I’d been hemming and hawing on buying one for some time, but they were more money than I was comfortable spending for such a seemingly extravagant gaget. I mean, after all, you can use Mapquest or Google Maps for free.

And in fact that is what did on previous trips. I’d spend hours calculating routes on Google Maps and printing them out. Frankly, though, it was a hassle compiling the enormous binders of information. And if you missed a turn, you were stuck and had to pull of the road and consult the atlas to get back on track.

Fortunately, several retailers had recently discounted the Nuvi 260 in an effort to clear out inventory to make way for the 260W, which has a wider screen. So I figured the price isn’t going to get any better.

I settled on the the Nuvi 260 for two reasons:

First, unlike the cheaper models, the 260 actually reads off the street names. So rather than saying “Turn left in .1 miles” it says “Turn left on Main Street in .1 miles”.

Second, Garmin has a tool for Macs and PCs that allow you to upload your own POI (Points of Interest) called, appropriately enough, POI Loader. Here is a page describing the program. Essentially, you can use this tool to augment the internal database of the GPS.

I loaded all the campgrounds into the unit that we’d be staying at on the whole trip.

As a side note, one thing that threw me when I first used the POI Loader program is that you can’t just import a file of locations. The file has to be within a folder, and name of the folder is what shows up in your unit. So I created a folder called “spring 2008 trip – first half”, and within that folder I put the actual data file – list.csv. Also, the list of locations is ordered by what is closest to you relative to your current location. So I had to break up all the locations into two lists – going down and coming back (hence the “first half” in the name) to keep the campgrounds we’d be staying at in the later part of our trip from intermingling with those we’d be staying at first.

Anyway, I got it all in and figured no more paper maps. I have to re-think that now, having tested the unit five times now in real-world conditions.

Test #1

Coming down from Bangor to Foxboro, MA, the unit routed us through Boston by taking us down I-95, then off on to the traffic-packed I-93, which goes through the heart of downtown, and then BACK onto I-95 before dumping us into a rural residential neighborhood with some twists and turns. I was sweating it a bit because I didn’t recognize the road at all (we’d been at this campground before).

The unit announced with great certainty that we had “arrived”, when in fact the driveway to Normandy Farms was still nearly a mile away. Fortunately, there were signs to guide us. I took a new reading of latitude and longitude from the driveway of the campground and adjusted my database (it is Latitude: +42.04159, Longitude: -71.28098, in case you are keeping track).

Turns out last time we’d visited we’d come in from the other direction – down I-495 (the half-loop on the west side of Boston) and two turns off the freeway, which seems a lot simpler to me.

Test #2

We went from Foxboro, MA to Black Bear Campground in Florida, NY. Operated flawlessly and got us there without incident.

Test #3

We went from the campground to dinner and, again, it performed flawlessly.

Test #4

We went from Florida, NY, to the KOA in Coatesville, PA. It seemed to route us through a lot of small towns, down highway 202. I estimate all the stoplights and traffic added at least an hour to the trip. But upon consulting the map, I think 202 was probably the most direct route.

Test #5

This test led to our first fight over directions. We decided to go to dinner at a place advertised on the campground’s flyer; which, of course, had a map on it. Me, placing all my trust in the GPS, left the map behind in the RV. We start out taking a wrong turn. No problem. My trusty GPS announces it is “recalculating” in an attempt to fix my mistake. The “recalculation” takes us onto some back roads that turn into closed roads, and then into one-lane roads. Finally, we get routed to a major highway. But a trip that should have taken 10 minutes (the restaurant was 3.8 miles away from the campground) has now taken 30 minutes. And the restaurant was closed, to boot, when we finally got there.

Angie is, of course, silently steaming at this point because I’ve placed so much trust in this gadget rather than a map. I point out that a map wouldn’t have changed the fact that the restaurant was closed. Of course with that statement I walked right into a major faux pas that any married man with experience should know – pointing out the error in a wife’s logic AFTER she is already mad. We left the restaurant, followed the way home we should have followed there, and ate leftovers.

