insignia Posted January 24, 2015 Share Posted January 24, 2015 Thanks to everyone for giving me their views does anyone have any experience of The Falcon Navigator sat nav ? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Derek Uzzell Posted January 26, 2015 Share Posted January 26, 2015 This MHFacts discussion may be of interest http://www.motorhomefacts.com/ftoptitle-217842-falcon-navigator.html Buy cheap, buy twice... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
George.. Posted January 26, 2015 Share Posted January 26, 2015 Hi, We use a Garmin Dezl 560, great piece of kit , lifetime updates on maps of U/K and Europe. Have put details of van ,height,width etc. in and it works a treat. Have added all Camping and Caravan Club and all ACSI campsites in Extras. No need to add any POI as loads in there all ready. Would buy the same again if needed. Happy travels. George Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Derek Uzzell Posted January 26, 2015 Share Posted January 26, 2015 Another Falcon-related gem... http://www.motorhome365.com/forum/threads/has-anyone-else-made-the-same-satnav-mistake.1837/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rasehaze Posted June 6, 2015 Share Posted June 6, 2015 Oh I really wish I had read this a couple of months back! I foolishly bought one of these things and whilst it does some of what it is supposed to, more importantly I can't see the ********** screen in sunshine which is rather ironic as that's when I want to use it. Plus it has an awful habit of sending me via the last journey! So I am off to write my letter of 'not fit for purpose' then small claims to follow. Wish me luck. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hallii Posted June 6, 2015 Share Posted June 6, 2015 I have a selection of sat navs, I like them :-D Tomtom used to be good, they have lost it some how, Garmin seems to be the best bet now. No knowledge of Falcon, sorry. H Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bulletguy Posted June 6, 2015 Share Posted June 6, 2015 Depends very much on what you want it to do. As everyone knows the main two are TomTom and Garmin but where TomTom falls down is it's inability to recognise co-ordinates in certain countries which Garmin will. My TomTom has all the East European countries in and 'limited mapping'. The Garmin i have has the same BUT i cam put a co-ordinate in for some obscure place in Albania or Ukraine for example, and it will get the location. The image displays are different between Garmin and TT models and personally i prefer TT for that. Since many new vehicles are now fitted with GPS, 'stand alone' units have pretty much had their day and there are plenty of bargains on ebay with fairly new or 'hardly used' units up for sale. As long as you know which model you are looking for and familiar with the prices, you can easily get a good bargain buying used. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MagHal Posted June 6, 2015 Share Posted June 6, 2015 We use a Garmin Nuvi 66 lifetime European maps update. It does the jib at about ~£150 Never heard of Falcon Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shaggy Posted June 6, 2015 Share Posted June 6, 2015 The new Garmin Nuvi cam sat nav also combines a built in camera to record your journey plus it can accept a wireless reversing camera. It's a bit pricey at £299 but has full lifetime full europe map updates ,traffic Info etc. If you like your gadgets then it looks pretty interesting. http://explore.garmin.com/en-GB/nuvi/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RubyExsis Posted June 7, 2015 Share Posted June 7, 2015 No experience of Falcon I am not very sat nav literate and didn't want to spend the higher prices that premium brands ask. I bought a Medion online and it works well for me Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
StuartO Posted June 7, 2015 Share Posted June 7, 2015 Satnav are potentially very clever things and some of them have elaborate capabilities - yet many of us only require something take us from A to B by the most desirable route, or maybe any route as longs as it doesn't take us on to any unsuitable roads. It's useful for a motorhimer to be able to enter coordinates (i.e. lat and long) because the location of campsites and aires are often referred to in that way, but otherwise we want to keep it simple - just enter a destination as an address or postcode and then let the thing get on with it. No satnav is perfect so you still have to read the road signs to avoid undesirables like very narrow lanes or low bridges, but apart from that we are content to let it take over the navigation completely. I'm a bit more demanding than that and I like to exercise some choice over the route, for example generally avoiding toll roads but using them when to do otherwise would involve a laborious diversion. Getting through Rouen when heading South from Calais for example is hard work without using a few miles of the A13/A154 to get out of the city on the South side. So I often, but not always, plan the route on my laptop, check that it does what I want it to do and then down load the route onto my Garmin device - or rather I did until I bought a new (cheap) Garmin which doesn;t allow downloading of routes, so I still use my old Garmin device for transit routes as a result, even though the maps are pretty old and cannot now be updated. But once we're in our touring area