What's Your Tools and Methods for Navigation?

[SadRobot]

I didn’t know you can split screen like that.. that’s pretty awesome

Yeah it's super helpful. I discovered it by mistake when I tapped on the 3 dots at the top middle to see what they did.

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[Cyber_Jeeper]

Lately it’s been OnX maps with pre-downloaded maps and routes onto my phone, which is then broadcasted into the vehicle via CarPlay.
I tend to use a combination of OnX, Google earth, and Google search for route planning.

I don’t have any paper backups, but I probably should. Maybe next time I will bring my iPad with the maps also pre-downloaded just in case something happens to my phone.

 

[Ratbert]

Lately it’s been OnX maps with pre-downloaded maps and routes onto my phone, which is then broadcasted into the vehicle via CarPlay.
I tend to use a combination of OnX, Google earth, and Google search for route planning.

I don’t have any paper backups, but I probably should. Maybe next time I will bring my iPad with the maps also pre-downloaded just in case something happens to my phone.

Have you tried Trails Off Road? I was a huge proponent of OnX until I tried TOR and was immediately able to find a crapload of trails that we wanted to run.

The signal to noise ratio of OnX is just way too low for areas like Colorado and Utah. It's just hundreds of squiggles where nothing stands out in the sea of noise.

 

[Deleted member 59498]

Atlas or Geo Maps are still worth having and cheap. I have never heard of the GPS going down. Maybe your device did, because it is redundant and maybe if you went down in ravine or something. Geo Maps are good in case worse case and they don't change or for hunting and you don't want to carry electronic devices and want to chill.

 

[FRV]

We often overland for a month or more at a time. Went through NM, Colorado, Utah and more this past summer. Headed back out soon. We carry road atlases, National and regional maps, and BLM maps (stopping a regional offices when convenient) for planning and back up. But, we rely day in and day out on a iPad mini with integrated GPS (no cell service) and downloaded Gaia maps. Has worked flawlessly. We use normal crowed sourced nav apps like Waze on the hardballs but almost always have Gaia running. We mount the iPad mini center over the 8.4” info screen on a design 67 mount. Very secure. We each have a design 67 mount for our phones.

We have the apps for all trails but don’t use it much. We have used Avenza for downloading state products like state off-road vehicle use maps when necessary.

When we are out of the vehicle and hiking I prefer topo maps and a compass. Retired Marine infantryman. It’s the way I learned and how I prefer it.

 

[Cyber_Jeeper]

Have you tried Trails Off Road? I was a huge proponent of OnX until I tried TOR and was immediately able to find a crapload of trails that we wanted to run.

The signal to noise ratio of OnX is just way too low for areas like Colorado and Utah. It's just hundreds of squiggles where nothing stands out in the sea of noise.

A while ago I created a free account and tried it. But so much information is locked behind some kind of paid membership. Including whole trails, not just advanced information about a trail. I got annoyed at it and stopped looking at it.
I just logged in again and see that many of the trails I will be hitting next weekend are fully locked behind a membership. and many aren’t in there.

The fewer trails is both a plus and minus. It helps you focus on the more popular trails. But it misses out on some lesser used trails, and makes linking multiple trails together harder since the lesser used connector trails may not be there. I think it could be a good resource for route finding, but I’m not willing to pay money for it yet.

 

[grimmjeeper]

I don't want to belabor the point, but we were experiencing some kind of issue which caused us (both parties) to not be able to use the system at that time. I didn't intend for it to be the point of my post. Nuff said. I suppose I should have had a topo with me for that trip, but I didn't. I had the Moab guide book, which was helpful.

As for not putting anything in front of the air bag, thank you for that reminder. I was one of the members here that pointed that out several years ago, when someone suggested that location.

Likely it was lack of internet.

I bought the maps on a microSD card that go with the Charles Wells book plugged into a Garmin on the dash. A little old school but they always work.

https://funtreks.com/product/gps-da...h-backroads-4-wheel-drive-trails-4th-edition/

 

[roaniecowpony]

Have you tried Trails Off Road? I was a huge proponent of OnX until I tried TOR and was immediately able to find a crapload of trails that we wanted to run.

The signal to noise ratio of OnX is just way too low for areas like Colorado and Utah. It's just hundreds of squiggles where nothing stands out in the sea of noise.

John,
Yes, I have TOR. I just didn't download Utah before we went out. I had left navigation up to my friend. He was using it but wasn't familiar with the ability to download the state. My mistake.

But yes, I agree, TOR has some great information in a very organized arrangement. I have a paid subscription. All the significant obstacles are well described and even some tips .

