Manufacturer: DeLorme, Two DeLorme Drive, P.O. Box 298, Yarmouth, ME 04096 USA. General Inquiries: 207.846.7000
Year of Manufacture: 2004?
URL: http://www.delorme.com/
E-mail: info@delorme.com.
Listed weight: not listed
Weight as delivered:
     Earthmate® GPS receiver: 0 lbs 2.75 oz./ 82 g
     Street Atlas USA 2005 software: 0 lbs 3 7/8 oz / 110 g in jewel box, 0 lbs 0.5 oz / 16 g for one CD
     Street Atlas USA 2006 software: 0 lbs 3 7/8 oz / 110 g in jewel box, 0 lbs 0.5 oz / 16 g for one CD
     Topo USA v. 5.0 software: 0 lbs 7 5/8 oz / 218 g in box, 0 lbs 0.5 oz / 16 g for one CD
MSRP:
     $ 99.95 (includes DeLorme Earthmate® GPS LT-20 GPS receiver & DeLorme Street Atlas USA 2006 software)
     $ 99.95 (DeLorme Topo USA v. 5.0 software - not included with the DeLorme Earthmate® GPS LT-20 package available for purchase)

Note: In late September it was discovered by our contact at DeLorme that we received the Street Atlas USA 2005 software in error; we should have received the Street Atlas USA 2006 version instead. Within a week I received the Street Atlas USA 2006 software via UPS from DeLorme. When I asked DeLorme if they would like for me to return the 2005 version they graciously said no, that I could keep it with their compliments. Appendix A in my initial report details the installation process and initial impressions of the Street Atlas USA 2006 software.

Field Test Locations and Conditions:

Testing of the DeLorme Earthmate® GPS LT-20 receiver and Street Atlas USA 2006 software took place in the San Gabriel Valley and San Gabriel Mountains, California, during the months of October and November 2005. Elevations ranged from sea level to ~300 feet (0 - 91 m) in the city and up to 3,000 feet (914 m) in the San Gabriel Mountains. The weather has varied considerably this Fall, with temperatures ranging from 60 - 85° F (16 - 29° C) during the day and 40 - 50° F (4 - 10° C) at night. We also experienced three Santa Ana events, where high winds and high temperatures (up to 100° F / 38° C) are common throughout most of the Southern California region. Most days were warm, sunny and cloudless. Lately cooler temperatures have encouraged the development of a thick marine layer (low clouds) which often persists until mid to late afternoon.

Field Test:

Below are the detailed descriptions of the DeLorme Earthmate® GPS LT-20 GPS receiver and Street Atlas USA 2006 program. However, feel free to skip to the summary to get the short version of the test results.

As mentioned in the Initial Report, I live in the black hole of telecommunications. I still cannot get the Earthmate® GPS LT-20 receiver - or my Magellan SporTrak Pro GPS receiver - to pick up any satellites from my house. I attribute this to my geographic location and not to the product itself. However, I have had problems with initial satellite acquisition with the Earthmate® GPS LT-20 receiver Several times I have booted up the laptop, started the Street Atlas USA 2006 program and clicked on the "Start GPS" icon on the menu bar and have driven halfway (or in some cases, all the way) to my destination before it starts working. A few times the Earthmate® GPS LT-20 receiver never did start up. I tried trouble shooting the device per the Street Atlas USA 2006 programs help files by unplugging and replugging in the receiver with no success. I am not sure if the problem lies with the receiver itself or the USB port on my laptop. What I can rule out is cloud cover, trees, canyons and other items that typically restrict a GPS receiver's ability to receive data from the satellites.

I found it helpful to create routes and do other functions on my PC, then transfer the files to my laptop. One of the first things I did was to import my waypoints created with my Magellan SporTrak Pro GPS receiver into the program. I had some difficulty in importing my waypoints from a text file, but this was mostly due to the fact that I didn't have it set up the way the program wanted it: latitude (degrees.minutes), longitude (degrees.minutes), label (My House), and symbol type (optional). A minor thing, but it required that I change all of the latitudes and longitudes from degrees & minutes (ie, 34° 13.057') to decimal degrees (ie, 34.21756). The program imported nearly all of the points correctly. A few seemed a bit off, and one point on Sand Key, Florida was roughly 267.3 feet/ 81 m (as calculated by the program) off the beach and in the water. Oops. Global warming/sea level rise and the recent hurricanes are probably not to blame for this error, and I know I was on dry land when I took the reading with my Magellan GPS.

