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BS: GPS and Maps
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Subject: BS: GPS and Maps From: Janie Date: 23 Mar 17 - 08:29 PM I"m finally getting mildly able to figure out how to navigate around the GPS apps on my phone, and do appreciate the utility now that I don't have to pull of the road to figure the app out. Was very helpful today getting me to where I was going and home again, especially the feature where alternate routes come into play based on real time data re wrecks and traffic conditions on urban freeways. But - GPS gets me where I need to go, but gives no sense of where I actually am geographically in relationship to any anything. I think I am always gonna love big, fold-out paper maps. |
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Subject: RE: BS: GPS and Maps From: Bill D Date: 23 Mar 17 - 10:25 PM When going somewhere new and/or complicated, I always look at Google Earth to *see* the area... and often go down to street level to see the actual turns..etc. (yes...Google Maps, too... but I really prefer the GUI of GE) |
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Subject: RE: BS: GPS and Maps From: Janie Date: 23 Mar 17 - 10:56 PM Well, sure. But a computer screen is never big enough to truly give one a real sense of where things are in relationship to one another or where one really is. Not talking about just getting to where one is going. Talking about having a sense of where one is along the journey, and where else one might go from any particular point along the way. What is/are GUI of GE? |
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Subject: RE: BS: GPS and Maps From: Dave the Gnome Date: 24 Mar 17 - 03:44 AM Graphic User Interface of Google Earth. Have you tried a large screen dedicated GPS such as a TomTom or Garmin? I find them much better than the phone ones. I also use a GPS for hiking - A hand help Garmin eTrex. This should be used in conjunction with maps as it gives you position and direction but no on screen map. Best of both worlds :-) Cheers DtG |
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Subject: RE: BS: GPS and Maps From: Mr Red Date: 24 Mar 17 - 04:07 AM Goggle Earth. I invariably use it when going to unfamiliar territory. It gives me the choice of route or shows me a memorable architectural/natural features to remind me I am on track, when the bloody SatNav decides I should take the less pretty route. In the UK a PostCode covers the area with a set amount of post delivered. Which in rural locations is very large. And house numbers are rare there, even sometimes in villages. |
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Subject: RE: BS: GPS and Maps From: Rob Naylor Date: 24 Mar 17 - 04:38 AM Me Red....try using What3Words, then....What3Words Covers the world in a 1 metre grid. When I've had trouble locating a specific feature/ meet point in a rural area with a big postcode, I've occasionally used this. As a Geodesist, of course I use standard map references, GNSS and survey tools all the time, but just occasionally I find W3W useful. Most recently for locating a bottle of whisky a friend had secreted for me behind a rock in a particular sheepfold in the Brecon Beacons. With HD OS mapping and a decent GNSS I could get to within a few metres of the right place, but with W3W I was able to narrow down the stretch of sheepfold wall I needed to look around to a single metre :-) |
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Subject: RE: BS: GPS and Maps From: Senoufou Date: 24 Mar 17 - 05:43 AM We bought a sat-nav, but we never use it nowadays. Personally I prefer a road atlas, which I have a good look at before we set off and memorise not only the routes but the general area. I have also used Google Street, for instance when I had to attend a meeting in an area of London with which I was unfamiliar. I know London well, but the venue was between two Tube stations. The Google street thing showed me the shops nearby, and even a nice little cafe where I could get a cup of tea while waiting for the offices to open. My husband used to tease me with the sat-nav by choosing an Irish lady's voice for the instructions. I loved her accent and it always made me smile; we called her Mrs Murphy. But after being in the Girl Guides, and learning about maps and so on, I prefer to navigate myself, not rely on Mrs Murphy! |
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Subject: RE: BS: GPS and Maps From: theleveller Date: 24 Mar 17 - 05:54 AM I don't use sat nav when driving but I use GPS all the time when out walking and especially for my role as an Observatree inspector. I always use a system that incorporates OS maps (either ViewRanger or OS MapFinder)as I need to give accurate 10-figure grid references.I do, however, also carry waterproof OS maps as the phone screen is very small and poor in bright light. If I could afford it, I'd invest in a top of the range Garmin but at the moment they are too expensive. |
