Rotherham Harriers and Athletics Club

Trail Running Section

Rowbotham's Round Rotherham
through the South Yorkshire Forest
(The area designated as The South Yorkshire Forest is mainly rural land rather than a vast area of woodland)

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The RRR route on a SatNav - competitors and cars!

Grid references, GPS data for conventional trail-type GPS units

Comparison of Trail and SatNav systems


Trail GPS units (mainly for competitors)

The basic requirements are for a GPS unit with a suitable display, that can be connected to a computer to upload the route information (from my website), with suitable software for on computer (which may come with the GPS unit). The GPS unit needs to have an adequate battery life, if you are going to be out for (say) 10 hours, or have replaceable batteries.

What you consider a suitable display is largely a matter of preference.

A basic GPS unit would be uploaded with a route, and would display straight lines between waypoints (loaded from the website). The track that you actually follow would display as a ‘breadcrumb’ track, with (typically) a solid triangle at your present position. So you would be able to see if you need to turn, at a waypoint, but between the waypoints you may be quite a way from the straight line, for example if there are no turnings but the path is not straight but has a long curve. I have used a Garmin GPS12 successfully on this type of route, but only as a back-up. The Garmin Forerunner watches have a similar type of display, assuming you have one that can be connected to the computer, but their big disadvantage is battery life. 13 hours for old models, boostable (see later) but 6 or 7 for newer ones, and need to be recharged on a cradle.

The unit I generally use is a Garmin GPSMAP 60CSx, with the GB topographic map, showing roads, paths, streams, railways and contours. If you are unsure of your position, and where to turn (for example) the map display provides confidence. Note that this map does not display many man-made features, (buildings, etc).  Ideal for walking the Scottish mountains, and urban streets, but maybe not so good for the countryside.  The display shows a blue breadcrumb for the track followed , with a solid triangle showing current location. I use rechargeable batteries, and may need to change them once in the event. The GPSMAP with GB Topo map can give visual turn-by-turn navigation instructions, as with a SatNav, albeit silent, when you are on the road.

The new Garmin GPSMAP 62CSx, with the GB Discovery map (based on full OS mapping) is a step forwards,  but is not cheap.

 GPS routes, tracks and waypoints in various formats for Garmin, Magellan and other GPS brands using inter alia GPS Utility  mostly updated for 2011

To clear your GPS of Round Rotherham waypoints, delete waypoints with the selected symbols of Flag (possibly blue, or golf course).

If you require a different GPS data format, contact me, Henry Marston (include a Subject and Body text - unexplained attachments may be treated as spam),  and I will try to generate it for you (using GPSU, GPS Babel, etc).

Sat Nav route for supporters / relay team members

Supporters with a SatNav  If you are driving round as a supporter, or fellow relay team member, the Route description (Supporter's cars) has a description of the optimum route (not always chosen by a SatNav) with postcodes for the event centre and all checkpoints.  In summary:

Event Centre: S63 7EW  Unnamed Road
Grange: S61 2RB  Unnamed Road (off Droppingwell Road)
Treeton: S60 5PU Washfield Crescent (No 9)
Harthill: S26 7YB  Pryor Mede (opposite Recreation Grounds)
Woodsetts: S81 8AT  Gildingwells Road (No 15)
Firbeck: S81 8LH Salt Hill (track on right at corner)
Maltby: S66 7RX Church Lane (No 6) – ignore comment of it being in Ravenfield
Old Denaby: DN12 4LF Denaby Lane (No 4)


 GPS route on a PDA (or car-type Sat Nav) 

Competitors:  Memory Map software enables OS maps to be displayed on a computer screen, with routes, etc overlaid.  So if you have a computer, you can take the map with you.  If the map is to display your current position, you need a GPS unit connected to the computer.  What sort of computer can you consider carrying round the course?  Essentially a small PDA, without a hard drive, or possibly some kind of mobile phone or ipad.  Various PDAs are available, but one common type with a built in GPS unit is a car-type SatNav unit!  Essentially a SatNav is a small computer, which in some cases can be loaded with alternative software.

Essentially you replace the road map usually offered on your SatNav with the PDA version of MemoryMap plus OS maps and an overlay of the route.   The procedure to be described takes a SatNav and replaces the memory card with one carrying (a) OS Landranger and Explorer maps (b) a programme for displaying them and (c) the RRR route as an overlay for the map. 

You will not get turn-by-turn instructions - you need to keep watching the screen.

Examples of display

1:1 000 000 Route Planner map - Overview of route  NOTE position marker to NW of R of Rotherham.  Flags indicate checkpoints

1:250 00 Road Atlas - general location  NOTE position marker to SW of R of Rotherham

1:50 000 Landranger, showing start of first stage, flags at start and finish

Final stage on landranger map

 

1:25 000 Explorer - On the trail (protective film reduces clarity of photos), menu hidden in lower picture at Harthill checkpoint

The new Micklebring section (it looks clearer on the F&H!)

