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[Juan50JuanRum]

Afternoon Gents.

Ive been looking into getting a nav system and wondering what everyone prefers for their offroad nav.

 

[theycallmeWALLY]

My experience is.... It depends

If you are prerunning a race. Having a dedicated Lowrance is pretty nice for a few reasons.

1. One is that they are easy to see where you should be driving. Its basically a line on the screen your following. If the line is gone you're off the course.
2. Second is that its really easy to add notes from prerunning to the Race Car.

If you are only using the Nav system for offroad exploration then just get an Ipad. Download whatever the latest and greatest App is. I'm currently running Gaia GPS.

It seems like a lot of the App's end up charging you at some point for normal features or get sold. So that's why I suggest whatever is the latest and greatest app to use.

 

[Juan50JuanRum]

I’ve been looking at the lowrances but unsure which model good for off-road.

And ya I have onX but haven’t paid for the subscription

 

[theycallmeWALLY]

Honestly this bad boy just came out and is off road focused if you're looking into a traditional style GPS.

Garmin Tread XL Baja Series

Built for Speed. Designed for Champions. Tread® XL - Baja Race and Chase editions - 10” high-performance off-road racing navigators with team tracking to see the live positions of your race team. From prerunning tools to custom race notes, Tread XL - Baja Series devices are made to help you...

www.pciraceradios.com

If not then I'd just run an Ipad and start doing more research on that if it's for racing purposes. Almost every team is using IPADS to prerun or in their chase trucks.

 

[Tomaslav90]

Having a dedicated gps unit is always really nice. I have an overlander, and can transfer my routes made in Gaia so I have more of a HUD style.
Its also nice not having to worry about downloading enough maps to your device. First trip I went on, the guy led us out of his downloaded area, and ended up getting 15 of us kinda lost.

 

[Tomaslav90]

Honestly this bad boy just came out and is off road focused if you're looking into a traditional style GPS.

Garmin Tread XL Baja Series

Built for Speed. Designed for Champions. Tread® XL - Baja Race and Chase editions - 10” high-performance off-road racing navigators with team tracking to see the live positions of your race team. From prerunning tools to custom race notes, Tread XL - Baja Series devices are made to help you...

www.pciraceradios.com

If not then I'd just run an Ipad and start doing more research on that if it's for racing purposes. Almost every team is using IPADS to prerun or in their chase trucks.

I dont need it... I dont need it...

 

[WW_RANGER_X]

I’m pretty happy with the paid subscription with OnX Offroad that I use on my iPhone. I’m currently on their premium plan which is $29.99 a year. You can get their elite subscription which is $99.99 a year with more features. It was a little confusing to operate at first which I think draws people away, but after a few months of using it, it gets much easier. They offer webinar classes (onX Offroad 101) every couple of months and they are very informative. Just did one last week and I learned a lot.

 

[Juan50JuanRum]

Honestly this bad boy just came out and is off road focused if you're looking into a traditional style GPS.

Garmin Tread XL Baja Series

Built for Speed. Designed for Champions. Tread® XL - Baja Race and Chase editions - 10” high-performance off-road racing navigators with team tracking to see the live positions of your race team. From prerunning tools to custom race notes, Tread XL - Baja Series devices are made to help you...

www.pciraceradios.com

If not then I'd just run an Ipad and start doing more research on that if it's for racing purposes. Almost every team is using IPADS to prerun or in their chase trucks.

That is really nice other than the price tag haha.
definitely will look into it more.

I’m pretty happy with the paid subscription with OnX Offroad that I use on my iPhone. I’m currently on their premium plan which is $29.99 a year. You can get their elite subscription which is $99.99 a year with more features. It was a little confusing to operate at first which I think draws people away, but after a few months of using it, it gets much easier. They offer webinar classes (onX Offroad 101) every couple of months and they are very informative. Just did one last week and I learned a lot.

im thinking this might be the move with an ipad and mob armor mount or something

 

[charlie brown]

i started playing with the onX offroad. so far it is ok. i need to play with it more to learn all the can do's. i paid the $29 a year. thats cheap.

i was looking at the leadnav but they are a apple product only and much more. onX can can be on android/tablet or apple product. can be on 2 different devices. so for $29 i am giving it a go.

 

[Motiracer38]

I use Oruxmaps for GPS. It records tracks, displays tracks, stores image tiles offline and a ton more that I never use. It is initially very confusing but is free and hasn't changed much in the past 10 years. There is a hack to get Google satellite view on the screen which is missing from a lot of others.

Owlshead is another that is real useful for finding trails when in California. Will display trails names and vehicle route legality on a map that helps a ton when planning a run or trying to find a way through.