Location of the waypoint collected in July 2004 with my Magellan SporTrak Pro GPS receiver and imported into the Street Atlas USA 2006 program. (click here to enlarge) © 2005 Thales Navigation, Inc (www.magellangps.com/en/ <http://www.magellangps.com/en/>) SporTrak Pro GPS receiver® © 2004 DeLorme (www.delorme.com <http://www.delorme.com>) Street Atlas USA ®

Next I created my address book. There are two ways to get addresses into the address book: input them yourself or import them from a text file. I imported mine from a text file. This was a bit of a process, though. First I had to open up my PDA's address book program, select the addresses I wanted to export, and export them to a text file. Next, within the Street Atlas USA 2006 program, go to the Find tab and click on the address book icon. The DeLorme Address Book dialog box opens up. Click on Import and insure that all of the data is going to be input into the correct fields via pull-down menus. Then click OK. If all has gone well (and it should), all of your addresses get imported into the address book AND a little red diamond will appear on the map next to all of the addresses the program was able to locate. Nifty. Within the address book itself is a column entitled "located?". If the program was able to locate the address, it will note so in this column by letting the user know if it was located via the address, street name, ZIP code, or not located at all. For those address entries located by ZIP code or not located at all, check the address; the street name could be misspelled, or the ZIP code wrong, etc.

There are two problems/limitations to the address book. One, I had a few addresses that I knew were correct, but the program couldn't find them. Two, there can only be a maximum of 200 address book entries. Not good if you have a lot of friend and family!

Finally, I did three test routes: One from our house to my husband's cousin's house in Anaheim (primarily because we can never remember which street to turn on to get to her house), one from our house to Millard Canyon in Altadena and one from our house to Huntington Hospital. In each case I already knew how to get to each location.

First, for cousin Lily's house, I created a start route point for my house and end route point at her address, then clicked "calculate". The program created a route to her house which I then saved. Interestingly, it calculated a route that I would not have thought of. The next day I had to travel to her house for a Pampered Chef party and used the route the program had created for me. Was it any quicker? Not really. But it was an easier route that the one we had been using.

Route number two was from my house to Millard Canyon. Again, I used my house address as a start route point, and had to manually locate the Millard Canyon Campground end route point myself as I could not locate it using the Find feature, and clicked "calculate". After the route was calculated I again saved the route. Again, the program calculated a route that I would not have taken. As to whether it was quicker or not would depend upon the time of day; part of the calculated route included a stretch of the I-210 freeway, which can be full of traffic depending upon the time of day.

The final test route was from my house to Huntington Hospital in Pasadena. I know many routes to get to the hospital, as I've been going to their Gestational Diabetes Dietitian once a month for the past nine months. Still, I used my house address as a start route point and let the program find the Hospital and create the route using the "shortest" setting. Again, the program created a route that was different from any of the ones I've used in the past. The only problem was where the program put the end route point: the program "finds" these points based upon the physical address, which, especially in large complexes like hospitals, many not be exactly where you want to go. I deleted the program's end point and created a new one by right clicking on the correct location and selecting "Create Route" and "Set as Finish", and clicked "calculate" and "shortest" again. The route calculated only changed at the end of the route to accommodate for the new end route location point.

When I decided to test the route I did not start at my house; I had to run an errand first and thus started the route and the GPS tracking from that point (see black line in image below). I was pleased to note that the GPS receiver initialized very quickly from the shopping center's parking lot. I backtracked as close to my house as possible and began the route from there. The route calculated by the Street Atlas 2006 program took me through some very small, narrow side streets in the city of San Marino. San Marino has some pricey real-estate (on par with that of Beverly Hills) so it was fun to look at all of the mansions. There were few stop signs (a plus) - at least in the beginning. As I crossed from the city of San Marino and into the city of Pasadena, the situation changed. I encountered numerous stop signs and a lot of turns (as in, go straight for a block or two, turn right, go a block, turn right, etc.). In addition, this "shortest" route had to cross several major streets, at rush hour, where I had to stop at a stop sign and wait for traffic to clear. The only true error I encountered was on Arroyo Parkway. The program had calculated the route to have me take a street called Filmore west from Arroyo Parkway over to Fair Oaks Blvd. One used to be able to do this until the Metrorail Line was constructed about a year ago. Filmore now does not go all the way through from Arroyo Parkway to Fair Oaks Blvd. A minor error, one that I'm certain that DeLorme and other mapping companies will correct as they get new data to update their databases, but one that underscores the point that these routes should not be taken as the absolute truth. The user needs to be aware that they may need to change their planned route due to unexpected conditions. Once I successfully reached the Hospital, I pulled over to stop the GPS tracking, save the GPS Log and map file, and shut down my laptop. Mission completed!

