My friend Flash swears by the "Street Navigator"; but it's a bit pricey, I think $700 street. It's color and tells you when to turn with it's built in synthesized voice. The StreetPilot III follows in the footsteps of the original StreetPilot and StreetPilot ColorMap as a portable automotive GPS navigation system with electronic map capabilities. But it goes a step further by adding turn-by-turn navigation and voice prompting on a 16-color, higher-resolution display. Unlike other in-car navigation systems that boast portability, the StreetPilot III does not require monthly service fees, installation, or an external processor. Instead, consumers can download street-level map sets onto a removable memory cartridge, insert the card into the StreetPilot III, mount the system on the dash of any vehicle, and enjoy the ease of stress-free driving. It is the most convenient, portable auto-navigation system on the market, and it's available at a fraction of the price of in-dash navigation systems. The StreetPilot III offers true turn-by-turn navigation in America's major cities with its auto-routing feature. At the touch of a button, consumers will now have access to the shortest and fastest routes, turn directions, and estimated time of arrival at their intended destination. Along the way, the StreetPilot III provides automated voice prompts, alerting the driver to necessary turns, distance to upcoming turns, course deviation, and distance to final destination. Please note: The StreetPilot III will be initially available in the America version only. The StreetPilot III Atlantic version (covering Europe, Africa and the Middle East) will be released late 2001.

You can do this much less expensively. My son swears by his $100 hand held which can be attched to the laptop in the car containing the maps. I is so much simpler and when you hit the hiking trail you still have a rudimentart tracing to follow and all of the coordinated you need.

whatever happened to reading street signs? and do they give you enough warning to "turn here"?

Sometimes there just not there, they might be in some college dorm room somewhere.

*laugh*

They give you pretty detailed maps. You can even specify if you want the nearest gas station... or restaurant. It is all about latitude and longitude which you asked about in mapmaking...

i do understand how the system works, just making a point about us relying too much on electronics than our own brains!

Yup! We were overcharged in a restaurant by some kid hitting the wrong buttons. My dinner partner caught it and asked him to add it up again. Kids cannot even begin to figure if the result on their calculators are even close, let alone correct. I always double check (Excpet for my metric converter. I am lost when it comes to that, and I need all the feedback I can get on it!)

i usually go divide or multiply by two when dealing with kilometers (gives you a rough estimate).... i'm not fast with math but i can do it long hand. sometimes doing the money thing messes me up (they're just numbers with dots in them!)

2 1/2 is what I usually did, as I recall in Britain, and we never seemed to get lost! I am plain and purely lousy at math!! Wolfie, my T's are missing *grin*

oh goody!

Check visitors here...!

Hi yall I have the 'regular' Garmin GPS III with monochrome maps down to the macro street level - not the detail of the above units at the start of this thread. The plan is to interface this unit with a PC running Delorme Street Atlas or whatever their pc mapping software is called. The other GPS units I have are older low level things - primarily a 'core' GPS board with antenna - one unit was made by Delorme to work with a PC and their software and the other is a Motorola core module. The Delorme sends data out in NMEA format and the Moto unit spits out their binary format. These units are intended for APRS tracking (see TAPR.org) while the Moto unit will be used strictly (?) for its 1 pulse per second output for a clock reference for locking oscillators to a GPS reference. Total geek out. 73 de Mike rci

Oooh Mike!! I am going to soon be in California with son who has a Meade 7, GPS, and a laptop to run the mapping programs and the telescope. Best part of all of this is that mom gets to play with his toys - just like I did when he was little. I will get the $100 version which is entirely adequate for my purposes... as soon as I get done with the wedding, repairing the house... and a myriad of other things which come first. *Sigh*

July 15, 2002 Digital Angel Miniaturizes GPS Transmitting Technology Matchbook-Size Device Opens Way To Monitor People, Animals and Objects Anywhere SO. ST. PAUL, Minn,-- Digital Angel Corporation (Amex: DOC) said it has significantly miniaturized the footprint of its wireless GPS location and alert transmitters, combining the chip sets and antenna in a package the size of a matchbook. Digital Angel Corp.'s lightweight one-piece unit, complete with an ambient temperature monitor, is expected to stimulate development of numerous applications for industrial, medical and consumer use. The small unobtrusive size of the device, which employs standard Internet-accessible GPS mapping programs, makes it an ideal component for products intended for use in tracking the whereabouts of people, objects and even pets. http://www.digitalangel.net/about.asp

What a great idea. I saw GPS working live and direct with my visit to my son's habitat. Everywhere we went, he had loaded maps for the trip and I could plot the course as we went..... and read what was applicable from the Roadside Geology for Northern California I wish they had it for the state I am visitng!

