correct lane, so, after adding it to the route, bingo, my green tracer line has me on the correct highway headed north. With the touch sensitive screen, I can zoom way in and way out. This lets me speed through the countryside with just a swipe of my finger across the screen.  It took a while to figure out the technicalities but, now I could plot a cross country tour, with side trips and all, very quickly.

It helps if you have a good detailed paper map or mapping software on a computer. I'm using a laptop, which I will bring with us instead of a bag of paper maps. The larger laptop screen gives a big picture view, which helps when the GPS is zoomed in to 400 ft. to trace a complex cloverleaf. The big view on the laptop lets me see the general direction so I know how to exit out of the spaghetti and on with the adventure. But, I could do it, easily, all on the GPS alone.  Regardless, we, now, have a good GPS controlled route that will put us on the roads we want and those we expect to be, either, quick or scenic. 

Another handy feature: If I didn't know the best path between a group of side trips, each destination can be added to the GPS individually by tapping the destination as above and then the GPS can sort the waypoints. It will place them in the most efficient order to visit. This is nice for showing off your piece of the world to visiting relatives and might come in handy for us when we plan our assault on Alaska after we have conquered Inuvik. All that will be done on the road, "love". Getting us routed to Inuvik has been my total focus, to date. After Inuvik, we have no plan!

It looks like the iWay thinks it is over 5200 miles to Inuvik, the “first stop” of our tour. Oddly, it took 52 waypoints to get us there. Coincidence? Not likely!!  But, the distance changes depending on the source.  MS Street & Trip sets the distance it at 5141.0 miles and uses the exact same route selection, (I think). Maybe the town moves.

I just uploaded my efforts to Bruce's system, which is also an iWay 500c, thankfully, so we are totally in sync. This is important not because we won't be within 50 feet of each other the whole way but, because it's very reassuring to see your progress steadily moving along a calm green path in which you have confidence. I didn't want Bruce to miss the Zen of all those moments as they pass.