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Subject: RE: BS: GPS and Maps From: Dave the Gnome Date: 24 Mar 17 - 06:19 AM If you have the OS maps anyway, leveller, I would recommend a cheap eTrex. Gives you a 10 figure grid ref which you can then easily plot on the map. You can get an eTrex 10 for about £75 at the moment. Still a bit pricey but nothing like the ones with built in maps. Cheers DtG |
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Subject: RE: BS: GPS and Maps From: Bill D Date: 24 Mar 17 - 10:39 AM To clarify... I have only a large screen desktop PC. I don't have a smart phone OR a mobile GPS. I do have maps in the car, and am very good at using them, but with Google Earth, I can view an area I am heading for from various heights... and 'usually' from street level also. Then, if needed, I can do a screen capture of the GE view(s) in photographic mode and print them to use as maps. (I do this also when showing new people how to navigate to the crafts area that I run as part of our local folk festival.) like this of Glen Echo Park in Maryland. |
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Subject: RE: BS: GPS and Maps From: Bill D Date: 24 Mar 17 - 10:46 AM Does that link work? I told it to 'share' openly, but it takes me to just a blank page in Google Drive. |
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Subject: RE: BS: GPS and Maps From: Bill D Date: 24 Mar 17 - 10:51 AM I 'think' that clicking on MAPS in the page will work. It was supposed to just show 3 images. |
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Subject: RE: BS: GPS and Maps From: Bill D Date: 24 Mar 17 - 02:06 PM It may be I can link to only one image at a time.... here's one |
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Subject: RE: BS: GPS and Maps From: Hrothgar Date: 25 Mar 17 - 03:22 AM We will be in the UK in October, and I have obtained a couple of UK road atlases which I find rather irritating. Instead of being on a grid, the maps are laid out so that they do not necessarily match with the next map along. The scales change in some instances, too, which is a bit disconcerting. I ma now going to buy a big folded map that will fold out flat so that we can make some logical system out of it all. By the way, we have a Garmin (satnav) for Australia. Does anybody know if we can have UK maps loaded onto it? The alternatives are to buy a UK one (expensive) or rent one (exorbitant!), or do without, and we would rather not do without. |
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Subject: RE: BS: GPS and Maps From: BobL Date: 25 Mar 17 - 03:59 AM Bill, the link just takes me to a signing-in page. |
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Subject: RE: BS: GPS and Maps From: Jack Campin Date: 25 Mar 17 - 05:54 AM Satnavs shut down your brain |
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Subject: RE: BS: GPS and Maps From: Dave the Gnome Date: 25 Mar 17 - 06:01 AM As far as I know you can get maps of other regions for satnavs but I have never tried it. No need up to now! DtG |
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Subject: RE: BS: GPS and Maps From: Doug Chadwick Date: 25 Mar 17 - 06:31 AM Satnavs shut down your brain Only if you let them. They are a useful tool to be used in conjunction with maps, road atlases and, above all, common sense. I have a UK satnav with western Europe on the device itself and Canada/USA on a memory card. DC |
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Subject: RE: BS: GPS and Maps From: Will Fly Date: 25 Mar 17 - 09:02 AM In the days before SatNav devices for cars were available, I often used to have to prepare for travelling to gigs in strange or unknown locations - particularly in and around London. So I would work out the route with a large-scale map and the London A-Z where necessary and jot down the route changes as a list - and then learn it. I would then have the list on the passenger seat, together with the relevant map, and find my way to the gig. Fast forward to SatNav days. I now check the unknown bits of the route in Google maps - to get an overall perspective of where I'm going - and then dial the route in to my TomTom SatNav device. I also have a road map in the car. Works fine. Belt and braces - and then some more braces... |