The "shortest" route to Huntington Hospital as calculated by the program. The orange line is the route created by the program, the black line is the actual route I took (imported from the GPS tracking data). (click here to enlarge) © 2004 DeLorme (www.delorme.com <http://www.delorme.com>) Street Atlas USA ®

The "quickest" route to Huntington Hospital as calculated by the program. The orange line is the route created by the program, the black line is the actual route I took (imported from the GPS tracking data). (click here to enlarge) © 2004 DeLorme (www.delorme.com <http://www.delorme.com>) Street Atlas USA ®

The "quickest" route to Huntington Hospital as calculated by the program using the via points I specified. The orange line is the route created by the program, the red line is the actual route I took earlier and imported from the GPS tracking data. (click here to enlarge) © 2004 DeLorme (www.delorme.com <http://www.delorme.com>) Street Atlas USA ®		The "shortest" route to Huntington Hospital as calculated by the program using the via points I specified. The orange line is the route created by the program, the red line is the actual route I took earlier and imported from the GPS tracking data. (click here to enlarge) © 2004 DeLorme (www.delorme.com <http://www.delorme.com>) Street Atlas USA ®

My preferred route to Huntington Hospital as calculated by the program using the via points I specified and creating the route according to the correct method. The orange line is the route created by the program, the red line is the actual route I took earlier and imported from the GPS tracking data. (click here to enlarge) © 2004 DeLorme (www.delorme.com <http://www.delorme.com>) Street Atlas USA ®

In testing I have discovered that the speed, heading and tracking functions of the GPS receiver appears to match reality, or, at the very least, they agree with my Jeep's speedometer and my sense of reckoning. A few times the program has me moving off of the road or on the wrong side of the road. Overall, however, the program does a pretty good job in matching the data on the map with reality. The only problem that I have encountered is the location of my house. I had input my address in the program's address book and had the program locate my house based upon address. Then, while driving home with the GPS receiver running I noticed that where it had me located in my driveway was not in the same location where the address book had located my house. The Earthmate® GPS LT-20 GPS receiver had placed my house too far to the north than where it should be, about 123 feet or two lot widths (we have narrow, long lots on our street). I believe that this is due to my house's location and the problems I have with getting any sort of communication device to work, especially since I cannot get the GPS receiver to initialize in my house or driveway.

Overall, I like the Earthmate® GPS receiver and Street Atlas USA 2006 software. I have found the Route function and the auto-location of the addresses in the address book to be quite helpful. I also like the fact that I can export data to my PDA.

In my initial report I posed several questions I wished to answer. Below are the same questions and my results thus far.

1. Compatibility with my laptop / PC / and PDA
   
   • Will it run on my laptop, or is my laptop too old? Yes, the program runs on my laptop, but I did have trouble with the installation process.
     
   • Can I use the Earthmate® GPS LT-20 unit on my PC as well? Yes and no. Theoretically it will run, but I don't get reception from most telecommunications devices at my house, including the Earthmate GPS.
     
   • Delorme makes a version of their Topo USA software for PDAs; will I be able to export data from my laptop to my PDA? There are two ways to export data to your PDA: The the Handheld Export (found on the Handheld Export tab) and the Exchange Wizard (found in the Map Files tab). The Handheld Export feature ONLY exports maps; routes, waypoints, etc. are NOT transferred from this tab. I found this extremely frustrating. I would select the area on the screen to export, export it to my PDA, and open it in the Street Atlas USA 2005 Handheld program, only to discover that the waypoints and routes that I wanted did not get exported with it. Grrrr. To export these features the user will need to do so using the Export Wizard .I really like the Exchange Wizard as it allows me to transfer data to and from my PDA, which has the Street Atlas USA 2005 Handheld installed on it. Exchanges are fairly simple and I've not had a problem with data corruption, etc. I did have a few trials and errors to work out the process in the beginning. It's not as user friendly as I'd like it to be.
2. Map Accuracy
   
   • Are the road/trails in the correct place? Yes and no. The roads are there, but as straight lines. Thus if the road has lots of curves, those curves do not show up on the map. My main gripe - as it was in my reviews of the DeLorme Topo USA v3.0 program - is that trails that have been in existence for at least 100 years do not appear on the map.
     
   • Are landmarks / geographic features in the right place? So far no noticeable errors.
     