Greetings all A good amount of information on using the GPS to 'track things' can be found by going to the Tuscon Area Packet Radio web page www.tapr.org Another use for GPS is the diciplining of oscillators (i.e. make them stable). I recently picked up a gps locked reference oscillator that came out of a cell telephone site. Interesting question... If gps gets 'turned off', does that mean all the cell sites will no longer function since they have nothing to lock their oscillators to? 73 de Mike AA9IL radio cosmo international

Interesting question, Mike. I'll send it on to my son and get his take on this little problem. The GPS satellite constellation will eventually fail and new ones put into orbit to take their places. I wonder what this will entail for carefully-tuned oscillators and notch filters. If it is a tunable frequency, it should not matter. Just the time taken to replace one with another. Only you would think of something like that! Excellent question!

Hi all Just something I was pondering... Especially since so many new things are coming out that include gps as part of the package. Europe is supposed to be launching their own gps constellation which will work in the same frequency range and always be on so possibly the worry is moot. 73 de Mike aa9il r-c-i 9 days and counting to the 10ghz contest!

Weekend after next? I'll be checking the local hams on the FM band. Alas, my receiver with usb is 6000 miles away. Good luck, CosmoMike! Interesting about the European GPS constellation going into use. If we can overlap the null date that would be most useful. What sort of meteor shower will they make on re-entry!!! Watch SeeSat for the details. http://www.satellite.eu.org/seesat/seesatindex.html

Hi Marci I take it from the '6000 miles away' that you are still in the lower 48. There is an article in the most recent copy of 'Wired' magazine describing the European gps effort. I guess I should catch up reading the posts for etc, geo mystery, ... been a bit out of touch as of late. Mostly going through boxes of junk to pitch or keep although today I did build up a small yagi beam antenna for 2m ssb. Talk on the email lists that there is some good tropo going on right now. This usually happens during the transition from Summer to Fall. Otherwise, just typing on the pc, and listening to the BBC world service on the shortwave. 73 de AA9IL Mike r-c-i

What impact will this European gps standard have on the consumer gps scene, will we have "dual band" gps's now? What are the implications?

(Mike, at least you are not having all your email duplicated by your home ISP to the tune of 4400 plus separate emails, but I do understand the need to go through the accumulation of "stuff" occasionally.) Interesting question, Terry. Is there any implication or are they completely integtated? Is that too much to expect?!

Hi Marci 4000+ emails?! Wow, thats either alot of mail to respond to or clean up. I usually waste alot of time clearing my emails after a trip but since 60% is spam, its mostly slash and burn. Anyway, hope your Summer is going well. Re the gps, I think the two gps satellite groups will transmit near each other and can be picked up on a regular gps receiver so if our gps ever gets 'cut off' for any reason, we could still use the other gps signals (unless they are being jammed). 73 de Mike AA9IL

I subscribe to lots of services. However, since I had them delete all before August 6th, nothing has been coming through. How truly frustrating. Another email goes back to them They "JAM" gps signals? Why?????????

Hi Marci Know about subscribing to lots of services - I ususally will have 300 to 400 emails over a weekend from the various radio/digital groups - thank goodness for journal mode. Anyway, the gov has the ability to disable gps signals when they see fit - everything from turned off to introducing errors (dithering). If the European services go on line, then there is the need to jam those signals as required. i.e. - if the general public is locked out of 'our' position signals, then the 'European' signals should not be available either (security and all that). I have several gps receivers (for personal use and providing reference signals) but a compass or sextant with ephemeris tables will still allow me to determine my location. Cant easily 'jam' the stars or a sun shot (unless, of course, it is cloudy....) 73 de Mike

And Hi Marci again... Just was at the geochaching website - I might create a couple of 'goody' caches in the surrounding forest preserves! 73 de Mike

At least it is OUR government doing the jamming and not some malefactor. I am sure at times like this it is necessary to take extraordinary measures. Just when they removed the 100 mile (or was it ten?) built-in error so you could not pinpoint a target, they have to go back to jamming. Off to check your geochaching comment. I'd love to be on one of those.

Most gps systems are jamming resistant - I think it is more of the 'selective error' to introduce discrepancies in non-mil systems. Also, the old error was 100 meters. This could be overcome by differential gps or by standing REAL still and averaging out the error. 73 de Mike

Gps do not employ notch filters as a feature on theie equipment? Could one be made to lock it within the 100 meter range? I'm sure they have good reasons for this selective jamming. They ARE supposed to be keeping me safe!