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Subject: RE: BS: GPS and Maps From: DaveRo Date: 26 Mar 17 - 04:25 AM Hrothgar wrote: By the way, we have a Garmin (satnav) for Australia. Does anybody know if we can have UK maps loaded onto it?I've loaded US maps on my oldish European Garmin Nuvi. Depends on the type/memory/SD-card-ness/ etc. If you can connect it to Garmin Express via USB it'll tell you and you may be able to download it. Not cheap; a bit cheaper on eBay but you have to know what to buy. Worth getting IMO to know what speed limit applies. These change every 100yds these days. |
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Subject: RE: BS: GPS and Maps From: Senoufou Date: 26 Mar 17 - 04:49 AM I learned how to use six-figure grid references in Geography at school and at Guides, and I do love the Ordnance Survey (OS) maps. I watched a TV programme fairly recently about how the OS was achieved, and my goodness they were thorough. Every inch of Britain was covered, using special 'posts' made of stones as marked vantage points for recording features. In the days before satellites, they faithfully measured every rise and fall topographically with surveying instruments. The resulting maps were meticulously accurate, produced by hand by expert draughtsmen and women. Apparently UK is the only country in the world which undertook such a task. All that work, and now satellite pictures can do the same thing instantly! |
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Subject: RE: BS: GPS and Maps From: Mr Red Date: 26 Mar 17 - 05:48 AM try using What3Words I have heard of it, a laudable concept - let us hope it will gain traction. It has the potential because Post Codes vary from country to country, and Zipcodes (AFAIK) have an even coarser resolution. What3Word has a resolution 3 metres BTW, and there are duplicate locations, albeit distant from each other. And it is proprietary. But in practical usage it requires the "event" organiser to know What3Words AND use it. The kind of things I am talking about are events in Village Halls. These events (see map.mister.red ) are organised by people who don't all see the relevance of a Post Code in publicity, or even who the artists are sometimes. And car SatNavs are for worldwide use so the default grid is LatLong, not UK OSGR - which is not that user friendly even though they are good enough for all but Geocachers. |
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Subject: RE: BS: GPS and Maps From: Thompson Date: 26 Mar 17 - 06:27 AM I have such a terrible sense of direction that pre-satnaves I used to carry a compass in the car to help me navigate. The satnav (Garmin first, then TomTom, which I found better) was the saving of me - but it does deprive you of any cultural context. You know you're on the road from Cavan to Fermanagh, but not what towns you're passing, or even where you might stop for a pee! But after a couple of years of using it I went back to maps - especially when I discarded the car and took to the bike. Now, I do a combination - using various web services to check out and nice routes, and spreading out a map on the floor and putting a ruler on it to see the most direct route between two points, then looking for secondary roads where I can amble along without looking over my shoulder for insane staring murderous drivers out to kill me. It seems to me completely insane that we should use private cars at all, at this stage of the climate change emergency and when oil is so depleted that we need to hoard every last drop for industrial use. In Ireland, 40% of all trips by car are under 5km, a nice 20-minute bike ride. It would be a much better model to have a mainly cycling population, good public transport, and cheap hire cars and vans available for when you need to get a load of concrete blocks or the like. Cycling can be wonderfully social, and is a real improvement to neighbourhoods, with people able to wander along chatting and stop for a cuppa in a local cafe, and services like this cycling-for-the-very-old scheme, which started in Copenhagen and is now rapidly spreading across Europe (an Irish chapter opened last week). |
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Subject: RE: BS: GPS and Maps From: FreddyHeadey Date: 26 Mar 17 - 06:58 AM Satnav : I love the calmness of my lady's voice when I've missed a turning. Most of all I like the constant display of the arrival time. It is invariably slightly pesimistic so I relax more and more as the journey progresses. ~~~~~~~~~~~ Map: To put the journey into some sort of understandable context. ~~~~~~~~~~~ What3Words is a brilliant idea. Though the words are so diverse and unconnected that I've never been able to memorise the words for locations. But to have a link is great. ~~~~~~~~~~~ GridReferenceFinder I often use http://www.gridreferencefinder.com for checking or finding a better Post Code for a place. Or a gridreference. ~~~~~~~~~~~ Googlemaps Great for seeing junctions and buildings in streetview. And for getting rough journey times though it I've often found it rather optimistic. "Add a missing place" It can take a couple of weeks(or never) but I've added missing village halls and such to googlemaps. |