I usually just bung the next touring destination (usually as lat & long) directly into the Garmin device and let it do the route, telling it not to use toll roads, so we gat a cross-country route anyway. And mostly it works fine. Using old maps is rarely if ever a problem, so I don't worry about that. I take the new, cheap garmin along as a spare but otherwise it gets ignored. As far as I know Garmin is the only one which gives you a (free) route mapping program for your computer as part of the deal, ecept perhaps for the cheapest models. It used to be Mapsource, which they stopped updating a while ago, and nowadays its Base Camp, but I still use Mapsource because I'm used to it and it still works. I avoid buying built-in satnavs with our vehicles because they are prone to going wrong sooner or later and they are invariably expensive to update or repair or replace. It works for me. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shaggy Posted June 11, 2015 Share Posted June 11, 2015 Just been into Aldi today and purchased a Garmin 760 LMT D7 Camper for only £149.95 loaded with all the ACSI campsite 45 country coverage, lifetime maps and traffic plus 7" screen. I was going to buy the new Garmin Nuvicam but that was £299. I can't believe the value of the Garmin 760. Looked everywhere else on the interweb and cheapest I could see it was £289 in Halfords. I don't know if this was an offer specific to our local Aldi as it is not in there latest offers. If anyone's interested I purchased it from Aldi in Blackwater nr Camberley Surrey. They do have more in stock but I don't know how many. Regards Gavin Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Keithl Posted June 11, 2015 Share Posted June 11, 2015 Gavin, It was on their offers from March 26th and was originally £199.99 so obviously now reduced to clear and an absolute bargain! Keith. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest JudgeMental Posted June 11, 2015 Share Posted June 11, 2015 I decided against the Garmin Aldi offer after reading all the negative reviews!:-( Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
manxli Posted June 11, 2015 Share Posted June 11, 2015 Hi I'll give my recommendation to the Garmin Camper 760LMT too! Not only does it work well but I was able to get rid of the horrid existing rear-camera monitor, which had played havoc with my DAB radio. The Garmin has a 3.5mm jack for external video and I was able to make an adapter to feed the existing camera into that. In use it sensibly defaults to camera, when turning on the ignition. Like the 'Cash Point' symbols that come up on the maps too! Regards Alan Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wasnt Me Posted June 11, 2015 Share Posted June 11, 2015 Just a thought that could save you money. Do you have a smartphone? I use my android phone and run a app called Navfree by Navmii. It was completely free, no phone signal required to use and no need to have another expensive device in your van. I use it in France too. Save your money and spend it on something fun. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bulletguy Posted June 11, 2015 Share Posted June 11, 2015 shaggy - 2015-06-11 11:47 AM Just been into Aldi today and purchased a Garmin 760 LMT D7 Camper for only £149.95 loaded with all the ACSI campsite 45 country coverage, lifetime maps and traffic plus 7" screen. I was going to buy the new Garmin Nuvicam but that was £299. I can't believe the value of the Garmin 760. Looked everywhere else on the interweb and cheapest I could see it was £289 in Halfords. I don't know if this was an offer specific to our local Aldi as it is not in there latest offers. If anyone's interested I purchased it from Aldi in Blackwater nr Camberley Surrey. They do have more in stock but I don't know how many. Blimey........you jammy so 'n so!! :D :D Yes it was a special offer in Aldi though as another poster pointed out, it was from March so you have been extremely lucky. I bought one only a few weeks ago and mine was the last one they had....but i paid £199. I've since seen a used one go on ebay which sold for £265. *sent you a pm....check you inbox. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest adhple Posted July 1, 2015 Share Posted July 1, 2015 SNOOPER ! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dragonsden001 Posted July 1, 2015 Share Posted July 1, 2015 We have also just bought a Snooper. Doubles as a tv and also DAB radio as well as having 24,000 campsites pre loaded. Just what we need! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
747 Posted July 1, 2015 Share Posted July 1, 2015 manxli - 2015-06-11 3:43 PM Hi I'll give my recommendation to the Garmin Camper 760LMT too! Not only does it work well but I was able to get rid of the horrid existing rear-camera monitor, which had played havoc with my DAB radio. The Garmin has a 3.5mm jack for external video and I was able to make an adapter to feed the existing camera into that. In use it sensibly defaults to camera, when turning on the ignition. Like the 'Cash Point' symbols that come up on the maps too! Regards Alan Hi, I bought the Garmin 760 from Aldi and I am interested in your mod for the rear view camera. My clip on monitor (on the rear view mirror) seems faulty. It's an oldish system and the plug in connector is a 6 pin plug and socket (DIN?). The newer systems are different and I cannot find an adaptor. Would it be possible to find one suitable for the Garmin do you think? Thanks for any info. