New kit and old problems

I ordered a new Garmin eTrex Vista HCx GPS and it arrived today. My old Garmin is dropping to bits, I've had it for about seven years so it has worked hard. The rubber is coming off which stops the buttons working, the screen sometimes doesn't work well and now it doesn't always download its data without switching off.

The new model is shorter and fatter, with a wider screen. The colour screen seems easy to read. It also beeps which should be better for navigating. The way of moving around the various screens is a little different and I have yet to explore it completely. I don't yet have a spare microSD card - I'll get one tomorrow, so I can't load a map yet.

I took it out for a test run and the quickly became apparent that it has a better receiver chipset. The satellite lock was very quick and the accuracy was showing +/- 8ft to 10ft for the whole test. When the old unit finally got a lock it varied from 19ft to 45ft. Not a scientific test, but I'm happy. Once I got home I could still get a lock inside the house with +/-20ft. I downloaded the track in a moment instead of the few minutes with the old unit.

As to the test route, we went out to check some more of the name anomalies thrown up by the OS Locator data, this time in Beverley. Most of the differences were small roads and especially tracks that were missing. There were a few typing errors and a few that were errors in the OS Locator data. I think the data extract has been changed to include apostrophe differences. There are many examples of inconsistencies with apostrophes on name boards and I found some today, including a small road that had two name boards facing each other, one with an apostrophe and one without. I just accepted the OS Locator version (without).

I used the new GPS track to move a few roads to the seemingly more accurate position, and in the process lined a couple up with the OS Boundary Line data, which is probably right.

New GPS: happy.
Checking apostrophes: no fun.