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Subject: RE: BS: GPS and Maps From: DaveRo Date: 26 Mar 17 - 07:57 AM When using a satnav with a UK postcode it's useful to know that the device will probably use the 'median coordinates' of all addreses with that postcode. That's what the Post Office publishes. 'Probably' because it may use the nearest point on a road - don't know. In a street of, say, 10 houses with the same postcode that should be near the middle of that row of houses. But in the countryside it could be some distance from the address you're looking for, and in the middle of a field. Something to bear in mind as you drive to a rural B&B or village hall in the dark! Senoufou: Google for the Great Trigonometrical Survey of India, carried out by a Mr Everest! And here in the UK you can adopt a triangulation pillar - aka 'trig point' - if there are any left. |
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Subject: RE: BS: GPS and Maps From: Mrrzy Date: 26 Mar 17 - 09:00 AM I have a Garmin, it leads me astray all the time. |
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Subject: RE: BS: GPS and Maps From: leeneia Date: 26 Mar 17 - 10:36 AM Satnavs are good. It's nice not having to share the road with drivers who are tooling along while trying to read a map. |
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Subject: RE: BS: GPS and Maps From: Greg F. Date: 26 Mar 17 - 10:50 AM Yes, they're rather staring at a screen. |
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Subject: RE: BS: GPS and Maps From: Will Fly Date: 26 Mar 17 - 12:48 PM There's a difference between staring down at a map on the passenger seat, and glancing at a screen to one side of the field of view with spoken directions. When I've driven in Ireland, France, Belgium and Italy - particularly through strange cities, the SatNav has been a godsend. I'm a very good map reader - subscribe to the OS online mapping service - and can set a map and use one with the best of them. But the modern GPS systems are excellent. I was in Rouen for lunch last year - I'd never been there before and had to find my way to a strange restaurant. Out came the mobile phone, on went the Google maps app, and I followed the dotted trail through a a busy city with no bother whatsoever. There's also nothing nicer than taking a large-scale printed map and a compass and working my way through the countryside on a summer's day. Horses for etc... |
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Subject: RE: BS: GPS and Maps From: Greg F. Date: 26 Mar 17 - 01:23 PM Thare's a difference between staring down at a map on the passenger seat, and glancing at a screen . Absolutely! - one's a map & one's a screen. Both take your eyes off the road & contribute to distracted driving & accidents. |
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Subject: RE: BS: GPS and Maps From: Will Fly Date: 26 Mar 17 - 01:49 PM Well, this is very true, Greg - but then, in that case, surely we oughtn't to use our rear view and wing mirrors if it's so critical. Glancing momentarily at my SatNav, which is actually within my driving field of view, may be less of a hazard than looking completely away from the road in front to look in the mirrors. But we're urged to look regularly in our mirrors... Just saying. |
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Subject: RE: BS: GPS and Maps From: Greg F. Date: 26 Mar 17 - 02:09 PM Glancing in mirrors and studying details on a screen ain't quite the same thing. Just saying. ;>) |
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Subject: RE: BS: GPS and Maps From: Doug Chadwick Date: 26 Mar 17 - 03:35 PM Glancing in mirrors and studying details on a screen ain't quite the same thing. But you don't have to study details on the screen. It is the same as glancing at a complicated road sign to identify your route through a multi-exit roundabout. You select the information pertinent to you and ignore the rest. I hold a general picture in my head, updated with the occasional glance on the straight, clear road ahead of any turning point. Again, I will glance at the screen for confirmation that I am where I expected to be after my manoeuvre once I am back on the straight road. Approaching and during the manoeuvre is where the voice instructions come in. I can keep a better watch on the cars about me if I am not having to search for exit signs. DC |