Even with all the problems, I still have faith in the GPS. Angie, of course, will be second-guessing it for the remaining 7 weeks of the trip. It is the little fights that make marriage fun.

They system is really a modified version of the DirecPC service sold to homes. They’ve created a special mount for the dish so that it sits on a heavy-duty construction tripod. They also give you tools and software to aim the dish by hand.

The system is marketed primarily to RVers as an alternative to much more expensive units that mount on the top of an RV.

The place we bought it from is Maxwell Satellite. We paid about $1800 for the equipment, and are paying $60 a month for the service.

The bandwidth is 700K down, 128K up. You can get up to 1M down, 200K up if you want to pay $10 more per month.

It works really well for web, email and FTP work. We have a VPN and even that worked good. If you do a lot of telneting, though, you won’t like it. The lag time from the satellite is annoying. I have to telnet to our server and the command line was about 2 seconds behind my typing. Fortunately, I don’t have to type that much, so I can deal with it.

Aiming it was quite frustrating, until I realized I was doing a few things wrong. Then it was a snap. Here is the story.

The first time I set it up was out on our land over the Memorial Day weekend. Setup essentially consists of these steps:

1.) Assemble the dish and level it (using a handy compass/level they include).
2.) Turn on the modem, connect up to it with ethernet, then run the setup software (PC version comes on an included disk, Mac version can be found here). This software adjusts some internal parameters, based on the zip code you enter as your current location.
3.) Reboot the modem.
4.) Open a browser and enter 192.168.0.1 (the default address of router built into the modem). This takes you to the web-based software for actually aiming the dish. You enter the zip code of your current location and the software reports back three numbers you need to aim the dish:

• the elevation – how far up or down you point the dish
• the azimuth – what compass degree you point towards
• the cross-polarization – the skew, or twist, of the dish

5.) You aim the dish according to the above numbers.
6.) You tweak things until you get a lock on the satellite. In order to lock on and work, the signal strength has to be 31 or higher (up to 100). The higher, the better.

Despite my best efforts, I could never get a signal strength above 30. I hauled the dish and all the equipment all over the property trying to find “the right spot”. I even cut down a tree thinking it was blocking the signal.

Hauling everything around was no easy task. Not only is everything heavy, it requires power. Remember, we’re out in the middle of nowhere. I had to cart two 6-Volt golf cart batteries, and a power inverter, to get power to run everything. Here is a photo:

After much swearing and a call to tech support, here are the things I was doing wrong:

First, I was setting the elevation incorrectly because I wasn’t reading the scale right. So the dish wasn’t pointed up high enough. (I could have avoided this by paying attention to the pictures in the manual.)

Second, I didn’t realize there were multiple satellites, and that it was possible to lock on other satellites. The way you know if you are locked on an incorrect satellite is that the signal strength never gets higher than 30, no matter what you do. This is why you have to pay close attention to the azimuth setting, and sweep slowly a little left and right of the initial number the software gives you. If you don’t find the signal within a minute, I was later told, something is wrong.

But these things are fixed when you read the directions and follow the procedures. The thing that isn’t in the directions – and the third thing I did wrong – was I used too long of a cable between the dish and the modem. See, they give you two lengths of cable – one 25 feet long and one 35 feet long. I thought you could combine the two and make a 60 foot cable. Wrong. When the cable gets that long, the signal coming in to the modem is too weak to work.

So the moral of the story is read the manual and use the shortest cable possible.

Once I did those things, boom – a signal strength of 70, and the dish was right outside our RV door.

Now, fast-forward to this trip. I figure “Hey, we have the satellite dish now, we can really stay anywhere – not just parks with WiFi.”

But what I didn’t consider are trees. Trees block the satellite signal. And campgrounds are usually full of them.

