Common sense and GPS?

[Frankenkubota]

First GPS receiver. One of the first anyway. They did get smaller!

I was in the right place at the right time when all this GPS and cell phone stuff got rolling. Dumb luck I guess.

One of my defense electronic customers called one day and said, you just fell into a bowl of cherries!

They had a contract to build a GPS receiver for the govt. It would use much of the kind of things I sold.

The co. had an F350 flatbed. On the flatbed was stacks and stacks of instrumentation. You guys in the business know about the 19 inch rack um stack um approach to tech? For whatever reason, instrumentation boxes were all 19 inches wide?

Directly across the street from this co., a big strip mall was being developed and had been surveyed. The defense co. used those survey measurements to calibrate their receiver, on a flat bed350!

Now it's on your wrist.

The original GPS had a margin of error designed into it, I guess for defense?

 

[Richard]

Same basic story here but we're not the drivers.

Backstory: I am the last house on a dead end road that is on a peninsula. The farm is about 250 acres and around it is another (no real idea) let's call it 1,000 acres of TVA land and on three of those sides is a lake. One way in, one way out.

Outside one day couple years ago a vehicle from nowhere near here (I know all the neighbors & their cars) slowly drove by my driveway... I looked up and they waived at me, continuing on.

A bit curious, a bit humored, a bit annoyed I dropped what I was doing and simply started to walk behind them. They were "up the way" just a bit where there is an apparent fork in the grass.... left fork takes you to the tip of the peninsula and the right fork takes you to the back side of the farm.

Long story short, they were trying to get to the next road over and their GPS brought them this way. What the GPS didn't know was 50 years ago, this dead end road DID in fact, use to go over there....but then, TVA came in and built a dam and now we have a lake, burying the road under water. The road literally dead ends at the waters edge looking a bit like a boat ramp.

I tried to explain to them they had to go back, curl around, turn left.... they were insistent that their destination was "straight ahead, just up there...it's showing us on the GPS"

I told them I agree.....it is.... you can see it......however.... do you not see the body of water between us and your desired destination??

**** that TVA huh, for slipping that fly into your ointment!

Finally, I said if they wanted to try to get over there, they had my permission to continue their journey but my advice would be to listen to the person who lives here and not only knows how to get to their destination but knows they probably can't walk/drive on water.

It's amazing how fervent someone might believe what the GPS is telling them instead of what their eyes are telling them.

 

[RandyT]

People have a bad habit of looking at the their phone and not paying attention to looking up and see what is in front of them. Totally explains people walking into traffic, walking into the side of an Amtrak train, Turning down a RR track because GPS said to turn here and then get hit by a train, Or arguing with a person about a road going through but can be seen that it is no longer true.

 

[dodge man]

My phone app, and I suspect most are the same, will continue to navigate if you lose data. You will lose most of the detail on the map, but the trick is you have to start the route while you have data and you can’t stop it unless you have data.

 

[kenmbz]

You can download offline maps on google maps. Just don't get traffic data etc.
Most car nav systems show my house being in the middle of an intersection a few thousand feet away. Amusing to drive through my house everyday.
Google maps shows my house and directions to it fine.

 

[/pine]

I remember when GPS was first available to the public using a differential coupler that allowed more precise (closer than 1000' ) pinpointing...there was a big rush to change over from LORAN for both aviation and maritime navigation...it was quite a chore converting coordinate libraries for fishermen...

 

[Fallon]

Selective availability Error analysis for the Global Positioning System - Wikipedia. Was the system designed to degrade the civilian GPS signal so it wasn't accurate to under 100m or so. Mostly so our adversaries couldn't use it for GPS guided bombs. The military got the un-degraded signal with special relievers. It got turned off permanently under Clinton because the value of accurate GPS outweighed the risks.

 

[RobertN]

There's a forest service road outside of Pollock Pines, Ca that goes connects two highways, about 30 miles apart. It is a nice wide 2-lane, but is not maintained in the winter. There are signs indicating that.

Still, GPS/Map programs will send people that way.

Sherriff and Search/Rescue finally put signs on both ends of the road, saying don't believe you GPS; road is closed in winter. They had dealt with numerous recoveries and rescues...

 

[MossRoad]

If you think about all of the streets, twist, turns, etc... in the U.S., most digital mapping systems are pretty accurate. Lot's more details than paper maps. And you can usually flip to satellite view if you don't believe what the on-screen map is showing. All-in-all, we are a spoiled lot and have it pretty easy.

 

[Industrial Toys]

I remember a year os so back looking for a place in Niagara Falls Ontario. Stopped and asked two seperate parties. BOTH, (tried to be very helpful) and could find the place on their phone map, but neither could tell me which direction (on a main road) I had to go to get there.