F.A.Q. - In-Dash Navigation

A: 99% of the time this issue is caused by entering the off road navigation program twice. For an example, think of Windows when you double click a program. It takes a while to load up, so you double click it again and it opens two versions of the program. This is the same for our units - they will automatically load the last program running (street/off road) so when you turn it on just let it boot up. Failing that, when you exit one program to switch to another give it a second! One way to check if two versions of the program are running is to exit the program and if another version is also running behind that one, you will have to exit two programs. As the unit only has one GPS receiver, with two programs running it confuses the programs and one of them will be unable to retrieve GPS signal because it will already be in use.

A: All you need to do is to press either the "OK" or the "X" and that will exit that screen. From there, in the lower right corner there is a small white box with a red "X" in it -pressing this will exit Ozi and take you back to the main screen. If you are having trouble selecting the small icons, use the stylus included with your unit. From there, press the "Setup" button and this will allow you to choose which program you want to use: VMS off road or Ozi Explorer. We recommend VMS Off Road as it is very easy to use and does come with a number of high quality maps. You can add more maps, specific to your area later on if you wish.

Ozi Explorer is written by a completely separate company to VMS. Some people prefer to use Ozi Explorer, so we load a demo version on the units so customers have a choice of program. If you did wish to use Ozi Explorer in full, a registration code will need to be purchased from Ozi Explorer. Without registration, the program will stop tracking every 20-30 minutes and come up with a message saying that you are running the demo version and a watermark will show in the background.

A: Included on the 7500 upgrade/card is new NAVTEQ street navigation software. This software is much more user friendly, features many options that can be easily customised to suit your preferences and includes upgraded street maps that have vastly improved coverage of both metro and country areas. There is also 3 years of free map updates for the street navigation (these would usually cost you about $100 per update). There is also improvements to the off road navigation software and more off road maps - over 2700 off road maps are also included, with excellent coverage of the Victorian high country (much in 50k or 25k), NSW topographic maps offering excellent coverage of NSW (pretty much all of NSW) in a combination of 25k, 50k and 100k maps, Queensland topographic maps that offers great coverage of areas of Queensland and WA topo that gives fantastic coverage of south western WA and Geraldton areas. Along with Westprint and Gregorys touring maps, that have greats points of interest on the maps. Also included is " On The Road - Free Campsites " that includes over 800 tried and tested free campsites Australia wide. This is all loaded on a 32Gb class 10 SD card offering loads of extra storage and very fast read/write times.

A: To update your street navigation maps, you will need to go to NaviExtras.com and download their program “Naviextras toolbox” (note: the only supported operating systems at time of writing are Windows XP (SP2) and Windows 7) to download and install the software on your computer. You will then have to create an account on NaviExtras.com and add your device via the web interface. From there you will be able to go back and follow the prompts from Naviextras toolbox.

A: Naviextras toolbox (software used to update the street maps) is compatible with Windows XP SP2 and Windows 7 only.

A: Whilst it is possible to plug the unit into a Mac and have it read the file structure on the card, neither the Naviextras toolbox nor the VMS map converter will work on a Mac. It might be possible to run a windows emulator on a Mac to run and install the map converter and Naviextras toolbox, however this is not something that VMS has tried nor supports. There are a number of emulator programs: Parallels and Bootcamp to name a few, however they may charge a fee.

A: This mostly occurs when the speed warning setting (“warn when my speed is XXX% of the limit”) is set below 100%. This setting is found in the settings menu, under sound and warnings. By default this is set to 100%, however if this is set lower, the speed warning will chime before you reach the speed limit. For example, if it is set to 90%, on an 80km/h road the warning will sound when you are going at 72km/h

A: The street navigation software does not always use the actual GPS location, rather it makes assumptions as to where you are on the road. This can cause some confusion where there are two roads close to each other (service lane or off ramp for example), especially when the GPS thinks you will be entering a tunnel. The unit will be expecting to lose signal, and might even stop searching for satellites. If you don’t go through the tunnel and take the off ramp instead this might cause some confusion for the unit. Remember it is just a machine, and humans are much smarter than machines (for the time being!).

A: If in street navigation the unit boots up to a menu screen (with Find, Route, Manage and Setting buttons being shown) press settings>sound and adjust the master volume slider to suit.

If the street navigation boots up to a map, in the top right corner there is a small blue (almost) rectangle, if you tap this it will show the quick menu and along the top there is a slider bar that can be adjusted to your liking.

A: Unfortunately there is no facility to put timing on speed camera warnings at this stage, if you sign up for our newsletter on VMS website, you will receive email updates. You go to menu > settings> warnings> Ellipsis next to "warn when speeding" > you can then tick or un-tick audible or visible warnings as you desire.

A: When you enter a destination into street navigation the program can only estimate the time, it cannot take into account fluctuating speeds, traffic, road works, etc. The given time is just an estimate and will not be 100% correct.

A: You may come across inaccuracies in mapping data from time to time.
Inaccuracies may be:
Roads missing from map/new roads
Incorrect speed limits
Incorrect locations
It is important to make sure your maps are up to date before reporting a problem.