I’ve set the dish up 4 times and have only been able to get it working once.

For it to work correctly, you need a clear view of the Southern sky. Actually, up in the Northeast, all you need is a clear view between about 195 degrees and 230 degrees because within that range is where the signal will be found.

Overall, I’m happy with the dish since we are primarily using it on our land, and I know how to make it work there.

But if you are traveling around with one of these, just be aware that trees are the enemy.

First, our digital camera went kaput last week. It is an HP Photosmart 735. It just stopped working. No error, no warning signs, nah da…nothing. It wasn’t that great of a camera anyway. Pictures were alright, but it sucked up battery power.

I bought it because it came bundled with a photo printer and a 64M memory card. The bundle was only $50 more than the camera by itself. I figured what a deal. I know better now.

So I bought a Kodak DX6490. I already like it better. First, it has a manual mode, so I can actually play with all the settings as if it were a manual SLR (I used to be into photography when I was in high school). Second, the optics on it are high quality, which I understand is more important for getting sharper pictures with digital cameras than the megapixel count.

The next thing I got was a cable allowing me to hook up my eTrex GPS unit to my computer. The reason I bought it was that I had previously purchased a 2001 version of Rand McNally mapping software for 2 bucks at BestBuy. The software can take input from a GPS and plot your position on a map. I always wanted a GPS for the RV, but shelling out $1000 for system is too extravagant of a purchase. So with this cable and the software, I was able to make my own solution for about $65.

I tried it and confirmed, via satellite, that my house really is located in Bangor, Maine. It surprised me, actually. Not that my house is in Bangor, I always knew that. What surprised me is that the GPS acquired a signal while I was sitting at my desk in the house. I always though those things needed a pretty unobstructed view of the sky to work. But nope. Mine got a strong enough signal to plot its position on a map.

It is so cool, in fact, that when I showed it to Angela, she made me buy her one too. (A mere one week later the 3650 was replaced by the 3660. It is basically the same phone, but with a standard keypad layout – the 3650 has an unusual semi-circle layout – and a screen with more colors.)

We publish a book called Wireless Profits: How To Start Up A Profitable Mobile Phone Content Business. It is written by Alex D’Anci, a consultant in Finland, who is on the front lines of the Internet cellphone boom in Europe and Asia.

Though I accepted the book for publication, it really didn’t click with me then as to why anyone would want to access the Internet through their cellphone, much less develop mobile-specific content. Now that I have one, I get the attraction.

I never realize before owning the phone how much time I wasted twiddling my thumbs while out doing my everyday business, like standing in line or waiting for an appointment. Now I fire up the Internet browser in the phone and read the news.

The screen is about twice the size of a traditional cellphone, and in color, so the eyestrain isn’t overwhelming.

I’ve even started think of ways to use it for running the site. For example, I have it setup so I can check the support email address to see if anyone is waiting for help. And I’m working on setting it up to see if there are any orders being held by the system (To prevent fraud, we have a list of checks each order goes though before it is sent to the credit card processor. If it fails any of them, the system puts it on hold until I can manually review it.)

Since we are small, automation is a big part of keeping our business running. So I’m always trying to think of ways to improve our efficiency without having to sit in front of the computer everyday.

But wait, there’s more!

The phone has a built-in camera. Coupled with this absolutely awesome piece of software – PixOmat Serie 60 – I can create web-based photo albums on the fly. The software takes the picture, builds the pages, and uploads all the files. It is how I’m doing all our trip photos. Here is a hint, though. Buy the Pro version. It is only 10 bucks more and lets you manage multiple albums at the same time.

But wait, there’s more!

It is BlueTooth-enabled. So you can connect the phone wirelessly to your computer and store your contacts, schedule and to do lists in it. Plus you can use it as a modem to dial into your ISP.

But wait, there’s more!

It can run software written in the Symbian OS.

This phone has rekindled my love affair with the idea of cellular phone service.