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Subject: RE: BS: GPS and Maps From: Mr Red Date: 27 Mar 17 - 05:15 AM I used to carry a compass in the car to help me navigate. I did too, car version mounted on dash, with a battery to light up at night. And I used it so much I decided to use a NiCad rechargeable. Immediately I wanted north, so turned left and the road was heading south, turned left and it was still south, turned left, and left and bugger me! I am an Electronic Engineer, and I KNOW nickel is magnetic - never thought! I was permanently on a S by SE heading. Doh! Post Codes 'Probably' because it may use the nearest point on a road - don't know. The area is based on the volume of mail, and Village Halls don't get post! Worse VHs usually publish the caretakers' contact details AND it is their post code! http://mister.red lists a lot of events in VHs and Goggle Earth is invoked many times to verify OSGR and Post Codes (not always the same 1 metre square for my website) |
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Subject: RE: BS: GPS and Maps From: Mr Red Date: 27 Mar 17 - 05:28 AM Both take your eyes off the road & contribute to distracted driving & accidents Which is why I put my SatNav on the dash where the speedo would be on most cars, I see it through the wheel. I even fashioned a cowl made of a Magners Cider box to shield it from the sun. My eye falls in one direction. Quicker and natural. But I love perusing maps, and prepare with: Streetmaps.com, bing.com/maps, Goggle Earth and other websites. Particularly if I am going to unfamiliar territory. Like the Bath Academy to see Blowzabella (great night). Familiar but for the last mile. I knew it was down there, and I was increasingly skeptical but patient - and there it was, where the map had said. SatNav not switched on. Brave or what? |
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Subject: RE: BS: GPS and Maps From: Donuel Date: 27 Mar 17 - 01:49 PM Beware the free navigation apps that have an agenda to increase your tolls. When google spell checked our input twice it sent us to hells half acre and not our destination. Due to gravitational frame dragging GPS accounts for the variance by way of the theory of relativity. Sorry Newton you were close but not close enough. |
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Subject: RE: BS: GPS and Maps From: Thompson Date: 27 Mar 17 - 09:34 PM Yes, Google Maps can be unreliable, especially where public transport is concerned; in London City Airport it sent me a long way out of my way, walking around looking for a train station; the station is now in the airport and has been for some years. I also could have sworn that it listed the bus stop numbers (not the numbers of the buses that stop there, but the official ID number of the individual bus stop) in Dublin, but if it did, it doesn't now. These numbers are handy to consult, because you can use an app to see what buses are due at the stop in the next 20 minutes or so. |
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Subject: RE: BS: GPS and Maps From: FreddyHeadey Date: 28 Mar 17 - 05:20 AM Googlemaps ... Public transport info It is definitely worth checking from a second source. I got stuck in Salford once, waiting for a nonexistent bus. After complaining it turned out that my Android tablet gets a different set of information than my pc. They apologized but said it was down to the way the information was collected. If you've spotted a mistake on the location of something you can update it with a correction. Or add a point. |
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Subject: RE: BS: GPS and Maps From: Mr Red Date: 28 Mar 17 - 06:12 AM I got stuck in Salford once, waiting for a nonexistent bus. happens where I live but on the plus side, it ain't Salford! Our local Stagecoach have a wonderful website that will tell you of impending changes, BUT if you look at the Stroud page it gives everything for the south west, except the local information which is listed in Cotswolds. Now call me perspicacious but, the internet's one outstanding success is "connectivity". All they had to do was put a hyperlink to "other" possible pages. And only do it once! Changes occur every month (courtesy of the internet bonus) so this is more than a trivial error. Arrogance in that company goes right from the top down. |
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Subject: RE: BS: GPS and Maps From: Steve Shaw Date: 28 Mar 17 - 06:16 AM The best feature of my built-in satnav in my Ford Focus is the traffic reports. It's very good for that and "she" has diverted me skilfully around massive motorway snarl-ups many times. I turn it on for any longer drive even though I know where I'm going. As for maps, it's about seven years out of date but updating (meaning buying a new memory card) would cost a fortune. Can't be arsed. If I was driving around Europe I might update it, but in any case I have another satnav with traffic reports and lifetime UK and Europe updates that I got with me Tesco Clubcard vouchers! I always turn off the speed limit and speed camera bleeps. I like to live dangerously. |