   • Will it be able to direct me to where I want to go correctly? Yes, but it helps if you create the route correctly first!
3. Map Resolution
   
   • Is the built-in map detailed enough to assess where you are visually? Yes.
     
   • How is the resolution? Can you see everything you need to? So far so good.
4. Waypoints / Routes
   
   • How easy is it to store waypoints? I had a bit of trouble importing the waypoints I already had and figuring out how to export them from the Street Atlas USA 2006 program to my PDA.
     
   • Do the waypoints show up where they are supposed to? I.E., at the waterfall, not several hundred feet from the waterfall. With the exception of the Sand Key, Florida point, all of the other waypoints appear to be accurate.
     
   • Can I add comments to the waypoints - examples: this is a cool spot, don't go here again, or geologic information (geologic unit, etc.). Yes, quite easily with the Add MapNote feature.
     
   • Can you see all nearby routes, or only one route at a time? I haven't really had the opportunity to test this yet, but thus far it appears that you can only see one route at a time UNLESS you import the routes using the Draw Tab.
     
   • How easy is it for you to pick out waypoints and routes from contour lines, roads and trails? The routes created by the program appear in orange with a red outline and are thus quite easy to distinguish from roads, etc. However, when routes or GPS tracks are imported via the Draw Tab, the default is a thin black line. This line can be modified to different thicknesses and colors, but the default can be difficult to see.
5. Data Acquisition
   
   • How long does it take to establish where you are? That depends. I've had trouble getting the GPS to initialize from my house, but I've not had any trouble from other locales.
     
   • How well does the unit work in challenging places such as canyons, remote areas, open water, my house, etc.? So far the only difficulty I've had is from my house. In the future I will test it's ability in more challenging areas such as canyons, etc.
6. Use
   
   • How easy is it to use? Some features are very easy to use (GPS tracking, looking up addresses) and others are not very user-friendly at all (exporting data to PDA). I'd rate it as moderately easy to use.
     
   • Can I find all of the features that I need in a timely fashion? Thus far I have not had a problem locating places.

Most of my testing will involve navigation and trip planning. Most of the trail I use for dayhiking are well established and maps are generally not needed. Trails in the Southern California mountains are fairly well maintained, and range in difficulty from moderate to very difficult. Trails on and along the coast range from concrete to sand to dirt. The Los Angeles Harbor waters that are fairly shallow (10 - 15 meters / 3 - 4.5 feet) and mostly calm; outside the breakwater, water depths vary considerably depending upon location and the wave conditions vary from calm to stormy. Weather in Southern California varies greatly with location and season. In general, temperatures range from 55 - 70 degrees F (13 - 21 degrees C) in the winter. Typically, Southern California gets very little rain in the summer, and light to moderate amounts of rain in the winter.

I plan on using Delorme's Earthmate® GPS LT-20 unit to see how accurate it is in real-time position location and navigation. As a part of my testing I will take Delorme's Earthmate® GPS LT-20 unit out with me on the drive to dayhikes, and when I do fieldwork out in the San Joaquin Hills, Santa Ana and Santa Monica Mountains. We also have a couple camping trips along the Central California coast planed in January. Additionally, I would like to use the unit on my required four hour oceanographic cruise in the Los Angeles Harbor and surrounding areas for my Oceanography labs (http://www.calstatela.edu/faculty/sleyva/index.htm). The Earthmate® GPS LT-20 unit will be used primarily to navigate to the trailhead, and to confirm that where it says I am is really where I am. As laptops generally are not taken on hikes, it and the Earthmate® GPS LT-20 unit will stay (hopefully) safe in my Jeep.

Fieldwork - Locating geologic units on a map is a key part of being a geologist. Knowing where you are stratigraphically speaking is just as important as knowing where you are topographically. Delorme's Earthmate® GPS LT-20 unit is supposed to work with Delorme's Topo USA software. Thus, I will use the unit to drive to various field sites and check the accuracy of my stations in the Topo USA program.

Oceanographic Cruise - Using Delorme's Earthmate® GPS LT-20 unit in this situation is the most promising. As a part of my Oceanography lab we go out on a four-hour oceanographic cruise to gather data such as salinity, temperature, etc. We go out to basically the same places each time, but the exact location is slightly different with each cruise. I have wanted to create a database for each station including the lat/long, salinity, temperature, etc. values to show student how the values change from season to season and year to year. I plan to use Delorme's Earthmate® GPS LT-20 unit to gather lat/long data as we are conducting the tests, and download the data into Topo USA to create a map with all of the stations. Finally, I plan on letting my students use the unit for experience in how to gather data.