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Annie T Posted July 1, 2015 Share Posted July 1, 2015 Hi, We have just purchased a Snooper Sat Nav through the caravan and camping club having heard that they were good.the inbuilt Sat Nav in out Auto-Trail Camanche is ok but you can't put the van dimensions in so it has taken us down some roads that a van our size should not be going down so that decided it for us as a van our size is not easy to turn around in tight spots!! When we started to use the Snooper we were very impressed, it did everything we wanted a Sat Nav to do. Sadly first trip out of Yorkshire and she lost us! Couldn't find a satellite, we tried resetting everything but to no avail so had to resort to good old Google Maps as couldn't get van one going. Next day we were setting off to France and all appeared ok with Snooper so we didn't worry. Once in France it worked ok, got us out of Calais no problem. When we had travelled for long enough we decided to try it out at finding us a campsite. First campsite very good, easy to find and no narrow or inappropriate roads. Over the next three weeks Snooper and I became the best of enemies, in towns and traffic off it went no instructions no movement nothing!! The van Sat Nav continued to take us into narrow little streets that caused the locals much amusement. You would think that for what theses motorhome's cost Auto-trail could actually put a Sat Nav system in it appropriate to the vehicle size!! Anyway throughout our stay in France and Northern Spain this thing just would not lock onto the available satellites, several times it showed us in a field somewhere when we were on the motorway despite having the most recent map update added just prior to us setting off. The only good thing I can say about it is it always found us a good site when asked. It did take us to a very interesting site which was my mistake. I did learn French for five years at school but was very poor at it. Anyway we asked for a quiet shady site as the dog was finding it a bit hot, I glanced at the name but never registered what it said just the description of it being quiet with lots of shade, ideal we said and off we went. We arrived at reception, it looked good, a pool, a bar and restaurant what more could we ask for? My other half left the dog and I in the van and went off to register etc. I sat looking around, imagine my surprise when a woman at the pool stood up absolutely starkers!! Worse still the man next to her also stood up, fortunately there was a pillar in front of most of him!! I knew then what the words in the sites name meant!! There was a volley ball court there but we were off before there were any matches!! Hubby returned shaking his head at me saying "where the **** have you brought us?" We stayed only one night, didn't swim in the pool or sample the bar or restaurant. It's taken me the last two weeks to live this one down but I hope it gives you all a smile or two!! Back to the Snooper, having been let down by it so many times it's going back as not fit for purpose. If we get a replacement that works ok will let you know. Ann Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jayden009 Posted July 3, 2015 Share Posted July 3, 2015 I think it’s up to the user to see which one you choose. I have opted for a separate dash mounted screen and a 2 camera setup I have used ppa car audio’s product who came out on site and installed it. The screen shows the tow ball with one camera and the other one show what’s behind my caravan I am very happy with their service http://www.ppacaraudio.com.au/index.php?route=product/category&path=108 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rayjsj Posted July 3, 2015 Share Posted July 3, 2015 I too couldn't get on with the Autotrail fitted Sat nav , I got a Tom Tom 1005 camper edition, it has been fine and never let us down, although they all use the same map information, and only know legal restrictions and low bridges etc., they don't know how narrow a lane is.They just try to keep you on the main roads.So entering the units dimensions is only good upto a point.You still have to keep your common sense switched on. Ray. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rayjsj Posted July 4, 2015 Share Posted July 4, 2015 Jayden009 - 2015-07-03 4:33 PM I think it’s up to the user to see which one you choose. I have opted for a separate dash mounted screen and a 2 camera setup I have used ppa car audio’s product who came out on site and installed it. The screen shows the tow ball with one camera and the other one show what’s behind my caravan I am very happy with their service http://www.ppacaraudio.com.au/index.php?route=product/category&path=108 Jayden, this thread is about Sat-navs,not reversing cameras, you are in Australia, so, your links mean very little to us here in the UK. Nice to see Aussie's on here, but no local links please.confusing for folk. Ray Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
yoko8pups Posted July 4, 2015 Share Posted July 4, 2015 Beware of lifetime free upgrades to Maps, including Europe. I bought a Garmin from Halfords with this offer and five years later, although it tells me every time I need to upgrade the maps, it just says I haven't paid for the upgrade. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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