Have'nt posted for a loooong time for a variety of reasons.

Picked up my brand new Road Angel GPS unit on Friday and put it immediately into use on a trip down to a friends house in Fleet on Saturday and then onto Legoland in Windsor on Sunday. Alas not in the S2k as the family were in tow.

I noticed a couple of things with the unit:-

1. The speed appeared about 5% out against my X-type's speedo - have seen the other thread - this apears 'common'

2. The unit did NOT pick up on 3 Gatso sites I know have been around for some time. The first two near where I live in the Midlands, the third along the A34 going into Oxford off the M40

3. Driving through Newbury, set to 500m range - got a LOT of spurious fixed and blackspot alerts that did not give the full 5 bar alert - got to 2 and then stopped - this happened on at least 3 occasions. I put this down to possible cameras / blackspots in the vicinity and maybe that the 500m setting was too much for in-town driving, given the -/+ accuracy of the GPS system.

I have'nt e-mailed Blackspot yet - just wondered if anyone else had seen anything similar. The unit I used was straight from the box so I have not updated it on-line yet - the manual suggests you do not have to - but I wonder.................

 

[QUOTE]Originally posted by pgainham
[B]2. The unit did NOT pick up on 3 Gatso sites I know have been around for some time.

 

You really do need to update it pretty regularly but it can be impressive - mine was spot on coming through the M6 and M40 roadworks, it knew of all the temporary GATSOs and even the Average speed cameras.

I get 2 spurious 'half' warnings quite regularly, one Northbound M6 and one on the clockwise M60. Like you it counts up to 2 or 3 bars then stops, I guess the cameras are just off the motorway.

My remaining reservation is its auto range/speed adjustment, does this actually work for anyone? Its OK at slow speeds but at higher motorway speeds you don't really get enough warning. I had to switch manually to the medium range setting on Sunday to be on the safe side.

Tif

 

[QUOTE]Originally posted by pgainham
[B]The unit did NOT pick up on 3 Gatso sites I know have been around for some time.

 

I got my Road Angel on Friday and tested it on a 260 mile trip round the south coast...... superb!.

It picked up all but one of the cameras we passed and that one was at a roadworks..... so I added it manually.

I also saw the speed difference between the speedo and the Angel...... it makes sense that the GPS speed reading would actually be more accurate and confirms that the speedo reads slightly fast than your actual speed....... 87mph on the speedo read 83mph on the Angel.....

The variable speed thingy seems to work fairly well for me.

I did get plenty of blackstop alerts and only one didn't seem to make much sense..... so I deleted it....... I guess it could be picking up something on another nearby road that isn't obvious.

I was very impressed that the direction sensing software seemed to work.

I didn't pick up a single MOBILE site......

Overall pretty impressed although I think they missed a trick by not allowing you to input the speed limit activation..... ie. I guess it would be fairly easy for the device to know the speed limit at each site and only sound an alarm if you were near or over the limit?

 

[QUOTE]Originally posted by PWE 896
[B]Just had a thought....

Were the GATSO's monitoring your side of the road or oncoming traffic? If the latter it won't show them to you.

Did you add the GATSO sites yourself using the STORE button?