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Subject: RE: BS: GPS and Maps From: Stu Date: 28 Mar 17 - 06:19 AM We use GPS when prospecting for dinosaur bones as we can record the location of sites very accurately. It can be really difficult to relocate a spot precisely even on a cliff in a popular country like England, and when we join digs in the vastness of the US GPS is vital, and even then a location will require some pinning down on a map. That said, I never use one and prefer to refer to maps, as I wonder what I might be missing as we travel and simply plugging your route into a TomTom seems a bit dull. |
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Subject: RE: BS: GPS and Maps From: leeneia Date: 29 Mar 17 - 12:34 AM I like the GPS and maps. GPS helps me navigate to one spot, a map teaches me about the whole region. Here's a funny thing about a GPS unit, though. It can't find a small town. When we first bought it, we wanted to visit Cottonwood Falls, KS, a town about 6 blocks square. The Garmin could not just go there. It had to have a house number and a street address, or else it wouldn't even get started. That's where the map came in handy. |
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Subject: RE: BS: GPS and Maps From: Steve Shaw Date: 29 Mar 17 - 06:00 AM I know. Also, some of the built-in "points of interest" betray a somewhat arbitrary selection. |
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Subject: RE: BS: GPS and Maps From: Will Fly Date: 29 Mar 17 - 06:19 AM I was out with the telephoto lens yesterday with the purpose of photographing Chanctonbury Ring (a tree circle landmark on the South Downs in Sussex) from a footpath in my village. The village lies on a greensand ridge, and there are wonderful views across the Adur valley to the ridge of the downs. I was snapping away with my camera on a monopod, to steady it at the 250th shutter speed, when I spotted what looked like a white-capped tower below the Ring, to the north and west of it. Was it a dovecot? Could it be a windmill without sails. I dismissed the windmill theory, having been a devotee of Sussex windmills for many years. So I noted the position of the white cap as part of a triangle - me; the Ring; the tower, and walked home. I'm a Premium subscriber to the British Ordnance Survey online map service so, when I got home, I opened up the laptop and the OS application. I zoomed in to my area and drew a mental triangle on the map on the screen. The only sign of habitation in that area was the village of Washington (Sussex). I zoomed even closer and there, just to the east of the village, was the legend "Rock Windmill". So much for my 40-year old knowledge of Sussex windmills - I thought I'd seen and photographed every one in the country. A Google search revealed it to be a converted mill - hence the lack of sweeps - now in use as offices. Many thanks to the Ordnance Survey for their precise and full mapping. If you're interested in Rock Mill, look here: Rock Windmill |
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Subject: RE: BS: GPS and Maps From: FreddyHeadey Date: 29 Mar 17 - 08:41 AM Geograph.org.uk is another good resource for seeing what other people have found interesting in an area. http://www.geograph.org.uk/gridref/TQ1213 |
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Subject: RE: BS: GPS and Maps From: Dave the Gnome Date: 29 Mar 17 - 08:59 AM I am sure I remember seeing a Morris Team called Chanctonbury Ring. Mind you, I think it also sounds like an affliction brought on by consuming too much Dark Star beer :-) DtG |
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Subject: RE: BS: GPS and Maps From: DaveRo Date: 29 Mar 17 - 09:55 AM As Peter Bellamy memorably sang: Ditchling Beacon and Chanctonbury RingFrom Kipling's The Run of the Downs |
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Subject: RE: BS: GPS and Maps From: Will Fly Date: 30 Mar 17 - 08:54 AM The Chanctonbury Ring Morris Men are alive and flourishing, albeit a little older and greyer, and are gearing up for their 2017 season. |
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Subject: RE: BS: GPS and Maps From: Bill D Date: 30 Mar 17 - 10:54 AM With Will Fly's info, I used Google Earth to find Rock Mill.... No wonder he'd never noticed it before Hidden in trees |
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Subject: RE: BS: GPS and Maps From: leeneia Date: 30 Mar 17 - 11:25 AM A smock mill? Imagine that, a mill producing frocks for little girls. delightful little smock |