 

[shooting4625]

10” iPad WiFi model, Garmin glo for gps signal, mounted on a bullet proof mount and Gaia tracking

 

[TheBirdie72]

Print out driving directions from MapQuest. ?

 

[ecoBLVE]

I was thinking about a tablet mount on the passenger side for my shotgun spotter. So, my question is: Which is better?

The car itself has GPS antenna, but so does any tablet. Personally, I went ‘full ham’ and installed an aftermarket ‘CarPlay’ device, that taps into car GPS (but also enabled me to control apps like ARB Pressure Control, the Fridge, and Battery app). I run GAIA App on it as well and shows it all neatly on the car head unit. I recommend that for anyone without wireless carplay (pre 2022).

I did add bulletpoint mount for other devices, and use GAIA on iPad Air on long trips. bulletpoint is great, but I did drill a hole in the center of it and added a fast usb-c charger for those devices to reduce clutter (hate dangling cables). There is way to — with some fabrication, find a tablet case you can attach to the 20mm amps ball so that it appears slimmer than the bluepoint tablet holder itself.

Specifically for navigation, GAIA + Trails OffRoad is great combo, as you can find trails in one and send the track to GAIA directly.

GPS signal is always available everywhere.

Good to use is the Jeep’s own cellular connectivity, as it will reduce reliance on phone connection, and the car’s cellular antenna is far better than that of a phone/tablet.

 

[Ratbert]

A while ago I created a free account and tried it. But so much information is locked behind some kind of paid membership. Including whole trails, not just advanced information about a trail. I got annoyed at it and stopped looking at it.
I just logged in again and see that many of the trails I will be hitting next weekend are fully locked behind a membership. and many aren’t in there.

The fewer trails is both a plus and minus. It helps you focus on the more popular trails. But it misses out on some lesser used trails, and makes linking multiple trails together harder since the lesser used connector trails may not be there. I think it could be a good resource for route finding, but I’m not willing to pay money for it yet.

Excellent point about TOR not having all of the tiny connecting trails. You need something else for those. Unlike OnX, however, it gives real drop pins for navigating to either end of the trail as well as being able to actually see nearby roads / towns.

We've found TOR very useful for finding remote boondocking sites. Follow mode is also fairly slick since it tells you details about what you're approaching. Scenic lookouts, camping, historical details, etc.

It doesn't, however, have the ability to save tracks and drop pins like OnX does. We end up still using OnX for that to keep track of everything we've done. That helps a lot with the insane number of trails around us.

Downloading is also orders of magnitude easier with TOR. You just select the state instead of trying to guess which little rectangle you'll need.

Yeah, the level of detail has lots of trade-offs.

 

[Ratbert]

The car itself has GPS antenna, but so does any tablet. Personally, I went ‘full ham’ and installed an aftermarket ‘CarPlay’ device, that taps into car GPS (but also enabled me to control apps like ARB Pressure Control, the Fridge, and Battery app). I run GAIA App on it as well and shows it all neatly on the car head unit. I recommend that for anyone without wireless carplay (pre 2022).

I did add bluepoint mount for other devices, and use GAIA on iPad Air on long trips. Bluepoint is great, but I did drill a hole in the center of it and added a fast usb-c charger for those devices to reduce clutter (hate dangling cables). There is way to — with some fabrication, find a tablet case you can attach to the 20mm amps ball so that it appears slimmer than the bluepoint tablet holder itself.

Specifically for navigation, GAIA + Trails OffRoad is great combo, as you can find trails in one and send the track to GAIA directly.

GPS signal is always available everywhere.

Good to use is the Jeep’s own cellular connectivity, as it will reduce reliance on phone connection, and the car’s cellular antenna is far better than that of a phone/tablet.

You're able to somehow tap into the Jeep's GPS? That's an interesting idea.

 

[Koolkarguy]

We were on trails at Moab this past week. We had some OK equipment and maps. We still had some difficulty with knowing where we were when apparently the GPS constellation was acting up. But eventually the GPS system came back up. Still, it was difficult navigate on either the phones or small handheld GPS units.

I was thinking about a tablet mount on the passenger side for my shotgun spotter. So, my question is: Which is better? A tablet with an app like Trails Offroad? or a dedicated large screen offroad type GPS?

We always download maps from our onx it works great

 

[ketelhut]

I did add bluepoint mount for other devices, and use GAIA on iPad Air on long trips. Bluepoint is great, but I did drill a hole in the center of it and added a fast usb-c charger

[/QUOTE]

This is interesting. How did you wire this up?

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