Alan's Ramblings - garmin tag

Getting accurate height datums

Fri, 27 May 2005 02:15:18 GMT

My Garmin eTrex Summit has a built-in altimeter, and although it can auto-calibrate from the GPS fix, it isn't that accurate and it takes a while to do. The Ordnance Survey have been gradually removing the spot height and benchmark information from the 1:25,000 maps as mostly they aren't used for surveying any more. Both trig points and benchmarks need 'maintaining' by being resurveyed at intervals as they are subject to ground movement, so it is understandable that the OS isn't bothering if they don't use them any more. However they are still good enough for calibrating an altimeter which isn't accurate to less than a metre anyway, the problem is actually finding the information! I was browsing around the web looking for something else entirely and I found that The Planning Inspectorate provides a map facility that allows you to drill down on th the OS MasterMap maps which still have the height information on them. Go here and click on the "Select a Point" or "Select an Area" icons and keep drilling down to you see the individual property boundaries on the map. From that point on you will be able to see all the spot height and benchmark data, to the nearest centimetre, and there are a lot of them, so you should be able to find a convenient one to use for calibrating.

Yet another eTrex Summit

Thu, 26 May 2005 04:28:37 GMT

As I documented at length earlier, I bought a Garmin eTrex Summit in October of last year, and had no end of problems with it powering itself off for no apparent reason. Garmin replaced it (twice) and the third unit was OK-ish but still tended to turn itself off occasionally. After an email exchange with Garmin I said I'd try to track down exactly what the problem was. I persevered, and the clincher was when I turned on the inbuilt magnetic compass and the unit immediately turned off - a fresh set of batteries, no low battery warning, it just turned off. Once this had happened a couple of times I felt I had enough information to send a detailed report to Garmin. I'd expected to be told it was a fimware issue and that I'd have to wait for a fix, but I was pleasantly surprised to be told that they were just releasing a new version of the Summit and that they would send me one. I was even more surprised when it turned up a day later! It appears that I've been sent a pre-release unit, as it has features that aren't mentioned yet on the Garmin product page for the Summit. It turns out that Garmin have made a whole bunch of improvements:

The biggest change is the addition of support for WAAS (USA) / EGNOS (Europe). This is a satellite-based differential GPS system - basically a network of accurately surveyed ground stations watch the GPS signals, calculate the difference from where the signals says they are and where they really are, send the correction back up to some other satellites which then rebroadcast it so that WAAS/EGNOS-enabled GPS units can use the correction to improve their accuracy. At the moment the European system isn't fully deployed, but when it is it should give a 10x improvement in accuracy - indications are that the accuracy will be around 1 metre.
New 'Trip Computer' page which allows you to select 5 fields from a list of 31 to display. The list is very comprehensive - just about every parameter I can think of is covered.
When navigating to a waypoint the map page can display a line from where you are now to the destination (as per the older model) or a line from your starting point to the destination. This is the way the GPS12XL works, and it's much more useful as it allows you to easily see if you are wandering left or right from your course.
The compass can be turned off as well as on by holding down the PAGE button - on the older model you could only turn it on.
The track log can be turned off, and the point collection mode can be set to one of three modes:
- 'Auto' which has 5 different resolution settings.
- 'Distance' which allows you to specify the distance between sucessive points.
- 'Time' which allows you to specify the time between sucessive points.
More internal memory, which means the following changes:
- Waypoints per route up from 50 to 125.
- Track log points up from 3,000 to 10,000.
- Points on saved tracks up from 500 per track to 750.
The fairly useless Hunt/Fish page found on some of the other eTrex models is now available.

There are a few other minor changes - you can view pressure in hPascals, and they've modified the 'Units' setup screen so that if you select 'British Grid' as the position format you can only have 'Ord Survy GB' as the datum - a common mistake that people make is to set the position format but not select the correct datum, which causes all grid references to be several hundred metres out. The one thing they haven't fixed is that you still can't move an existing waypoint to your current position - this was a very useful feature on the GPS12XL - when EGNOS is deployed I expect to find that many of my waypoints will be inaccurate, and there is no easy way to correct them other than reentering them.

Overall Garmin have made an already impressive and useful GPS even better, and despite my best efforts I haven't managed to get the new one to power itself off, so it looks like they've fixed that problem too. Yay Garmin!

