Garmin Forerunner 305 Mapping

Spins

I puchased the 305 and am quite happy with it in general except for the mapping when I connect the device to my laptop. It's only got the bare essentials e.g. National Primary Roads etc., and sometimes they don't even seem to be in the right place. Is this the situation all around the country. I'm based in Waterford. Is there any upgrade I can get with better mapping. Surely with so many Garmin Vehicular GPS being sold in the country, the mapping software with these must be compatible or something....... any suggestions?

jeffontour

Best thing to do is download SportsTracks(http://www.zonefivesoftware.com/SportTracks/) and use that instead of the Garmin package.

SportsTracks will show you your route overlayed on a googlemaps view which will have all the roads.

I'm not sure if you can stick upgraded maps on the 305. I've mine 2 years and have never wanted to so never looked into it!

Clum

I use the 405 and have similar problems. The begining and end of every run that start from my house are incorrect when viewed on the garmin software. It shows my estate as being on the wrong side of a road....it's way off!

However, when I load each run in to garmin connect and view the map in google maps it's all spot on.

I don't think they're dead accurate when it comes to mapping and plotting and recording distances though. I get a different measurement every time I run the same 8k route! It can vary by as much as being 200 meters short to being a few meters too long, usually short though. I ran 28k on Sunday and the watch was almost 2k short! I still measure my routes on both bike and car, I don't trust the gps. Sometimes I don't know why I bother with it at all.

Tau

To echo jeffontour, I can't recommend SportsTracks more. Its abolutely amazing.

I don't use any Garmin software at all - only use SportsTracks for my importing / log / reviewing of sessions.

Krusty_Clown

Garmin Training Centre comes with the bare essentials mapping. It's called the PC Basemap, and is very old and very out of date. If you have Garmin Mapsource installed, and any other Garmin mapping product, you can display your routes using the other installed maps. Just select the appropriate map from the pulldown list (underneath the map tab). I use City Navigator 2008, but have also installed EmeraldIsland, which gives contours for hills and mountains (and now includes lakes etc..). http://emerald-island.eu/wikka/

TheRoadRunner

Clum wrote: »

I don't think they're dead accurate when it comes to mapping and plotting and recording distances though. I get a different measurement every time I run the same 8k route! It can vary by as much as being 200 meters short to being a few meters too long, usually short though. =

That's a real pain. I got a 405 just before the new year and find it brilliant. It clocks most all my routes at the same distance each time I run them. I have also checked it a couple of times on loops I have measured with a metre wheel and again it is spot on.

Do you run in a location where the satellite reception may be poor etc. I don't know much about this but being 2k off in a run is very weird.

Clum

TheRoadRunner wrote: »

Do you run in a location where the satellite reception may be poor etc. I don't know much about this but being 2k off in a run is very weird.

That long run involved loops which are just over 3k in length. Some of the route goes through woodland so I lost reception a few times (although just a few weeks previous it held satelite reception and recorded the full distance). Looking at the mappings when loaded in to google maps it seems to just cut across the loop every now and again linking last known locations. Very annoying.

Any shorter runs (8k to 18k) I run on the outskirts of my home town were there are no high buildings or dense tree coverage so I don't loose reception but do seem to come up a little short.

I've tried upgrading to the most recent firmware releases but haven't had much of an improvement.

plodder

Clum wrote: »

That long run involved loops which are just over 3k in length. Some of the route goes through woodland so I lost reception a few times (although just a few weeks previous it held satelite reception and recorded the full distance). Looking at the mappings when loaded in to google maps it seems to just cut across the loop every now and again linking last known locations. Very annoying.

Any shorter runs (8k to 18k) I run on the outskirts of my home town were there are no high buildings or dense tree coverage so I don't loose reception but do seem to come up a little short.

I've tried upgrading to the most recent firmware releases but haven't had much of an improvement.

One thing I've noticed is that google maps picture of the road network is way off in some parts of the country, bad in the West, less so in Dublin. The satellite imagery is a lot better.

