I have the following Navigation CD's available for sale that I received with my 2002 S55. They are Bosch rel. 7/01 Q 6 46 085-95. I'm keeping CD #8 for myself and selling the rest. Price will be $35 each.

Comand Navigation System Digital Road Map

Disc 1: California & Nevada USA **PENDING**
Disc 2: Northwest / Southwest USA **PENDING**
Disc 3: North Central USA
Disc 4: South Central USA **SOLD**
Disc 5: Midwest USA
Disc 6: Ohio Valley USA
Disc 7: New England USA
Disc 8: NOT AVAILABLE
Disc 9: South East USA **SOLD**
Disc 11: Western Canada
Disc 12: Eastern Canada

E-mail me if you are interested or have other questions!

Thanks!
Dave
daw@jhu.edu

 

If I hd a car with navigation I would buy some, but alas my Cclass didn't come with one. At least Benz uses CD's instead of GPS, I hate that big brother stuff.

 

Talking about navigation. I was told the other day, if you download Google Earth, you can get a CD to following someone on your computer. However I don't believe this as I know a bit about GPS and I don't think it can be done. Also, al lot of those pix on there are old. When I found my house the big sign I have on the lawn MY WIFE IS DIVORCING ME, BECAUSE I AM HANDICAPPED, wasn't there, but she did tear it down kinda quickly.

 

How do you think it works without the GPS? I'd like to hear you explain that one. How do you suppose the car figures out where it's at without using the GPS?

The CDs hold the map data and navigation software. The navigation software gets geo coordinates from the GPS and displays the appropriate map with an indicator of where you are on the map.

I don't know if it's Google, but you can get GPS tracking equipment and put it in a car your kid drives in order to track it. You don't need extremelly detailed maps or even up-to-the-minute maps to pinpoint a location. The GPS will tell you if the car is in the middle of a field. It's the location (coordinates) that are important and not the details of the maps.

 

I agree you don't need detail maps, you can buy a simple tracking device on many website with a receiver, but I just made a statement. I see you meds need to be adjusted again. I have a very simpl Garmin GPS and I can track one of my cars, when it is out with the software you can download, legal as long as I am the registered owner of the vehicle.

 

Most GPS maps look like the paper maps many of us still use.

What do you mean when you say your Garmin unit is legal as long as you're the registered owner of the vehicle? You completely lost me on this. Garmin has no requirement as far as I know. I have six Garmin GPS units. Must be my meds. Please explain.

You didn't explain how M-B can have navigation without GPS. Go ahead.

 

They must be using a metallic window tint. That would block the GPS reception.

A simplified description, which is all I can offer: The GPS satellites constantly transmit a signal that includes the time. The GPS unit in the car receives that data and compares it to the time it received it. From the difference in time and the known speed of the signal, it calculates the distance to the satellite. By doing this with multiple satellites (minimum of three), the GPS unit in the car can triangulate the car's location and translate it into longitude and latitude coordinates.

With four or more satellites' data, the GPS unit can calculate altitude. With the longitude, latitude, and altitude determined, the unit can calculate the car's speed, bearing, track, trip distance, distance to destination, sunrise and sunset times and some more stuff.

Once all of the information is determined, the car's navigation system uses a cell phone to contact whomever it is programmed to call with the information.

A common misconception is that the GPS is a communication system. The satellites only transmit time data. They have no way of receiving data.

 

Still a non-tech description: Obviously, there is a "tracking system" needed that includes the GPS unit with cell phone in the car and a home PC with the related tracking software and a modem. The system's cell phone is programmed to call your modem at home and give it the GPS data in digital form. Probably, the home PC can intiate the call and request data, I dunno. That makes more sense. The tracking software on your PC then grabs the data and translates it into human-usable data in the form of a location shown on a map for the car you're tracking. If you're getting at how you can do this with your M-B, I'm sure you can't. You need to have a tracking system installed.

I think M-B has a tracking system, though, that works like OnStar. OnStar uses a GPS unit and cell phone to offer concierge services and emergency services notification. You can call an OnStar rep and just talk. You can ask for directions for the nearest restaurant. If the car's air bag deploys, it calls to notify them and they call emergency services in your area. The system gives GPS data when contact is made, so OnStar reps know where you are. If you lock the keys in your car, you can also call OnStar on your cell phone or from a phone booth and get the doors unlocked. Stuff like that.

A certain Polak may come on here and say that cell phone coverage isn't 100%. We already know that, but he likes to interject irrelevant info. It makes him feel real important. GPS signals are also not 100% reliable. When you drive in tight mountain canyons or in cities with tall buildings, you're likely to lose the cell phone signal and the GPS signal (just like you do with metallic window tint). Certain GPS units overcome this with "dead reckoning" and by using a ground-based GPS supplementary system called WAAS, but although this greatly improves reliability, it isn't 100% either. And, WAAS is available only in larger cities.