I dont have a TR yet, but I was wondering if anyone uses theirs in their car. Great for dvd’s and especially gps navigation! I think the size of the laptop is perfect for in car mounted next to the dash.

Now, anyone know of some kind of car mount? I know the cops in my township wheel around with their laptops mounted next to the dash.

I don’t think that’s legal in CA anymore. Anyway search for TR in a Truck.

[quote author=“Anonymous”]how do u use PC as your GPS? to use GPS, u have to send signal from your location to satelite such that the satellite can know your location and then send signal back to you and the PC will guide you to your destination.  do u have to buy some GPS PC card?

just wondering…

That’s two times as much work as necessary! 

You only need communications in one direction: from the satellite to you.  I don’t remember all the details, but it’s possible to triangulate your position on the globe by timing how long it takes a signal to travel from the satellite to you.  I believe this is possible because the satellites all have synchronized clocks, so, as long as you have an appropriate time piece, you only need do some simple arithmetic to calculate distance.

In any case ... Yes, you’ll need a GPS card.  Or a GPS + USB-to-serial adapter.  Two companies you might want to look into are Garmin and Magellan.

I own a USB GPS receiver and it works very well.  Relatively cheap, they average 100 dollars.  Used in conjunction with Microsoft Streets and Trips, they will show exactly where your car is.  Helps a lot when your on a road trip!
The software is still a little buggy, my TR crashed a few times until I had it configured for the correct USB port.  But now it works great.

Yeah you can get a usb gps mouse for pretty cheap lately. Last year radioshack was actually dumping some for like $40… they dont carry it anymore. But if you want to get fancy and put your new integrated bluetooth to use, you can get a bluetooth gps reciever I use to have one and used it in my car with my ipaq pocket pc, but my car was broken into and all my electronics (read, toys) were stolen.

Illegal to use a laptop in your car? That sucks. They would be REALLY lame if that was true here too because all the cops do it. I dont see how using navigation software on a laptop is any more distracting then using navigation software on hardware built into your dash.

I thought this looked pretty cool as far a a GPS recevier I can hook up to my TR via usb.  Has anyone tried this?  Also does anyone know of a gps receiver that can go directly into the PCMCIA slot?

http://www.delorme.com/earthmate/configlaptop_info.asp

I use the Earthmate with Delorme Topo USA and Street Atlas USA 2003. I have only had one problem, it (Earthmate) has an internal thermal switch that shuts it down when the temp gets to hot, ie; on the dash of your car in the heat of summer. I Use it with my TR2AP3 and my R505.

You could try uninstalling the program, then loading the whole CD onto your hard drive. When you install the program again from the hard drive, it may recognise the hard drive as also being the run location.

I use this little GPS receiver connected via USB to my TR2MP

    http://www.mobit.com/HAIHI204E.html

with this software

    http://www.66.com/route66/index.php

I’ve payd only about 200 euro.

My experience with this system was very good so far,
the GPS is accurate and reliable and Route 66 is great.
While traveling I can have the itinerary corrected depending
by the traffic condition.They are downloaded by Route66
from the GPRS internet connection via Bluetooth with SET610!
It just saved me 1 hour of travel from Milan to Modena last
week.
The database of Route 66 is huge: details down to
house number and one-way streets drive you smoothly
to destination. A lot of ‘point of interest’ covers also
gas stations and restourants.

For those interested in the UK I use an Emtec bluetooth gps reciever and MS autroute. It works really well, only disappointment is that it doesn’t speak to you, otherwise it would be perfect. Also with autoroute you don’t have to use the run cd you can load it all onto your pc.

Using computer in the front seat is illegal in CA; does that included fixed mounted computer?

i did it so many time(without mount) and didn’t realize it wasn’t legal.

The reason you can’t do a PCMCIA GPS card is that GPS is like a flashlight, the signal “shines” on you, which is why the GPS receiver needs to be on your dashboard or your rear window, where the signal can directly hit it. 

The GPS unit I have cost about $100, not too bad if you can aquire streets and trips.  My friend had trouble with the run CD, but whatever copy I installed didn’t require it, I’m pretty sure its the newest version too.  If you haven’t already, check to make sure you can’t do a custom install that installs the entire program on there.  Its possible the reason they do that Run disk is to offset the footprint of the program, because my install was upwards of 1 Gig.

That bluetooth GPS receiver sounds great, how is the receiver powered though?

I use a Bluetooth GPS normally either an Emtac, or a TomTom connected to my TR2MP.  It all works really well but I need to sort out the car mounting options and the power supply.

For software I have tried Memory-Map raster software, MS Autoroute/Streets and trips, and Co-Pilot.  Co-Pilot is by far the best of that lot for driving.

Check out our site at www.pocketgpsworld.com for mor GPS info.