Also, the GPS records your position once every 4 seconds. Then it assumes a straight line between each point, regardless of what your actual path was. So, it will always underestimate to some degree. Maybe, the straighter (fewer turns) your run takes, the less of a problem this is.

I got my 405 just at Christmas, and its accuracy is something I've been wondering about. So I'm planning to test it out in a few places inlcuding a 400m track.

Spins

Thanks All for your advices, I'll download that Sportstracks tonight. Regarding the 305 and measurements, I've had no prblems with mine and find the distances to be almost bang on, except one time when I went fell running, which included a significant section through a wooded area.

Clum

Here's the tracking from my long run on Sunday according to my 405. Again, I did numerous laps of a 3k loop but came up over 2k short in total.

What's really annoying is that the first and second laps were almost spot on but then it lost the run of itself until the 10th lap....

plodder

Clum wrote: »

Here's the tracking from my long run on Sunday according to my 405. Again, I did numerous laps of a 3k loop but came up over 2k short in total.

What's really annoying is that the first and second laps were almost spot on but then it lost the run of itself until the 10th lap....

That's really bizarre. Is there anything unusual about that section of your run, where it goes astray, like overhead cover from trees, or hilly terrain?

c - 13

You could be worse. Where I run is an area that was reclaimed from the sea a few years ago, according to the mapping on my 305 I run on the ocean

911sc

I am amazed at the accuracy of the 405. It is usually spot on for mapping and for distances (i don't bother too much with elevation).
I think the 405 is fitted with a more accurate GPS chip set than the 305. May be that explain why the 305 is not as accurate.

Krusty_Clown

It's the same chipset in both devices. But GPS technology is just one of those things, where it is always working off of a 'best guess' as to your precise location and there is always a decent margin for error. When you think of it, the Forerunner takes a reading every 4 seconds, and whenever it takes a reading you could be anywhere in a 5 meter to 40 meter circumference, based on how many satellites the watch is picking up at the time. If (like Clum) you are running a circular route (instead of a straight line) you will see some nasty diversions when you're looking at your route, because the watch is guessing what direction your traveling in, between those 4 seconds (and don't forget, it only knows where you are within a margin of error of somewhere from 5-40 meters). If you run in a straight line, it will be a lot more accurate!

I can't understand the 2km difference in distances though, which makes no sense. Clum - do you have a link to this activity in Motionbased.com ?

hunnymonster

c - 13 wrote: »

You could be worse. Where I run is an area that was reclaimed from the sea a few years ago, according to the mapping on my 305 I run on the ocean

I get that a lot too on my Cobh to Cork route.

shels4ever

hunnymonster wrote: »

I get that a lot too on my Cobh to Cork route.

My maps look great, my nice run in the park has me crossing the N7 twice at 9 min mile pace.. I'm sure id go faster with the amount of cars coming at me...

Clum

Krusty_Clown wrote: »

I can't understand the 2km difference in distances though, which makes no sense. Clum - do you have a link to this activity in Motionbased.com?

There is tree coverage in the area over some parts of the run but in the winter time the trees are all bare. The fact that it recorded some laps correctly I thought it would record them all correctly. There are quite a few turns which is probably one of the reasons it looses accuracy. I think the last three laps are the most accurate, lap 7 being closest (use the player in link below).

As for elevation....that goes totally nuts. It's a hilly (ish) route but some of the drops recorded here are crazy.

Sunday Long Slow Run

What bugs me more is when I run on streets though. One example is I've an 8k run I do very often and it ranges from 7.75k to 8.0xk all the time. Never the same.

Krusty_Clown

Looks like a drunken forest run! Uploading to Motionbased will give you an idea of the GPS accuracy, but will also do some error compensation/rounding, so will sometimes fix those issues.

You're basically losing satellite signal 7 times. Nearly always at the top left corner or your map. Is there hill/tree/building cover there? It's obviously taking a while to re-establish the connection after this, which explains the wild paths that are recorded after that. It is quite excessive though.

The Motionbased forum is a handy place to look for answers, as many of the Forerunner product developers/testers post there.