Throwaway GPS

Newps wrote On 12/13/05 08:57,:

Stubby wrote:



Not clear. While geocaching, I came upon a camp fire that was still
smouldering in the woods. Because I didn't know the phone number for
the closest towns, I called my home town fire department, ID'd myself
and asked them for the number. Then I called that number and they
asked, "Where are you?" and I gave them "N42....W071....". Uh huh.
What town are you in? I replied, "a State owned forest."

"OK. But WHERE are you?".... It went on like that until I agreed to
meet the fire truck at the trailhead and walk them in.


You came across a smoldering camp fire and called the fire department?
It would take less then 5 minutes to put the thing out but you made a
call and then left the fire? You're a moron.


That was completely uncalled for.

Stubby wrote On 12/12/05 14:30,:
Scott Moore wrote:

M wrote On 12/11/05 10:25,:


I wonder how useful it is to have GPS in cellphone in order to get the
geo data for E-911. We all know that it's fairly difficult to get a
reliable signal acquisition unless it's ourdoors with a clear view of
sky.



Agreed. I guess we will find out. Of course, the newer sats have more
power, no ?


Not clear. While geocaching, I came upon a camp fire that was still
smouldering in the woods. Because I didn't know the phone number for
the closest towns, I called my home town fire department, ID'd myself
and asked them for the number. Then I called that number and they
asked, "Where are you?" and I gave them "N42....W071....". Uh huh.
What town are you in? I replied, "a State owned forest."

"OK. But WHERE are you?".... It went on like that until I agreed to
meet the fire truck at the trailhead and walk them in.

All the phone+GPS combos won't cure that problem!

Feh. Try giving lat/lon coordinates to a controller, and see what
happens. When traveling in Mexico, VFR, I learned rapidly that the
controllers want their reports in terms of a VOR radial and DME distance,
which I learned with equal rapidity to fake from my 430 GPS, since I
didn't really feel like messing with the old Cessna VOR set on the
airplane (I learned to rapidly call up the "nearest VOR" page and
find the reciprocal of the indicated bearing).

Scott Moore wrote:


Not clear. While geocaching, I came upon a camp fire that was still
smouldering in the woods. Because I didn't know the phone number for
the closest towns, I called my home town fire department, ID'd myself
and asked them for the number. Then I called that number and they
asked, "Where are you?" and I gave them "N42....W071....". Uh huh.
What town are you in? I replied, "a State owned forest."

"OK. But WHERE are you?".... It went on like that until I agreed to
meet the fire truck at the trailhead and walk them in.

All the phone+GPS combos won't cure that problem!


Feh. Try giving lat/lon coordinates to a controller, and see what
happens. When traveling in Mexico, VFR, I learned rapidly that the
controllers want their reports in terms of a VOR radial and DME distance,
which I learned with equal rapidity to fake from my 430 GPS, since I
didn't really feel like messing with the old Cessna VOR set on the
airplane (I learned to rapidly call up the "nearest VOR" page and
find the reciprocal of the indicated bearing).


The human-factor of manual entry and transmission of LAT/LONs has proven
to be abysmal. Hard lessons were learned in the 1970s with significant
errors in oceanic navigation using keyboard entries of LAT/LON. Also,
the opportunity for error on the part of the sending or receiving party
with verbal transmission of a bunch of critical numbers is great.

That is why we have waypoints today. The LAT/LON is embedded and not
used by the pilot or ATC. Automatic transmission of raw LAT/LON by a
cell phone directly into an automated positioning system is a different
matter. That has been working great in the trucking industry and can
work quite well for other applications. No fat fingers or thick tongues
involved so long as it's automated.

So far as you using your 430 to provide a Mexican controller with
radial/distance, that is not faking it at all. That VOR is a waypoint
as well as a VOR.