GPS altitude again is close to actual

Digital systems are merely easier to read in some cases. Most people
nowadays (at least it seems) prefer digital watches. They provide the same
accuracy (1 second) but digital gives you a number and in stopwatch mode can
give you a number good to several decimal places. I prefer my analog since
I don't need that kind of precision for my daily timetracking. It is
quicker to read, but if need be, it could be made to give several decimal
places of accuracy.

I hate digital speedometers in a car. They drive me nuts with the numbers
always flipping back and forth.

mike

"Mxsmanic" wrote in message
...

If the frequency exists in the real world, the best analog system is
at least as good as any digital system.

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mike regish writes:

There was a story a while back (don't know if it's true or not, but sounded
legit) that some guy was demonstrating his latest, greatest GPS by using it
to taxi into his hangar. It wasn't quite that accurate and the repair bill
wasn't cheap.

One problem with GPS is that accuracy can be rapidly and significantly
degraded by the presence of buildings or mountains or other obstacles
that reflect or block signals. This is why GPS isn't likely to be
very accurate in the streets of Manhattan. The system itself provides
good accuracy, but in order to obtain that accuracy, you have to be
able to receive the signals without interference. On the ocean, in
the countryside, or in the open sky, you can receive signals very well
indeed, but once you are on the ground, the situation changes.

Another problem, not actually part of GPS per se, is moving maps.
Your GPS position may be accurate, but that doesn't guarantee that the
map is accurate. If the mountain on the map is in the wrong place in
relation to its real-world position, having high accuracy from GPS
won't help you. Very often map errors are more of a problem than
errors in the GPS itself.

Note that WAAS and LAAS will _not_ compensate for either of the above
types of error. Differential GPS systems like this work best when you
are at exactly the spot used as a reference for the corrections. If
you are anywhere else, the corrections may not be right for your
position. The further away you are from the surveyed reference
position used to generate the corrections, the more likely it is that
your position will be incorrect.

Some of these systems also correct for atmospheric and other effects,
but here again, the corrections are most useful when you are in the
exact position for which they are generated. If the reference point
is in Cheyenne and you are in Denver, the corrections may be well off
the mark.

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Mxsmanic wrote:
The death rate among GA pilots is 100 times higher than it is among
automobile drivers. That's pretty strong evidence of ignorance (but
also impulsiveness, a disdain for rules and regulations, and a thirst
for risk-taking behavior).


Why do you spend life posting this stuff here? Bicycling is
infinitely more dangerous than computer gaming. And you complain
about personal attacks.

F--

mike regish writes:

Digital systems are merely easier to read in some cases. Most people
nowadays (at least it seems) prefer digital watches.

Are you sure? Every time I look at watches, analog watches (with
hands) seem to outnumber the digital ones ten to one, especially at
the high end of the price range. The inexpensive watches sometimes
have a fair selection of digital styles, but everything above that is
analog. Then again, I think that people who spend $5000 for a watch
probably don't actually care about telling time, anyway (otherwise,
why would they settle for styles that have hands but no numbers, or
dials that are only 4 mm across?).

The watches that are marketed to engineering and geek types do seem to
be digital, but they're a small segment of the market.

Casio makes some nice digital, radio-synchronized ("atomic") watches
that are solar powered. No batteries, clear digital readout, and
accurate to one second in three million years. Ideal if you want
accurate timekeeping, and they aren't expensive.

If you want to be pretty, Chopard makes a very pretty analog
mechanical watch for about $100,000. Of course, it's hard to actually
determine the time from the dial, and it's off by six seconds a day
....

I hate digital speedometers in a car. They drive me nuts with the numbers
always flipping back and forth.

If they had three decimal places that wouldn't be a problem, but for
some reason they never seem to show fractions of a mile per hour. I'm
surprised they are digital at all, given the fondness most people have
for analog indications.

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TxSrv writes:

Why do you spend life posting this stuff here?

To provide perspective.

Bicycling is infinitely more dangerous than computer gaming.

Not infinitely so, but significantly so, especially in traffic. I've
tried cycling in traffic in Paris, and it's too stressful to be fun.

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Hey! That's what I use. I hand programmed the entire (well, almost) AFD into
it. $127 with a $50 rebate.

mike

"Nomen Nescio" wrote in message
...
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----


And I can't ever remember my cheap little (2000 vintage) Garmin 12xl
handheld ever being off more than 100 ft when checked against a topo
during a hike or the occasional geocache search.

Compared to which standard?

mike

"Mxsmanic" wrote in message
...

The death rate among GA pilots is 100 times higher than it is among
automobile drivers.

mike regish writes:

Compared to which standard?

Fatalities per trip.

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I have actually had a hard time finding a cheap analog watch at times. I
always get the Indiglo face. I notice these days that they (analog) are
becoming more prevalent. But it only been the last year or 2.

mike

"Mxsmanic" wrote in message
...
mike regish writes:

Digital systems are merely easier to read in some cases. Most people
nowadays (at least it seems) prefer digital watches.

Are you sure? Every time I look at watches, analog watches (with
hands) seem to outnumber the digital ones ten to one, especially at
the high end of the price range.

Mxsmanic wrote:
[...]
Note that WAAS and LAAS will _not_ compensate for either of the above
types of error. Differential GPS systems like this work best when you
are at exactly the spot used as a reference for the corrections. If
you are anywhere else, the corrections may not be right for your
position. The further away you are from the surveyed reference
position used to generate the corrections, the more likely it is that
your position will be incorrect.

While correct for the case of LAAS and DGPS, this is not correct in the
case of WAAS.

Hint: W != L

Regards,
Jon