All the satnavs I've seen allow you to search by postcode or address. However, many organisations provide grid references. Do any satnav devices allow you to search for these? Gren Jones
I don't know of any, but satnavs seem to be aimed at drivers who don't want to read maps. By contrast, handheld GPS systems are more attractive to people who do use maps, often of the paper variety.
Obviously you could convert grid references into "points of interest" (POIs) and load them into a satnav. There are also lots of sites that let you download free POIs, though you may find it hard to get the places you want. There's a useful conversion site at nearby.org.uk.
One solution might be a Pocket PC that can run satnav (eg TomTom) and other software, and also accept a plug-in GPS. Does anybody have a better idea?
Backchat: Gren Jones wanted a satnav that could handle grid references, and David Bennett says: "My TomTom Go does!" Jack Isbester says: "The Garmin NUVI satnav for motorists accepts positions identified by their National Grid co-ordinates and can work to the nearest metre. It will also convert a grid reference to the corresponding latitude and longitude." Phil Gee adds: "I use a coordinate converter such as the one at http://www.nearby.org.uk/coord.cgi. This allows conversion from NGR to WGS84 which is accepted in TomTom as a latitude/longitude input."
Chris Platon says he uses "an XDA Orbit PocketPC (which has GPS) running TomTom and also running GPSMap-OS, a freeware program which shows your GPS position on a jpg picture of the OS map downloaded from OS Get-a-Map site or on a Google Earth screen grab. This has been very helpful in producing a map of our field archery target placements in their woodland locations."
