what are the Roehl drivees using for navigation?

how about looking at a good old road atlas, worked like a champ for me for years, the only thing bad about a atlas is when you get old cant read them so easy anymore

 

Reading a map is a lost art from imo. I am 32 years old and that is one thing my dad made sure i knew how to do. It paid off once i got to school i got 100 on trip planning and finished faster than anyone else. Nice to have google earth to find parking or see exactly where shipper is but i will always read a map. Btw not a roehl driver.

 

buckeyecowboy63, i liked the part of your post (my dad made sure), and that is how good truckers are made.

 

Thanks. Cant fix a car to save my life but I can read a map and fish well.

 

all that other stuff is ok,great tools but i would trust a atlas above anything else.

 

I use map to check the route, and make sure it is legal and such, I use google maps on my phone to verify and/or find local route to destination, I force my gps to follow the route Roehl wants me to run (not hard to do, just add "vias" to route as needed) I also lay my days' driving into the gps before I bed down, including all stops (vehicle checks, fuel, break)

but I TRUST none of that, roadsignage has not let me down yet

I will say that I caught my old gps fairly often with glitches (rand 520)

ive had the 720 almost a month and shockingly, it has been dead nuts every time....this of course, wont last lol

 

im running a garmin 465 and typically mark my route on the inside of the windshield with dry erase marker. I also use google maps for local stuff. After a while I am starting to run a lot of the same corridors even to the point where I just know where to go. the garmin works fine, often comes up with a different route but corrects after I move to the roehl route. It is very good at estimating time of arrival even through different time zones.

I would like to upgrade to the dezl 7" but am sort of holding off to see if Garmin comes out with something new.

Street signs are critical....they override everything.

 

I use DeLorme Street Atlas USA with GPS pendant on my laptop. To me it has at least a few advantages over alternatives like a small-screen GPS.

It's really easy to alter the route that it comes up with, to match the one Roehl wants you to follow. (I found this to be a big advantage over Microsoft Streets and Trips.)

It shows the map with your current position and route in two different windows, one at high magnification and the other at a lower mag to show a bigger-picture view. (With the amount of real estate on a laptop screen, there is plenty of space for it to do this.)

It shows you the miles and time remaining to your next stop and miles/time remaining to your final destination, again all on the same screen as the maps. It also shows you the distance to your next turn, the name of the street and the direction of the turn -- hard left/right, veer left/right, or straight -- again all on the same screen as the other info.

Like a lot of GPSes, it talks you through the route, telling you in advance about upcoming turns, lane changes and so forth.

A lot of these advantages boil down to having a much larger amount of screen real-estate to work with than a 5" or 7" screen provides.

I use the GPS as just another tool in my arsenal, along with an atlas, directions from shipper and consignee, Google satellite view and street view, and my eyes. Having said that, the GPS has saved my behind more than once when I'm navigating through unfamiliar territory at night, in the rain, and so forth, where it can be very difficult to read the street names on the signs.