The Ipaq 3870 has died!Time for a new gps set up.

Some PDAs are "Ruggerised" and battery life is improving - check out this beauty from Magellan - 10 hours battery life from 2AA's!! Think I might get one....

Mobile Mapper 6

Cheers
Greg

There are certianly some beauties around, but $$$$$$$$$$$$$ phew!

Yes - some are expensive - one selling point of the MobileMapper 6 is its "affordability" - I have been unable to get a price straight from the horses mouth but post on another forum quoted $1,300. Probably still a tad expensive considering you probably could buy ~3 "normal" PDA's with identical capabilities (excluding ruggerised specs and battery life) for same price, though keep in mind some of the top of range GPS units are not far off this price (if above price is true?). Just an option for consideration.

Cheers
Greg

My ipaq was powered via the cig lighter,still have the emap for out of vehicle applications -would want the same type of setup,'Mary

Mary



The new Ipaq 313 is only good for the bitumen. I haven't been about to get OziCE to work with mine. If anyone out there has managed to get OziCE to work with one - how did you do it?

The Ipaq RX5765 that it replaced was good for the bitumen and if you loaded OziCE - off road as well.



Tjilpi

I would also like to know if anyone has loaded OziCE onto an IPAQ 312.

I have just bought one & I am extremely disappointed with the lack of detail. It doesn't show any of the secondary roads that I use. It doesn't even show the Auski Roadhouse, the only fuel stop in the 450km between Newman & Port Hedland on the Great NorthernHwy.

The coordinates I work at in the area are just dots in a sea of black.

Hello - I use Mio P550 - not saying it is best, but it does the job - also P350 (without wifi/bluetooth) cheaper.

Mio Tech

Not sure about other brands - out of touch.

Greg

Is there probs. with this link???

Sorry, just checked it again and works for me. Maybe you need to sign up to the forum to view it.

OK..All good now !!

"My old NATMAP will not load onto my new computer (Vista)."

From GA website....

What should you do if you have problems installing or running NATMAP Raster in Vista?

* If you have Vista and you are experiencing problems installing NATMAP Raster the problem is with the file: msi_autorun.exe, which is called from autorun.inf. This is what produces the error message.
* Investigation shows that msi_autorun.exe seems to call a file called: "NatMapRasterViewer.msi", however, testing found that opening the contents of the DVD in Explorer, and directly launching the program "NatMapRasterViewer.msi" works OK on Vista.
* You will need to install by manually launching "NatMapRasterViewer.msi" from Windows Explorer (you may have to search for this file from the DVD).

Cheers
Greg

Thanks for your interest Greg. My NATMAPS are 2003 release on CD. GA no longer supports this version. I have ordered a 2008 version from the Map Shop and the owner advised me that I may be able to copy sections of the large map onto an SD card so that I can continue using my HP2210 PDA with a HOLUX GPS in the CF slot. Planning is difficult without having maps on my PC. Fortunately I copied a large number of sheets onto two SD cards, so the moving map works OK on the PDA. I wonder if I could backload these onto the PC so that Ozi can use them? Hmmm, ECW files.

I searched the disk for the file you mention and could not find it.

The Vista problem is annoying and I am sure some guru will come up with a means of operating the old viewer on this system. I believe there is a "compatability mode" in Vista.

Kingo

Hello - If the maps work on the PDA they will work on the PC so copy away. Despite you difficulties you should be able to import the entire map set from the CD using the FILE - IMPORT MAP- ECW MAPS Function within Ozi on the PC. If the ECW files wont open you may need to download ecw.dll file from the OE website.

Cheers
Greg

Thanks Greg,

That was SO SIMPLE! I used the 2 CDs and imported the maps direct to the Ozi Map file. I am now looking around for a way to identify the maps from the list. The raster viewer made it easy, but I should be able to find an index or even import the file with the maps superimposed if I look around hard enough.

Thanks once again,

Kingo

Hello again - you can use the Index map function in OziExplorer. This puts the outlines of maps you have in a specified folder over a map you choose as an "Index Map". In this case you will obviously need a map of Australia as the Index map. You can get small scale maps of Aus here that may be OK

Free Australian Maps

Load the Australian map as the Index map (click on Index map icon and find the "Load new Index map" button) then set the search path to the folder containing your Natmap calibration files. Outlines of your maps should appear over the Index Map.

I have also just realised that the corner markers on your imported ecw map calibration files will not be positioned correctly - I should have pointed out the webpage below ...but anyway if you need the corner markers in the right spot you can follow procedure shown on this webpage - make sure you use the right installation file or there will be errors as maps obviously change between editions...

Natmap Import Instructions

It would be wise to delete your imported calibration files before running the automatic installation file on this page.

Cheers
Greg

OK Greg,

I'll give it a go!

Apologies to "Mary W" for hijacking this thread, but I'm sure the above info is useful to many OziExplorer users if they ever come across this problem of old programs on new computers.