If you have done this and are still finding inaccuracies in the map, you can report them to Navteq via their excellent map reporter website: http://mapreporter.navteq.com/. Please do not report mapping inaccuracies to VMS as we cannot alter the maps directly.

A: The way the GPS system gathers data about the altitude is a little odd and any reading from a GPS regarding height should only be used as a rough guide. The GPS system assumes that the earth is a perfect sphere, rather than the bumpy, mountainous place that it is! Hence this will account for incorrect altitude readings.

A: For the 7500 series you’ll need to go to “setup” on the main menu (the one with DVD, Ipod, etc) and at the top in the middle you’ll find “calibrate screen”, tap this and follow the on screen instructions by tapping the “+” accurately and continue as it moves around the screen.

For the X series, press “setup”, press “general”, you’ll see calibrate down the bottom of the screen, tap this and follow the on screen instructions by tapping the “+” accurately and continue as it moves around the screen.

To accurately tap the “+” get a stylus or something sharp and plastic, DO NOT USE A SCREWDRIVER OR OTHER SHARP METAL THING! Trust us! You’ll end up slipping and scratching the screen. Really you will. Don’t do it.

A: All our units (portable and in dash) have the facility to take a reverse camera. We have a universal reverse camera and we even offer a dual camera kit for car and caravan/trailer.

Both of the above models will work in any of our units.

A: It is possible and commonly done - you will have to put a diode in the circuit as otherwise your reverse light will come on whenever you flick the camera on (could be disconcerting for the person behind you on the freeway!)

Please see attached photo.

A: VMS units have been tested to operate with VMS reverse camera kits, we cannot ensure compatibility with 3rd party camera kits. VMS does not provide support to any third party cameras.

A: There have been a few reports of the GPS not being able to get a fix inside the car. This appears to be with multiple brands and types of GPS (a smart phone with in-built GPS is an easy test). The fix might be intermittent or it takes a while to lock, or it might get a lock to start with but then lose the lock later on.

As previously noted several, GPS units (VMS and others) have been used in these cars with similar results, however all GPS units tested ok when they were sent back to their relevant manufacturers. At this point it appears to be something else that is affecting the GPS signal - in some cars there is a fine metal layer in the windscreen, that, to some extent, blocks the GPS signals from entering (this layer is there to strengthen and heat the windscreen).

If your car has this type of windscreen, the only option here is to purchase a re-radiating antenna.

A: We have a number of distributors all over Australia and they can be found by entering your suburb or post code at Dealer Locator or you can purchase from our online store on our website at www.vms4x4.com

A: Over 2700 off road maps are also included, with excellent coverage of the Victorian high country (much in 50k or 25k), NSW topographic maps offering excellent coverage of NSW (pretty much all of NSW) in a combination of 25k, 50k and 100k maps, Queensland topographic maps that offers great coverage of areas of Queensland and WA topo that gives fantastic coverage of south western WA and Geraldton areas. Along with Westprint and Gregorys touring maps, that have greats points of interest on the maps. Also included is "On The Road - Free Campsites" that includes over 800 tried and tested free campsites Australia wide.

A: Whilst the units do come with a number of off road maps, more detailed maps of certain areas may be required. This is down to the user to source or supply as Australia is a big place and supplying detailed maps for the entire of Australia is limited by both the capacity of the card and the license fees charged by the mapping companies. There are many mapping providers (Rooftop, Geoscience Australia, Dept of Lands, NSW Topo, etc), and they all offer different areas with differing levels of detail.

For your maps to be compatible with your VMS unit, please ensure they are either ECW or TIFF formats and they will need to be geo-referenced (most maps that you buy will be already, however if you are scanning your own maps you will need to geo-reference them yourself). Once you have your maps, you will then need to copy the VMS map converter off the card. This is found off the root directory>VMS>VMS map converter. If you then run the setup.exe file it will install the map converter to your computer. When you fire the program up, it will give you a few options, but clicking the ‘close’ button will take you to the map converter. From here if you click the folder icon next to the source folder and select the folder/maps you wish to convert and you can then set a destination folder in the same manner on the other side, if you then click the “>” button to move the maps to the destination side of program, then click the “edit” button to give the maps a name and copyright, click convert and away you go. Once the maps have converted you can move them to the unit and place them in the root>VMS>Maps and hit the dirt!

A: If fire up VMS off road, and in the main menu, go to “Map List” and form there you’ll find “update map database”, this will take you to a screen with a warning about how this could take between 45 minutes to 3 hours, if you make sure that the unit is on charge, and then tap the “update map database” button at the top of the screen and then let the unit sit there for 45mins - 3hours, overnight is a good one for this, the unit will index the maps and you’ll then see the new maps that you’ve added.

A: For all coordinates in the southern hemisphere the longitude will be a South prefix and the latitude is basically based on a GMT line, so everything east of Greenwich, England has the prefix East. For example Melbourne GPO is located at S 37.813861, E 144.963321, if you try typing in N 37.813861, W 144.963321 you’ll find yourself west of America!

