taking my own gps

raddy59

I am taking my own gps abroad to use in tne hire car. I wonder if anybody can advise on:

1. Any problems with getting the gps through airport security ?

2. Do I need any special adaptor - will the cigarette lighter for European cars ?

ferf1223

no and no...we bring ours all the time.

rustyboy21

No problems at all, I also take mine every time, but put it in my hand luggage and the cables in an accessible pocket in my case for the other end.


I was looking at buying a new sat nav, as my 8 year old Tom Tom is falling to bits, but ended up buying a Nokia windows phone instead with Here drive + on it. You download the maps you require, so there is no data usage. Looks good in al the research I have done and was better value, as I wanted to upgrade my phone too.

philip1988

Because of increased security at some airports make sure that your GPS is charged if you are putting it in your hand luggage

Murphy_The_Cat

I've never had a problem but I turn it on as soon as possible when I leave the arrival airport - only because sometimes the old girl takes a while to log onto a signal !

rustyboy21

Murphy_The_Cat wrote: »

I've never had a problem but I turn it on as soon as possible when I leave the arrival airport - only because sometimes the old girl takes a while to log onto a signal !

Yep Been there got the t shirt !


20 minutes it took one time, sitting in a boiling hot car in the airport car park.


Good advice there.

aerostar

The reason why it takes so long to lock on is that if you move the unit by a large distance - 500 miles or more, when it starts it looks for the satellites that it should see at its last location, obviously as you have moved they will not be there.

It has do do a search for satellites and update satellite data, depending on how good the units firmware is and how good the view of the sky is, it can take some time.

For a quicker update whilst you are loading the luggage and family into the car, put the unit on the roof rather than inside the car where the sky view is not masked by the car roof and bits, then when locked put it in its normal position and off you go, but don't drive off leaving it on the roof!

Murphy_The_Cat

Cheers Aerostar

I now know that it isn't the old girl feeling her age !

Blue264

philip1988 wrote: »

Because of increased security at some airports make sure that your GPS is charged if you are putting it in your hand luggage

... and remember to turn it off again once you have proved it's charged at security, unlike my OH who now has the route from Athens to Heathrow in his "Recently Found" list!

Flugelhorn

I like taking my own GPS - at least I know how it works.... one less set of instructions to read through in the hire car...

[Deleted User]

If you download NAVFREE to your smartphone you don't even have to take your satnav.
It's free and doesn't require data to be used on the 'phone.