One problem solved, another remains

Fri, 22 Oct 2004 10:38:50 GMT

Well, my third eTrex arrived today, a nice new one and so far it seems fine - despite the abysmal weather I took a stroll to try it out. I'm still puzzling over exactly where the Bleaklow fence line goes between Shining Clough and Woodhead, so I parked up above Woodhead tunnel and walked up onto the Trans Pennine Trail (the old turnpike road) then wandered westwards towards Woodhead Bridge. That gave me a chance to reccie the other side of the valley and figure out where the fence goes. It appears to come down to the Longdendale trail along Smithy Clough, but I've still no clear idea of where it goes between Stable Clough and Shining Clough. One of the nice things with the Summit is you can use it for doing resections - because it has a built-in compass you can mark your current position, then take a bearing from where you are and project another waypoint along it. If you do this three times from different vantage points and join up the three resulting lines (dead easy in OziExplorer - just set up three two-waypoint routes and display them),you get the traditional 'cocked hat' that shows you where the point of interest is.

As I said in my original post, I'd also paid £20.00 to Geomantics for some cleaned-up SRTM height data for OziExplorer. Well, it eventually arrived - in a format that's completely incompatible with OziExplorer, despite the website clearly saying " We supply geo-edited SRTM data in a suitable format ... for use with 3rd party programs such as Bryce, Terragen, OziExplorer, 3D Studio, Photoshop etc." Bollocks. It's supplied as 5km squares of 16-bit raw height data, and OziExplorer doesn't understand that format at all. Eventually, after repeated requests for information, Geomantics told me I had to download a 3d terrain modelling application, and a plugin, and re-reference and convert all the data - and I have 74 files worth, although I don't want it all. You'd need to have quite an in-depth knowledge of GIS and earth coordinate systems to be able to do this, which leaves me out. Needless to say, I've emailed them and the electronic payment service they use to ask for my money back, it will be interesting to see if I get it. I've also suggested that they remove the frankly untrue claim that the data can be used with OziExplorer from their website - if you get here via google and are intending to buy their data for use with OziExplorer, take my advice and don't.

Garmin Customer Support - the saga continues

Wed, 20 Oct 2004 03:50:05 GMT

Yesterday the nice chap at GPS4Less phoned me up to let me know that Garmin were going to send me a brand new, tested unit and it would be arriving by courier today. Seemingly the fact that I'd mailed a link to my previous post to both the CEO and Director of Sales and Marketing of Garmin had achieved the desired effect. I had an email from Garmin's European Service/Support Manager apologising for the problems I'd had, and saying:

Our current turn around time is 3 days, and in a case like this we would replace your unit with a new boxed product. I am sorry that this was not conveyed to you following your first contact with us. We are now addressing the calculation of our turn around time claims.

So it seems that Garmin not only have the things in stock, but the original 1-2 weeks estimate for getting it replaced wasn't right either. Sure enough, at about 2:30 this afternoon the replacement was delivered. They'd included a nice case and a couple of spare sets of batteries, along with a letter. I powered the Summit up, only to discover that the LCD display was dodgy - pixels were 'bleeding' left and right across the screen from the edges of the various dialog boxes and icons. I know that LCDs are prone to this, but it was really quite noticeable, and on the previous unit - despite it's other fault - there wasn't any sign of it at all. Just to confirm I wasn't imagining it I nipped down to the Ranger station to compare it with Fiona's identical model. Despite hers being several years old and having had a hard life, the display was much better than mine.

I'd phoned the Garmin Service Manager up to explain the problem with the replacement before I went to compare my Summit to Fiona's, so when I got back I phoned him back up to arrange for yet another unit to be sent to me tomorrow. As I was digging through the contents of the box they'd sent me, I noticed a slip titled Newly overhauled 1-year limited warrany certificate, so whilst I was on the phone I asked if that meant that I'd been supplied with a repaired unit to replace my original brand-new unit. "Yes, although you were supposed to be supplied with a new one" was the reply. I'm sure that was his original intention when he mailed me yesterday (see above), but obviously something had got lost in the translation - which isn't very impressive - but hardly surprising in light of my experiences with them so far. Expecting me to pay £150.00 for a broken-and-repaired, second-hand Summit doesn't exactly seem reasonable, which he accepted. My third-and-hopeully-final Summit will be arriving tomorrow, just in time for my birthday, which is what the bloody thing was supposed to be for anyway.

