Question about Civic EX Navigation

Hello,

I live in New England and for those of you who arent familar, we get alot of
cloudy, rainy, foggy and snowy weather. My experience with satellite TV,
Direct TV and XM Radio is that when it is anything but clear and sunny, the
reception is not so good. My questions are about the GPS Navigation that is
optional on the new Civic EX's. I have a few questions in case I consider
this as an option, because we all know the salesmen probably won't know the
answers.

1. How good is the reception with the GPS Navigation in adverse weather?

2. If there was a problem getting a GPS connection, could I still use the
navigation to use the onboard maps to try and navigate my own position?

3. How are the maps updated in terms of new roads and detours etc?

4. Is NAV traffic included in the Civic GPS Navigation?

Thanks,
Al

 

Last May I was in rainy southern England.
One rainy day I drove in a friends YR 2000 Land Rover with built in GPS.
It worked perfectly as he said it always has.

You would need the GPS working to determine your location.
It may give you the map without a GPS signal, better check the specific
GPS unit.For the following you need to investigate the specific GPS device.

Personally I would not get a vehicle with a built in GPS,
I will get a portable unit which I can take with me on trips to use in
rental cars or even for hiking & walking.

 

I live in New England and for those of you who arent familar, we get alot of

Bad weather, of any kind, will NOT affect XM. I can't speak to the
others.

Other things can affect it -- most notably obstructions such as
certain types of trees, buildings, etc. But I've had XM since 2001
and bad weather has, not once, affected my XM reception.

 

Actually it depends on where you live. XM is a combination of satellite
signal as well as terrestrial ground repeaters. If you live in an area with
ground repeaters you should never lose signal. If you live where there are
no repeaters you can lose signal in bad weather, dense tree cover and
tunnels.

 

Actually it depends on where you live. XM is a combination of satellite

I'm sorry, but this is incorrect.

Bad weather will NOT cause you to lose your XM signal. As to "dense
tree cover", it depends on what kinds of trees are involved. Some
cause no problem at all, while others can cause outages.

But the point is that bad weather does not interfere with XM,
regardless of whether you are in an area served by repeaters or not
(in my area, there are no repeaters).

Obviously, if you are stuck in a tunnel or under an overpass for more
than a few seconds (the time-diversity element will cover you for
about 4-5 secs), you often will lose signal.

But never due to bad weather.

 

DirecTV and XM are broadcast from geostationary satellites at the equator,
so the farther north you get, the lower the angle, so I suppose you
might have more trouble with that. I don't have any weather related
problems with DirecTV or XM Radio.

GPS uses several satellites and should be perfectly visible at latitudes
well north of New England.

 

We have a 97 signal on both of our DirecTiVo's, but during a heavy
thunderstorm, we get severe pixelization as well as complete loss of
signal. And too much snow on the little dish wipes it out completely.
I suppose snow wouldn't be much of an issue with an XM radio antenna.

As far as weather problems with Nav, I have never seen any problem
with the one in our Accord. Even if there was a temporary loss in
signal, the system would compensate for it like it does when you go
through a tunnel. I can't say enough good about that Nav system.

Dick

 

Satellite TV, that's true.

XM, that's not true at all. I've had XM for about 6 years now, and
weather has NEVER been an issue. EVER.