Absolutebeginner

I can see now that I slid the slider "follow topic", but I guess that you have to be signed in for this to work. Similarly, I first looked at the Forum while signed out and onecal's response was not visible. It appeared once I had signed in though. Are you guys permanently signed in??? Special thanks to Derek Uzzell. I had tried a search on "satnavs" on the forum and came up with nothing. And then Derek gave a link to a previous post that was even more informative. I am pleased that I went to Halfords (at least......I am at the moment) because its face to face. If I had bought off the net then what a rigmarole I might have had to go through!!! Even then, the assistants didn't know much at all about the various models. Buying satnavs is like a buying pig in a poke!!! Dear onecal, I will indeed let you know how I get on at Halfords!!

Dear All, I must apologise as I seem to be too slow coming back to you. I posted it Saturday evening and here I am on Monday looking at all your replies. I ticked a box when I posted my question that from memory made me think that I would be notified by email if someone posted an answer. Nothing came into my inbox so clearly I misunderstood the purpose of the box. I didn't expect to get replies that evening and on Sunday couldn't escape my duties to study my laptop. I see that there were several replies on Saturday but although I was watching my account Saturday evening they didn't appear on my laptop then. So I accept your castigations. I see that some participants answered with customary good humour and good advice. To answer some questions, I have a 2015 Pilote 600GL A class based on Ducato chassis. The Satnav is a Garmin 795 7 inch screen, and it is mounted within arms length on a disc glued to the dashboard. My passenger can't hear the voice commands clearly either. The voice is female, and I can't find a menu that might let me change the gender!!! My previous satnavs have been Navman and Snooper. The Snooper had a headphone socket so I could plug in a powered small speaker and that worked fine. Unfortunately the Snooper ran out of life after 10 years!!! I like the voice prompts particularly at one of those complicated multi mini roundabout multi exit junctions. Too much studying of the displayed map instead of looking out of the windscreen can be dangerous!!! Your suggestions are similar to my own thoughts, but its comforting to hear them. I am not alone!!! Well, not entirely. I really do appreciate all the advice given on Out and About Motorhome Forum. Am I allowed out of the naughty corner now?? So.....back to Halfords and to listen to another incarnation of the same model and perhaps a swap to a To Tom.

I have just bought a camping/truck type satnav at Halfords Satnav from the range of one of the three well known names in satnavs at great expense and the volume for the manouvre announcements isn't loud enough to be heard over the general noise in the cab of my A class ducato. I have been into the system settings and put all the sound sliders on maximum, but it still can't cope. I had a similar problem with my previous satnav and this was solved by plugging a powered small speaker into the headphone socket. Trouble is that this satnav has only a usb socket for the power supply, and no other sockets!!! I have contacted the manufacturer who appears surprised that a motorhome cab might be noisy!!! My next action is to go back to Halfords and see if they have another satnav of the same make and model that might go louder in case its a one off problem with my purchased unit. In your experience, are satnavs basically unable to cope with loud background noise? I'm not deaf by the way. It intruiges me that although the unit has blutooth to connect the satnav to my phone for handsfree phone calls, that it will not pair with my cab radio so that the voice instructions go through it and perhaps cut out the radio while it is speaking?? (plus I could turn up the volume on the radio!!)