Wanting to spice up my life I decided to take the train to Stocksmoor to test my newly acquired Acer tablet computer, loaded with Google Maps and a Speedometer app.
On the outward journey (Sheffield to Huddersfield) I couldn't get a GPS signal so that put a damper on that one.
Got off at Stocksmoor, walked down to Thunder Bridge, up Dam Hill to visit a friend who wasn't in, up Cote Close and along Long Lane (a nature trail) and along some fields to Shepley, GPS was useful here.
Got GPS & Wi-Fi at Shepley (which surprised me) and was able to use the National Rail app to get the time of the next train to Sheffield and even which platform it was on (50/50 chance of that being right).
The screen is hard to read outdoors so if you were on Shepley station about lunchtime and saw a bloke staring intently into some foliage it was me trying to get some shade to be able to read my tablet.
Once on the train GPS was OK, took a while to find it initially, but once it was latched on to the satellites it kept track very well.
Because there was no Wi-Fi on the train the app relied on the stored maps, which were pretty low resolution until I got to Sheffield. To get decent resolution throughout a journey I reckon you'd have to look at the maps and zoom in to the level you require before setting out. Which is why the Sheffield map was at a higher resolution.
It even kept track in some of the shorter tunnels.
Wi-Fi re-appeared at all the stations on the route, and it would have been nice if the maps were topped up then, maybe the train didn't wait at the station long enough?
The speedo app I used was "GPS Speedometer" from Linxmap, and seemed to work well, although I had nothing to compare it against.
I was using BT Wi-Fi hotspots, being on BT broadband I have free access to BT-FON and public BT Wi-Fi.
On the outward journey (Sheffield to Huddersfield) I couldn't get a GPS signal so that put a damper on that one.
Got off at Stocksmoor, walked down to Thunder Bridge, up Dam Hill to visit a friend who wasn't in, up Cote Close and along Long Lane (a nature trail) and along some fields to Shepley, GPS was useful here.
Got GPS & Wi-Fi at Shepley (which surprised me) and was able to use the National Rail app to get the time of the next train to Sheffield and even which platform it was on (50/50 chance of that being right).
The screen is hard to read outdoors so if you were on Shepley station about lunchtime and saw a bloke staring intently into some foliage it was me trying to get some shade to be able to read my tablet.
Once on the train GPS was OK, took a while to find it initially, but once it was latched on to the satellites it kept track very well.
Because there was no Wi-Fi on the train the app relied on the stored maps, which were pretty low resolution until I got to Sheffield. To get decent resolution throughout a journey I reckon you'd have to look at the maps and zoom in to the level you require before setting out. Which is why the Sheffield map was at a higher resolution.
It even kept track in some of the shorter tunnels.
Wi-Fi re-appeared at all the stations on the route, and it would have been nice if the maps were topped up then, maybe the train didn't wait at the station long enough?
The speedo app I used was "GPS Speedometer" from Linxmap, and seemed to work well, although I had nothing to compare it against.
I was using BT Wi-Fi hotspots, being on BT broadband I have free access to BT-FON and public BT Wi-Fi.