Thanks,
Kingo

No apology necessary-it is always good to have ozi assistance with one's problems.Will probably need a bit of help to get the new system going when I get it,
Cheers,
Mary

Will do the job but main drawback is no inbuilt GPS - I used a 3000 series and then a 2210 for several years with a CF gps, which worked fine but would be wary of SD type for walking through the bush - they look very fragile. I also had some issues with CF card jamming device if removed when on.

Anyway - if getting a PDA I would recommend one with an inbuilt GPS every time unless the device has some other special required function not available on other units. HP seemed to have reduce their PDA range for some reason so maybe there is now limited options - before there were several ipaqs available with inbuilt GPS.

Cheers
Greg

The Mio looks good.Is it easy to set up with Oziexplorer?Do you run your maps from SD card?
Thanks,
Mary

Hi Mary, yes to both.
When I received it, I had OziexplorerCE, Destinator 6, Tomtom, and other software loaded and working within half an hour.

It has the latest version of Windows Mobile (it was then anyway) of not is not too far back and enough memory, locks on to satellites even when sitting down on the console.

All the other sugestions may be OK too, but if you have used Oziexplorer in the bush nothing will come close, around town the PDA can run any of those software I mentioned because I installed them.
My device came with TomTom and I had Destinator 6 and OziexplorerCE, although downloaded the latest which is even better.

Thanks for the info -the Mio is looking good and so is Ipaq 312.
Cheers,
Mary

Ok, I just found something much cooler - HP Ipaq Travel Companion 312, the absolute stand out feature here for me is the screen resolution - 800 x 480!

The only question is - can we run 3rd party apps on it?

Thanks Ben,
Doesn't seem to expensive either> Will await your feedback when you have the new one running.
Mary

I couldn't help myself and have bought a Ipaq 312 aswell, will update ASAP :)

It certainly looks good with high capacity SD as well.What nav program is it running?
Waiting to hear your progress on installation of Oziexplorer on both these devices,should be ok on IPAQ I would think.
Cheers. Mary

Yes - I would excercie caution (if wanting to use oziCe or other apps) before getting ipaq 312 - it states in specs "Microsoft® Windows® CE 5.0 with HP custom user interface". Sometimes these custom interfaces prevent installation of other apps. Has anyone outthere installed OziCe on one of these??

Cheers
Greg

I have been beaten, others already have OziExplorerCE running on the 312, seems a pretty simple process. I don't have the links handy but info is easy to find with Google.

I have a O2 XDA EXEC with Windows Mobile 6 and have Ozi CE on the SD card, so an up grade to the 312 seems like a good idea, especially for the 4.3 inch screen.
ON sale on E Bay $399.
Cheers Bruce.

Yeah - I should have said "inhibits" installation. No idea why they go for custom firmware when all it seems to do is make it hard (but not impossible) to install other programs, just makes it less appealing to a whole range of potential customers.

Cheers
Greg

I'm still wondering is it difficult to install Ozi ce on a 312 with existing tom tom or such like?
If i go down that path I may require some assistance.
Thanks for all the replies.
Mary

I've had the 312 for a few weeks now and I haven't spent much time fiddling but it's dead easy to get OziExplorer running.

Basically my setup will include a SD card with the software & maps on it - when you want to use Ozi, put in the card and press the reset button. The turn it back in to a street navigator just take the card and out reset again.

The screen is gorgeous, you won’t find a pda or similar device out there which will beat it. The mount is solid (although I haven’t tested off road) and the device runs the software just fine. In theory it should be simple to get TomTom running but without a copy I can’t test.

Ben
Thats great you can run Ozi on the 312, I was hoping it was possible. I might buy one now. Could you explain a bit more how you set up the SD card. Thanks

Thanks Ben,
A little tutorial on how to set up the Sd card for Ozi would be of huge assistance to me,
Cheers,
Mary

It's really easy - simply copy the OziCE files from the dev_wince_core_runtime.zip file on to your SD card and rename the ARM exe as CELauncher.exe.

Now when you put the SD card in to the device and reset it, it'll automatically launch it. Take the card out and press the reset button and it's back to being a street navigator.

There are some small quirks - things such as no automatic backlight control. It may be possible to use the API provided by OziCE to get the sunrise/sunset times and automatically change the backlight to suit. I can't find any documentation relating to the 2.x API so we'll have to wait and see here.

Another is you have the Start bar down the bottom of the screen, hardly annoyingb but it'd be nice to have that realestate for map viewing.

Interesting to note that a couple of days ago Des released a new build of the CE 2.0 dev branch which has a *heap* of changes, including this:

For High Resolution PDA's such as the HP 310/312 or VGA Pocket PC's running in "true VGA" mode where the toolbars and dialogs appear too small, if you put a file called hires.dat in the folder where OziExplorer is installed, OziExplorerCE will detect the file and change the size of its dialogs and other windows to suit devices with high resolution screens. Please note - this does not necessarily apply to Pocket PC's with VGA screens, OziExplorerCE already recognizes these PDA's and automatically adjusts. If you have loaded a utility to change the Pocket PC VGA to "true VGA" then adding the hires.dat file may help. OziExplorerCE cannot fix all the size issues because many are controlled by the operating system.

Will load up the new dev version tonight and have a play.