Trip through Europe and Russia - which PC GPS software?

Hi guys,

We're going on a trip through Europe in our motorhome to Georgia, Armenia and Azerbajain and then into Russia and Belarus and home to the UK. On our last trip to North Africa and the Middle East we met loads of people using Garmins for their trips. They all highly recommended them.

We have a large screen in front of the motorhome and want to use that as our display so we think we need to go for the Garmin Mobile PC system, not a hand held unit and I am a little confused by the Garmin Mobile PC software only vs with GPS.

Do we need the 'with GPS' version please?

We will want to load different maps for different regions as we travel and a world map for where there are none. Is this facility available on the 'GPS' version?

Will the POI of world campsites others have compiled for their garmin handhelds work with the 'GPS version'?

Could anyone also confirm that with the GPS version I will be able to buy other maps from Garmin (Russia)?

We know that many countries and much of Russia's mapping will be non existent or minimal but one of the main reasons for the sat nav is to track down camp sites (not professionally run ones, just places off the track etc) which are all listed by Lat/Long so I think these should all work on the basemap. Does the 'GPS Version' come with a world basemap?

Is this the way the rest of you would do a trip like this?

Thanks for any help and advice

Jon

Hi Jon,

You always need a GPS receiver to receive the satellite signals.

The little Garmin (and TomTom and Magellan, etc.) devices that you see mounted on people's dashboards have GPS receivers built right into them.

The only reason Garmin sells a version of Mobile PC without a GPS receiver is that some people already own GPS receivers and only need the navigation software and maps.

For your purposes, the software-only version of Mobile PC is not an option for two reasons. One is that it sounds like you do not have a GPS receiver. The other is that you cannot add most other Garmin maps to it. You may have read about "locked" maps and Garmin "unlock codes" and such. Well, they require a Garmin GPS receiver serial number in order to work.

So, if you want to use Garmin maps and Garmin Mobile PC you need one of the deluxe versions with either the GPS20x USB receiver or the GPS10x Bluetooth receiver.

With either of those deluxe packages you will be able to easily buy and add other Garmin maps, whether they are locked or not.

If you want to see what the coverage for Mobile PC Europe is, check their online map viewer for the City Navigator Europe maps (that's what comes bundled with Mobile PC Europe).

Click on the following link. Click on the map product you want to look at. Click on the "View Map" tab. This will show you an overview of the coverage. On the map coverage picture there will be a link you can click to view the details. It's interactive so you can zoom and pan to check areas of high interest.

City Navigator NT

You can check out City Navigator Europe and City Navigator Russia to see if they will give you coverage that is useful.

Mobile PC (all versions) comes with an excellent world map built into it. If there is an area that you would like to see as an example post it here and we'll pop up a screenshot or two for you.

Any custom POI files that can be loaded onto a Garmin handheld can be loaded into Mobile PC.

In order to understand what Mobile PC really is, just imagine that you can take the software out of a Garmin Nuvi and stuff it into your computer and then it uses your computer display to display everything and it needs an external GPS receiver to get its satellite signals. The commands and features are very similar to the commands and features on a Nuvi. If you have a touchscreen you can even program it like a Nuvi by touching the screen.

I hope I didn't miss anything.

...ken...

hi Ken, thanks for the comprehensive reply - that clears things up for me nicely. I did know they both needed a GPS but already have a USB GPS on the roof of the van - that's why I had considered the software only version. I did make myself sound a bit ignorant though!

Thanks again

Jon

I'm glad it helps, Jon. You could buy the Mobile PC Europe software-only version and it would work well as long as you don't need more Garmin locked maps, like City Navigator Russia. You can add non-locked maps to the software-only version, so if you thought you could get away with City Navigator Europe supplemented with free non-locked maps and the basemap you would be okay.

The reason you can't add locked maps to the software-only version is that the unlock codes are generated, in part, by using the serial number of your GPS receiver. It has to be a Garmin receiver and it has to be capable of being queried for its serial number by Mobile PC. Since the software-only version is designed to work primarily with non-Garmin receivers it has no way to do this, therefore no way to unlock Garmin maps for use with it.

If you like your external GPS receiver, which probably gives you the very best reception versus something that would be mounted inside the RV, you could do some research to see if there are free Garmin-compatible maps out there to use. You could check places like Open Street Maps and GPS File Depot. Also use your favorite search engine to look for "garmin maps russia" or similar phrase.

...ken...

Hi Jon, welcome to the forum. I'm not sure if you could still buy somewhere an old version of Microsoft MapPoint or Microsoft AutoRoute. I think versions 2002, 2003, did include map coverage of some of the places you've mentioned (Georgia, Azerbaijan, etc), which the current 2010 versions don't include.

Hi Ken,
I've now got my Garmin Mobile PC 20 with the USB GPS on loaded up on my laptop and all works well. I can't seem to buy any additional maps though. Every time I log on to Garmin and use their assistant to search for available maps I get none found. Could you tell me what I'm doing wrong please? I'm interested in the Russia map.

Thanks
Jon

Hi
Here is a screendump from Route 66 - 2003 ( possible 2004 ) for laptop's with GPS

http://www.laptopgpsworld.com/member...0-streets.html

Hope you can read the covering countries.
Compared to AutoRoute 2003 the maps is much more covered.
Got them both.

To day AutoRoute 2010 is the best solution for Europe (central) with laptopGPS.

Hi Jon,

Just go here, select either the SD card or download and add it to your cart to buy it online. They don't appear to offer it on DVD.

https://buy.garmin.com/shop/shop.do?cID=253&pID=31813

Sometimes the "helper" software on these web sites is just too stupid to be much help. I also tried to get there from three different approaches through Garmin's wizards. Couldn't do it. So I just went straight to the product page.

I don't know why companies do it. It must cost Garmin a lot of sales to people who can't figure out how to get to a product or believe the wizard when it says there are none.

...ken...

Jon,

I phoned Garmin and rattled their cage about the silliness of their wizards not finding any products when you use either Mobile PC or GPS 20x to try to find maps for.

It won't find any maps even if you select North America or Europe.

...ken...

Thanks Ken, I'll get my maps ordered. :-) We visited Regina a few years back when we drove across Canada in our UK motorhome. It was a bit like the UK - wet and raining at the time. We never got over how big Canada is with such huge fields going on for days. I'd imagine our trip this year may rival that a bit. Our mapping then was on our pocket PC!

Thanks for all your help

Jon