The CDs, one for the Western U.S, the other for the Eastern half of the country, each contain a selection of detailed street maps. (The system always offers access to a U.S. map showing major highways.) Rather than loading up the hard drive with unnecessary maps, the suggested mode of operation is to load only the maps required for a particular trip or for your surrounding local area.
Once the system is up and running, a pre-selected map (usually one that includes your current location) appears on the screen. If the GPS antenna (which connects to the computer and is normally placed on the dash) has established communication with at least four of the eight GPS satellites hovering in Earth orbit, it will accurately indicate current location. SkyMap will also tell you (literally through its voice alerts) where you’re headed and the speed at whichyou’re traveling. It even issues a warning, "You have exceeded the speed limit" when the vehicle is traveling more than 55 miles
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per hour. (The warning can be set to other speeds or turned off altogether.
While traveling, SkyMap can be instructed to turn on "breadcrumbs" whereupon small white dots will be "dropped" on the map, showing your path. Once the trip has been completed, the "breadcrumb" trail can be saved and viewed at a later date. Another option is to activate the trip recorder in which case the program will tell you distance traveled, elapsed time and average speed.
Trip planning is accomplished with "waypoint" icons that are placed along the route. Once the route is completed, mileage between waypoints as well as overall trip distance can be viewed. A route can also be highlighted for easy reference and suggested routes can actually be selected by the program. Using the left mouse button, you simply click a starting point and an ending point. The program then draws the route on a map and if requested, will translate the route into turn-by-turn
