SA2005 and Topo V5.0 are not reliable

[skylosmou]

Whether I am in town driving 25 mph or on the interstates going 65 mph, the prompts for turns are too late by many seconds or hundreds of feet. The arrows for turns are wrong half the time. It's a good thing I have a good sense of direction otherwise I would be lost using your products. I am better off using paper maps. I am very disappointed with the products and do not plan to buy any Delorme products again. I bought Topo because I naively believed the problems of SA2005 would have been corrected but I was very wrong. Was it the intent of the developers to use these products in automobiles or just for hiking?

[GBrower]

... I would be lost using your products.

This is a user forum and is not monitored by Delorme, although they may visit at times.

I am not sure what you mean by "the prompts for turns". If you are referring to the voice prompts, which Topo does not have, you can adjust the time before a turn when the voice prompt is given.

In SA go to Route tab > Advanced > Route pref. At the bottom you should have "Voice Alert _____ secs ahead. Set to the number of secs. before a turn you want the voice prompt to occur.

[skylosmou]

Gordon,
I appreciate your help but there is no such choice with my version of SA2005 (V5.0.0-F2.1-R0.000.1560.0012) or Topo V5. I have spent hours trying to find a solution to this problem to no avail. I also did exactly what you told me to do and the setting is not available. Only the type of roads is offered, nothing else.

As I indicated in my original note, even if the advance warning was available for an up coming turn, the odds are the turn direction displayed would be wrong almost 50% of the time. On a recent trip to Virginia the turn directions were wrong so often I had to turn the GPS off because I had no confidence in it at all. When I needed to turn left, the arrow would show right and vice versa.

I have looked for updates to the software on the Delorme site, but it appears they do not support their products in this manner. They only want us to buy their new products.

Do you have any RELIABLE contacts at Delorme that I should contact on this? In previous communications I never received any responses.

Nick

[GBrower]

As a registered user of SA2005 you can upgrade to SA2008, with many added features and updated maps, for about $32. I first purchased SA2006 and have upgraded each year. Since you have had your SA2005 for at least 2 years that would be a cost of $1.33 per month. To me, that is a fairly cheap cost to get all the additional features and updated maps.

[nsew45]

I have used DeLorme products for years. I have used competitive products as well. The upgrade costs are worth the price and the enhancements. Few software vendors support old versions. Does Microsoft still support Windows 98?

I use SA2007 every day in business as a real estate appraiser. It is not perfect but is reliable and better than most. I have just purchased the upgrade to SA2008, Topo 6 and a PN-20. The upgrade price for the the SA2008 is very reasonable. When you add in the editing capabilities of the products, they are worth the price. This forum is a lot of help, too.

[Sanaghan]

FWIW, my garmin often (though not as much) does the same thing.

This is an oft-posted topic; an Advanced Search will help you find more.

I believe there is a suggestion in to make it a user variable to set how far in advance. Note that it is a tricky calculateion as it's based off both distance and speed. If you're doing 10 mph on a highway that you're expected to be doing 60 on, the prompts will likewise be wrong.