countertorque

I think the VSS wire supplies speed input to the navigation unit. I don't think it reports the position of the car. That's what the GPS does. The symptom you describe matches what my unit does when it is not getting good GPS reception. When it's not getting a fix, it will use whatever other information it has (speed, accelerometers, I'm not sure what else) to estimate what it thinks is happening. This is called "dead reckoning." It's not nearly as accurate and it gets worse the longer you go without a fix. The unit does not need VSS input if it has solid info from GPS. Can you

Actually, you need 3 for a 2D fix and 4 for a 3D fix because you're also solving for time. I didn't really understand that until I just looked it up (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gps). Receiving 1 or 2 sats doesn't do crap for you. You have too many unknowns to solve.

Mine started up in LA too. That must be the default location. It took mine about 2 hours to start navigating after install. 3 satellites is all you need for a fix. You need 4 to get elevation, in addition to lat and lon (I don't think the Z2 reports elevation). Anything in addition to that is gravy. Additional satellites above 4 may help to reduce error, I'm not sure.

I almost did not buy my Z2 because of threads like this on this message board. I have had my unit for 2 months in the CA bay area. I've used it to take trips to Tahoe and Oregon. I have not experienced any problems with routing. I have seen it take routes that I would not prefer, but never anything that would have been more than 1-2 minutes different in travel time. I have noticed it take some strange turns when rerouting very near a destination. But, in these cases, it's a difference of blocks, not miles. I wonder if part of this is a change in expectations with price. If I b

My installer agreed to install my unit with the bypass. However, he did express reservations. Based on our conversations, he decided that I wasn't stupid enough to try to watch movies while driving. I think having some grey hair and asking him to install the unit into a minivan helped my case

My GPS antenna is also under the dash and I've also noticed that my reception seems to vary day to day. In the same location (my driveway), with my vehicle pointed the same way, I'll get 1 orange satellite 1 day and 5 the next. I was suspecting that maybe my antenna was sliding around a bit, but so far I'm too lazy to check. As far as I know, GPS signal strength is not significantly affected by weather.

I've only had my unit a couple of weeks. But, I've been pleasantly suprised at how good the POI's are in the CA bay area. I did have trouble finding a nature reserve that we were looking for, but it has found 100% of everything else I've searched for. I agree that finding a POI is sometimes a matter of trial and error. Sometimes it helps to put in the city first. Other times, it's better to just search for the name without entering the city.

Wow, thanks for putting the effort into figuring out all of the buttons. Trying to decipher the auto/manual was making me crazy, so I gave up. I agree with your assessment of the good and bad. If I knew how bad the interface was, I probably would not have spent the money on this, but it is nice to able to throw some tracks on a thumb drive and let them play.

I got it installed with my system a couple of weeks ago. It's on EXT1. It does play MP3's off of my thumb drive. However, the controls are crappy. It will only show about 7 letters of the filename. I haven't been able to figure out how to get it to switch between tracks. I can get it to pause and I can get it to switch between folders on the drive. It doesn't show what folder it's in. So, you just have to cycle through to find what you want. It does seem to have several repeat modes.

Tmobile Motorola V195s - Transfer Contacts: 1 at a time - Calling: Works, no problems