 

[SteveG]

I've used just about every platform and they all have their pros and cons, but my go-to is an ipad with onX and Gaia. There's a lot of other apps that work well, but those are the two I use the most. Garmin does a lot of cool stuff (I carry an overlander in the glove box... haven't used it in a couple years). Their new offerings are cool, but the prices....

 

[theycallmeWALLY]

I've used just about every platform and they all have their pros and cons, but my go-to is an ipad with onX and Gaia. There's a lot of other apps that work well, but those are the two I use the most. Garmin does a lot of cool stuff (I carry an overlander in the glove box... haven't used it in a couple years). Their new offerings are cool, but the prices....

Yeah. If I use my truck for Norra I may consider the new Garmin but Iphone/Ipad and apps like Gaia are easy enough for myself to use.

 

[SteveG]

I took a look at a the new Garmin offerings first hand. They're Android tablets with Garmin's software. I'm not saying they're not cool, but the features just don't come anywhere close to justifying the expense... for me. Others might disagree. They do have a lot of cool features, and the satellite messaging / tracking is cool, but in my experience things that do A LOT of things don't do any one thing great... I'll stick to my iPad and separate satellite messenger. We've used both all sorts of places in the USA and MX.

Adding: The Overlander in my glovebox is also an android tablet with Garmin software. It works fine (except for the interface when pairing an InReach mini to it).

 

[Tomaslav90]

I took a look at a the new Garmin offerings first hand. They're Android tablets with Garmin's software. I'm not saying they're not cool, but the features just don't come anywhere close to justifying the expense... for me. Others might disagree. They do have a lot of cool features, and the satellite messaging / tracking is cool, but in my experience things that do A LOT of things don't do any one thing great... I'll stick to my iPad and separate satellite messenger. We've used both all sorts of places in the USA and MX.

Adding: The Overlander in my glovebox is also an android tablet with Garmin software. It works fine (except for the interface when pairing an InReach mini to it).

The overlander is definitely a nice backup. A proper satelite refresh rate on speed and stuff is really handy for a dedicated unit though. I havent tried pairing an inreach to it, just seems unnecssary.

I've also seen that Gaia can be put on a head unit (at least running android auto). I'm curious to see how well that works next time I'm out.

 

[Lutz]

I use Oruxmaps for GPS. It records tracks, displays tracks, stores image tiles offline and a ton more that I never use. It is initially very confusing but is free and hasn't changed much in the past 10 years. There is a hack to get Google satellite view on the screen which is missing from a lot of others.

Owlshead is another that is real useful for finding trails when in California. Will display trails names and vehicle route legality on a map that helps a ton when planning a run or trying to find a way through.

Same here been using it for years have tried other app but seem to go back to it. There are a few app's that do it now but Oruxmap lets you use vector maps like openstreemaps and mapforges . For my setup i use a 10 inch tablet with California Trail Map for all California trails and mapsforge for the rest . With the vector style maps you can have the whole west coast using only 2Gb file size .
https://www.californiatrailmap.com/
https://www.californiatrailmap.com/

https://download.mapsforge.org/maps/v5/north-america/

 

[SteveG]

I forgot about Lifetime Maps. If you want the best and most up to date mapping... they're it. Super cool owner and customer service, too.

FYI. They only do USA

 

[Midget Nate]

Afternoon Gents.

Ive been looking into getting a nav system and wondering what everyone prefers for their offroad nav.

Well what did you decide? Ive been using Gaia on an android for a couple years but now with racing that is not gonna cut it. So rather than spend 2-4k on a Garmin or Lowrance setup that seems like a pain in the ass to swap from race car to prerunner or maybe even chase truck I think im gonna use these 2 10" ipads i have with leadnav and the dual antenna.

 

[Giant Geoff]

I use G.P.S. Geoff. Pointing. System. I don’t like to use any devices because it doesn’t help me grow, learn and really know where I am and making decisions on which way to go. I see the advantages of some devices to let you know where you’ve been or finding a new trail from where you’re at by seeing it on the map to kind of get you there, but I really like to study the surrounding mountain terrain and come up with my own internal location points. It’s nice to tuneup your human body to learn and know where you are plus, where you were going to go. Internally itAllows me to memorize it better for next time instead of zoning out on a device that is telling you where to go but you’re not paying attention. Even though I refused to use a device to keep my internal gauge more aware it’s not for everyone and maybe you could use both methods when you’re out there to help you in all ways of navigating.

 

[GahnRacing]

^^^This. I swear by it. If you constantly use GPS to find where you’re going, you never really learn where you’re at. I call mine “Ganshorn Positioning System.”

 

[Marnes702]

10 years ago the options pretty much sucked. So I have an old Baja540 fish finder lol (Lowrance).

But these new app based GPS are cool. I personally use OnX on my phone. If you have a lot of storage you can download the satellite imagery up to 5miles (I think). My Lowrance can’t do that. It has trail ratings and more cool stuff