A: No version (at time of publication) of off road GPS can give turn by turn navigation (similar to street navigation) as this would rely on the condition of the track being known. As track conditions change regularly (heavy rain for example) this would affect the course that you might take. For example, you may want to get from one point to another as quickly as possible, and there might be a good 80k/h dirt road that is 40km long, and a rough 4wd track that is only 10km long, but would take you 2 hours to travel. Humans are smarter than the GPS (on the whole!) and would know to take the longer but faster track. The GPS does not know this and, as mentioned previously, would rely on a track condition to determine the quickest possible route and whether those tracks are safe for travel.

The other thing to keep in mind is that off road mapping is done with what is called raster maps. A raster map is basically an image of a map, and the GPS position is an overlay on that image. The program is following the geo-referncing that has been applied to the image (in theory you could use a picture of your family as the map!). This differs to vector mapping (lines drawn by the program), that is used in street navigation - the program knows what is on the map, and it knows that the line is a road.

A vast majority of off road maps are supplied in the raster (image) format.

A: The map does not rotate in off road navigation, it will stay north up. Your bearing will change in accordance to the direction you are heading.

A: This file is in the SD card \ VMS \ maps. It’s called “objects.mmo” this file is only able to be read by VMS off road program. If you want to look at your tracklogs/waypoints in another program (google earth for example) then you will need to export these files. This can be done by selecting the track/waypoint and pressing “export”, this can take a while depending on how big the track log is, just let the unit do it’s thing! This will then place a file in SDcard \ VMS \ GPX, you’ll find the waypoint/track you exported there as a .gpx file, this is a common mapping type file and can be loaded into a number of different programs.

A: You will need: google earth (not google maps) and GPSbable, both are free downloads Open google earth (not to be confused with google maps)

Top left corner of google earth click “Add path”

Draw path

Give path a name and then on the left hand side right click on the path you’ve just made and select “Save place as”, make sure you save it as a “Kml (*.kml)” type file. Click save

Close google earth

Open GPSbable

Input file wants to be of format “google Earth (Keyhole) Markup Language”.

Output format wants to be “GPX XML” format.

In translation Options make sure that only “routes” is ticked.

Click filters; only have “miscellaneous” ticked.

Tick “transform” and in the drop down box select “tracks -> routes” and tick the “delete” box.

Click file name in input and select the google earth file that you just made.

Click file name in output and select the output folder and give the file a useful name.

Click “Apply” in the lower right corner.

Close GPSbable.

Copy the .gpx file you just made with GPSbable on your sdcard \ VMS \ gpx \ route folder.

Turn unit on and start VMS off road.

Route will be in “route list”.

A: Under the “maps” file menu press “index maps”, ozi will then start adding the new maps, this can take a while depending on how many maps you have, put the unit on charge and grab a coffee!

A: If you plug your unit into your computer and go to SDcard \ ozi \ data you will find “Lastpage.cfg”, if you delete this file and try loading ozi again, this should sort out your problem. This will set the page back to the default page, so if you have custom pages you’ll have to reload them in ozi.

A: If you plug your unit into your computer and go to SDcard \ ozi \ data you will find “CEtracktrails.trb”, if you delete this file and try loading ozi again, this should sort out your problem. If this does not work, plug your unit into your computer and go to SDcard \ ozi \ data and deleting “CEwaypoints.wpb”. Try one then the other; do NOT delete both in one go.

A: All VMS units have a 12 month back to base warranty. Within this period, VMS will, at its sole option, repair or replace any components that fail in normal use. Such repairs or replacement will be made at no charges to the customer for parts or labour, provided that the customer shall be responsible for any removal and transportation costs. This warranty does not cover failures due to abuse, misuse, accident, or unauthorised alterations or repairs. Batteries included are warranted for a period of 6 months (if any) from the date of purchase.

If you have an issue with your unit, and none of the manuals or video tutorials are providing the help you need, please feel free to contact Support. If your unit is still within its warranty period, you can lodge a warranty request. If the unit is out of warranty we can still fix it, however some charges will apply. Please note that proof of purchase will be required for any warranty claim.

When lodging a warranty claim the process is as follows:

• Log the claim on the website by filling out the warranty request form (please note that there is an odd bug that we are working on where apostrophes [ ‘ – as in can’t, doesn’t, won’t, etc] causing a crash in the issue box in the warranty claim form)

• A confirmation email will be sent to you

• When the return authorisation has been granted another email outlining the address and procedure will be sent

• A copy of the attachment in the second return authorisation email is to be included with the unit, along with a proof of purchase.

• The RA number is to be written on the outside of the package and the unit mailed into us

• Turn-around time for most units is 1-2 days as VMS uses express couriers to send the units back to the customer. Most customers should receive their units back within 7 working days, however sometimes this will take longer.

Please do feel free to give us a ring if there is anything that you want to discuss, we really are nice people!

A: Press here to see how to wire an override switch.