Sheesh.

eTrex Summit less than the acme

Mon, 18 Oct 2004 00:44:33 GMT

Well, my brand-new eTrex Summit is having to be replaced - it has an unfortunate tendency to turn itself off for no apparent reason, even with a fresh set of batteries. There's no low battery warning, it just switches off. It did this at least ten times on Saturday when I was using it, and despite re-flashing the firmware and doing a factory reset, it still continues to do the same thing at unpredictable intervals. I suspect that it's something to do with the compass / GPS switchover - at a configurable speed it switches over to the inbuilt compass for heading information, and from what I can tell sometimes when it switches to compass it also switches off completely. I got in touch with GPS4Less who I bought it from, and they don't have any more left, and from what they are telling me neither do Garmin - seemingly Garmin have an abysmal inventory control system, and stuff can take 5-8 weeks to come into stock. I spoke to Garmin UK myself and they said it could take up to a couple of weeks to get a replacement to me, and they point blank refused to tell me if they had them in stock for 'security reasons'! The guy I spoke to at GPS4Less is going to see if he can locate me a replacement from somewhere, but I'm pretty annoyed at Garmin - firstly the unit is faulty, secondly they won't tell me if they actually have any of the damn things in the UK and thirdly it seems that even if they do have them it's going to take an unacceptable amount of time to get a replacement to me.

0 out of 10 for customer service, Garmin.

Update

I posted the URL of this entry into Garmin's customer support webpage and also asked them how long it would take to get a replacement, and surprise, surprise, within 15 minutes I had a reply:

Dear Alan.
Thank you for contacting Garmin Europe Support.
Please return your unit to the address below, with an accompanying letter giving full details of the fault:
Garmin (Europe) Ltd
Unit 5
The Quadrangle
Abbey Park
Romsey
Hampshire
SO51 9DL
U.K.

If the unit is in warranty please enclose a copy of the receipt
If you have any further queries please don't hesitate to contact us again

This is pretty obviously a boilerplate reply, and it didn't actually tell me anything I couldn't get from their website. It also didn't answer my main question regarding how long it would take to get a replacement. I replied:

I contacted Garmin UK by phone today and was told it would take up to two weeks to get the unit back to me, is this correct? The unit is brand new - I only got it last Wednesday. It would be reasonable to have to wait two weeks if the unit was several months old and was being repaired under warranty, but it isn't - it was DOA. I don't want it repaired, I would like a new one. And being told rather brusquely on the phone that you couldn't even tell me if you had any in stock wasn't exactly helpful either.

And got the following brush-off:

Dear Alan.
Thank you for contacting Garmin Europe Support.
If the unit is new please return to the shop for replacement.
If you have any further queries please don't hesitate to contact us again

I didn't consider this to be an acceptable answer either - basically 'Go away we don't want to know' seemed to be the gist, so I asked again:

The shop in question doesn't have any more in stock, and have been unable to find out from you (Garmin) if/when you will be able to supply them with any more units. To repeat my original question, do or do you not have any available in the UK, and if so how long will it take to get one to me?

And by now I suspect you can probably guess what the reply looked like:

Dear Alan.
Thank you for contacting Garmin Europe Support.
Unfortunately this is proprietary information. Please see your dealer for availability of products.
The only options that you have is send it to the dealer or send it to us.
If you have any further queries please don't hesitate to contact us again

So it's apparent that Garmin think the answer to the simple question 'Have you a replacement eTrex Summit in the UK that you can ship to me?' is a trade secret that must be protected at all costs - the mind boggles. On that basis I can only assume that anyone who dares to ask for pricing information can expect the Black Helicopters to appear shortly thereafter.

As I've already said, GPS4Less (who have been very helpful) don't have any in stock, and don't know when Garmin will be able to supply them with a replacement, as Garmin are telling them that they themselves don't have any and don't know when they will be getting more - so I'm now back at square one. I've posted the failed unit back to GPS4Less as it's no use to me, so I'm now £149.95 out of pocket, I've had to pay £4.05 to send the unit back (and I bet I don't get that back), and I still don't have a resolution to my question to Garmin, let alone a working GPS. I'm trying to remember when I last received such poor customer service, and I'm struggling - all in all a pretty appalling experience, and it's badly dented my faith in a company that I previously held in high regard.

Garmin, your customer service sucks.