Examples of Foehn & Hirsch 4.3" widescreen model display, for RRR. One picture shows the loop before Rother Valley park at large scale, but smaller scale from Micklebring to Firsby Hall – readily adjustable on the route. The blue line is the straight line route joining waypoints, as displayed on the F&H. When actually there, the current position is also marked. Of course, the display can only be as up-to-date as the OS map - not much good for showing route updates arising from landscaping work! The loop on the approach to Rother Valley park (enlarged) - note scale shows 200m rather than 1 km

Better, you could use an OS Memory Map Adventurer.  These come with pre-installed OS maps (make sure you get one with the FULL OS landranger map, at least).  Various models are available, with touch screen, and (pretty well) waterproof.  The one potential problem is that battery life is about 8 hours, although it may be possible to use a similar back-up system described below.

Reproduced from Routeplanner® , RoadAtlas® ,  Landranger®  Map 111 and Explorer® Maps 278 and 279 1:25000 scale by permission of Ordnance Survey® on behalf of The Controller of Her Majesty’s Stationery Office. ©Crown copyright 2000  All rights reserved. Licence number 100047659.

The process of loading alternative software onto SatNavs is covered on the Simple SatNav discussion website. 

 

In principle, what you need to do is as follows:

  1. Obtain a PDA that uses the WinCE operating system (the mobile version of Windows), with a GPS detector, for example a hackable car-type SatNav such as the Foehn & Hirsch 4.3" widescreen model available for around £50. People have also had success with the equivalent Navigo.  Warning: I think you would find that a TomTom (for example) is not hackable (you probably can’t get at the operating system).

  2. The navigation software is on a SD (or SDHC) memory card, so you replace the supplied card with a new one on which you have loaded appropriate OS maps, memory map software and the route overlay. The maps and software are downloadable from the web - see later - and I can provide the overlay. See below. The SatNav will also show the current position, but may not show where you have been (your route).  You will understand from this that the use of a SatNav is not a ‘switch-on and go’ method, and requires some computer dexterity.

  3. You need to protect the unit from rain (GPS units are fully waterproof, but SatNavs are not!)

  4. You will need an additional power supply. You don’t have to carry a car battery! You will need a battery pack that will provide a USB-equivalent power supply, typically 4 AA rechargeable batteries and a mini-USB connector. Commercial units are available with rechargeable Li batteries.  The back-up power supply also needs protection from rain.

F&H with home-made external power supply (with NiMH cells)

Foehn & Hirsch 4.3" Version 1 Sat Nav - UK & EU,
Lane Navigation, Postcode Search, TFT flat Touch Screen -
ALSO plays MP3 & MP4
One source:
http://www.ebuyer.com/product/167473 
(This model is apparently discontinued but you will see new one named F&H GP436, but may be out of stock)
Alternative:
MyGuide 4.3" 4228   e.g.  http://www.ebuyer.com/product/165376
The (almost) identical Navigon unit

The PortaPow USB Battery Pack 3400 mAh, has been available as a Buy-it-now item on ebay at £22.50
or see http://www.portablepowersupplies.co.uk/usbliionbatterypack.htm
Alternatives:  Kensington battery pack (1800mAh) or the Power Monkey (2200mAh).

I bought the Premium PortaPow USB Battery Pack 5000 mAh, shown attached to an alternative device (on the left), for extra capacity, but around £40.  In my test with freshly charged F&H and PortaPow units, the PortaPow showed full charge for about 9 hours (3 solid bars), going to discharged in an hour, but the F&H continued to workfor a further 3 hours. The picture shows that you can connect to the mains and recharge a device and Portapow batteries at the same time.   Apparently the capacity of the PortaPow increases with initial use.  Thus, the combination should be sufficient for the RRR, if you switch on when required rather than keeping it on all the time, e.g. switch on once you are no longer in a large group.

 

So you have an F&H 4.3" widescreen V1 or similar.
Now you need the software for the off-road maps.

The software and maps for the Round Rotherham will fit on a 1Gb SD card (or even a 512 Mb SD card).  The software suggested provides a menu so that you can use the F&H navigation software to get from home to the Event Centre, then switch to the MemMap software on the route, without having to change SD card.  If you want to add other maps, you would probably like a larger SD card.   Cards of 4 Gb or larger are SDHC (high capacity) cards.  Despite what it says in the manual, 16 Gb cards have been tested and do work.  However, you do need a card reader for SDHC cards if you are goint to load the card outside the SatNav unit (some card readers only recognise SD cards)

Three downloads are required
a) the menu.  The top level provides the top of a tree structure, with folders for each navigation system, e.g. MemMap and F&H.  Download Zip file
Note: the on-screen menu is in the mobilenavigator folder and the program is called mobilenavigator.exe  By doing this, the F&H picks up the menu without the need to edit the registry of the unit - a task to be avoided if possible.  The MemoryMap software is in the MemMap folder; with a different PDA, you may only need to extract and install this folder.

b) maps.  These are large files, many megabytes, which can be downloaded from the Web, from the Simple SatNav discussion website and linked pages, or from rapidshare.com.   

