Hema maps

[Chops]

Whilst up the High Country, Wombat PO, we ran into a group from SA who were touring the area.
During conversation two things were said that interested me.
The first was this guy (Troop Leader ??), said that his Hema GPS which I'm assuming was a HM5(?) and his paper maps, didn't line up.
He said that quite often when cross referencing the two, he had to take "pot luck". Has anyone else found this with their set-ups?
This worries me a bit as we're looking into purchasing the HM6(?) in the near future. Watching the likes of Roothy, Graeme and Pat, they don't seem to have any problems with their units at all.

The second thing he said, which really had me baffled was that when he arrived at Wonnangatta St, they couldn't stay/base themselves there because they needed permits. So they headed over to Omeo, which is why we ran into them.
Can someone shed some light on this please?

[Marty110]

in 2010 we did 800km of high country tracks only seeing a dirt road or bitumen when we crossed them on the way to another track. We had no problems with our Hema 5 for navigation and our track notes all matched up on the unit.

[Tombie]

What was the guy driving out of curiosity?

Our club had a group over there about then.

[Hall]

Must be some age to the paper maps he is using. I have Hema maps on Ozzie explorer and they are not to good either. The are though five years old when I got them and the data for the maps could have been older than that. I found the roof top paper maps that I had were a better fit to the roads. As for a permit for Wonnangatta new to me far as I know there is no permit. Just did a google on it. You need a permit for non tourist activitys like scientific research etc but no mention of permits for the general public.
Cheers Hall

[OffTrack]

While it's not exactly high country we were down in Briagolong State Forest over new years and did a bit track driving. I didn't have any issues with track accuracy using the Hema maps, although they do tend to be a bit schematic rather than pin point accurate.

If you can live without all the annotations the Spatial Vision mapping is probably the best for Victoria. Their DVD mapping is a spot on match for the tracks I drove, whereas the Hema maps are +/-100 metres in places.

This is the link to SV Dargo paper map as an example:
https://svmaps.com.au/index.php?page...art&Itemid=145

This is a small section showing GPS track overlaid on Hema VIC High Country West (2008 ed - the 2012 ed still shows the same incorrect track alignment ):



And Spatial Vision VicMap DVD (2010 ed):



As you can see the Hema map puts the track start too far to the East. The SpatialVision mapping coverage for Victoria is far an away the best compromise between scale/detail/legibility/accuracy.

Hall's suggestion for the Rooftop series for paper mapping is a good one as the annotations on tracks can be very useful.


cheers
Paul

[Chops]

I'm not sure if the guys were with a club or just mates, although it sort seemed to be some kind of "tag a long" but I could be wrong.
The paper map he showed me was one of the later Hema books, 25 Vic Tracks (?), I have the same book, did a trip up to Lake Cobbler a few weeks ago and had no problems.
The man I spoke to drive a Jeep

[Xtreme]

Maybe they had mismatching datum between GPS and maps.
Although both being Hema products, you'd think they were set up correctly initially.

[stallie]

I understand that HEMA have now driven the vast majority of tracks to log and put on the maps.

Unless the road changes location, if there's a significant discrepancy I'd lean towards the different Datum theory too. There are many more qualified than I that can explain better, but in a nutshell the earth is not round, and maps have to approximate this. As such, different regions of the world use different baseline from which to measure location. These are usually regional.

It's very easy to fiddle fiddle f##k in settings....

[adzee]

I have to recommend staying well away from the vms mapping on iOS. I can honestly say I wasted my money for the iPad/iPhone version. When in the high country over Christmas it sent me down a track with a gate 50m from the end and with the visual on where I needed to be had to back track and make additional 2 hours of driving. Their data is useless even after spending a further $100 on the high country maps!


Spatial Vision is the maps used by all Vic CFA and DSE I believe, and is pretty good, but I will be investing in HEMA. Only reason I have vms is because it was all that was available. Won't buy it until later in the year when I want to start planning trips. Chops - don't believe the videos of pat, 4wd action etc, they only say what they are paid for, nothing is in the interest of the viewing public, all about making more money.

[Hymie]

I do a lot of trips in Victorias High Country and all of the people I come across without exception who are lost or needing more direction are using Hema maps.
We always use at least 3 different forms of map and they never agree but to rely solely on the Hemas would be a no no to me.
As for Wonnongatta, never ever heard of Permits to go there or camp there.