Suggested maps:
Os 1 1M Uk Route Planner For Memory Map.qct
Os 250k Uk Road Atlas For Memory Map.qct
OS Landranger Maps For Memory Map Area 08.qct (plus  Os Landranger Maps For Memory Map Area 06.qct , as the route comes within 150 m of the southern edge)  Note: The landranger maps are available in a single file, os50_gb.qct.  This is a 3 Gb file, but will not load in the F&H - you need to have the 1:50 maps in segments
Memory Map Os 25k 278 Sheffield And Barnsley.qct and Memory Map Os 25k 279 Doncaster.qct  
Ideally, these would be merged using the PC version of MemoryMap to avoid having to switch maps on the run (File menu, Maps...., or press in one place on screen to select maps at cursor)

I have extracted a 9 Mbyte extract of the 1:50k maps and 47 Mbyte extract of the 1:25k maps covering the route, and little more.

In principle, the maps can be anywhere on the SD card; I would suggest either the root directory or the MemMap folder

c) the overlay for this event.  This is a file that has to be copied into the MemMap folder.  It must be called userdata-Memory-Map-OS-5.mmo.  Keep a backup as it is actively modified (added to) by the program.  The Zip file contains 2 copies of this file, named userdata-Memory-Map-OS-5.mmo and RRR_userdata-Memory-Map-OS-5.mmo, already in the MemMap folder.  Updates will be provided to reflect route changes.  Updates will be downloadable by right clicking on the following links and saving the target: userdata-Memory-Map-OS-5.mmo and RRR_userdata-Memory-Map-OS-5.mmo

For the Adventurer, upload RoundRotherhamRoute.mmo to the User Data folder on the device (click on link and Save File As.../Save Link As...)

One additional setting to check:

In Memory Map, choose Menu / GPS / Settings option, set as follows:
    Manufacturer:   NMEA
    Port:   COM7
    Baud:   38400
    Disable auto power-off:  ticked

(It's the COM7 that is critical)

Additional info...

The runtime file for the Navigate (sat nav) button on your sat nav is the follow:
SDcard:\\MobileNavigator\MobileNavigator.exe
If you have another brand of sat nav which runs Windows CE operating system and has a menu, then look on the sat nav SD card for the runtime file used by the sat nav software (tom tom etc).  If you rename the directory of the downloaded file and MobileNavigator.exe to be the same then it may work.

The MobileNavigator/config/GPS.ini file has set-up information for the unit

Disclaimer - all this is done at your risk :)  Happy to help share this stuff and help as much as possible but I can't be responsible if it doesn't work. 

The area is still under development, and will be expanded upon before the event. Contact me,  Henry Marston, if you are ready for the software and I haven't posted links - job in progress!

Comparison of Trail and SatNav systems
Feature Trail GPS (e.g. Garmin GPSMAP 60CSx) Sat Nav (e.g. F&H 4.3" WS)
Screen size 32x56 mm portrait, Track up (track direction to top, optional) 95x54 mm landscape, North up (North to top, fixed)
Map GB Topo map (shows roads, paths, water, rail, contours) e.g. Memory map using OS 1:25000 maps
Commands Press buttons Touch screen (need to avoid unintentional touching)
Screen in sun Screen clearly visible in sun (sun illuminates screen) Backlit, sun obscures display (shade needed)
Waterproofness High level of water resistance Poor (MM Adventurer is waterproof)
Battery NiMH or Alkaline batteries, life ~16 hr; can replace on run if necessary Internal Li battery, life c. 1 hour.  Needs external power supply via USB connector
(8 hr for MM Adventurer)
Memory Micro SD/SDHC cards to 4 Gb SD/SDHC card (16Gb tested)
     

The new Garmin GPSMAP 62Sx can be loaded with an OS 'Discovery' map - more details later

Further information and links to follow - if you are interested contact me, Henry Marston  

 

In principle, some of these fancy new phones should be capable of the task, but I have no experience. It depends on whether you can upload a route or track, and if the map is suitable. Weather protection would be essential, and battery life may be an issue.

Keep an eye on this Navigation pages for more information.   Obviously, the final GPS route files can only be supplied close to the day when the precise route has been finalised. As always, there are some uncertainties that need resolution.

Last update 12 October, 2011 by Henry Marston

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