2 years without a mobile phone Bliss

[OldJimbo]

I sure agree with the cell coverage. It ends just out of Prince George, apparently is another carrier (Telus?) where you are and so is not available to me, and next coverage is Jasper! Just as bad to the west..
I did pick up a 62st which arrived today, and I'm curious as to how it will make out, and how well it calibrates. Things have really grown up over old logging areas so any idea of triangulation is now out of the question. And it's about time I learned some new stuff! I wasn't too thrilled about the warning not to be standing anywhere near metallic objects when calibrating the compass since I figured it would use GPS for that. The puzzle is that while being close to a strong magnet does affect readings by a few degrees, deflections are nothing like a regular compass which deflects widely. I'm curious now about phone GPS and compass apps and if the phone compasses react to magnetic fields. It'll be interesting to compare compass and GPS compass readings close to the magnetite deposit. My curiosity is about where this technology works and where it doesn't.

 

[Robson Valley]

Recta Prospector in a steel case, Brunton Eclipse 8066. Even an electric compass built into the rear view mirror of my 3/4T Suburban. That one is less than a meter from a 454cid/7.6l V8 engine. Must have been some interesting compensation there. The Brunton made Field&Stream Magazine's "Best-of-the-Best" gear list one year, so I bought it.

Must be nice, out in the open, populated areas and have all those computer gizmos to lead you astray. I was always expected to learn where I was. Ground-truthing, it used to be called.

 

[santaman2000]

Recta Prospector in a steel case, Brunton Eclipse 8066. Even an electric compass built into the rear view mirror of my 3/4T Suburban. That one is less than a meter from a 454cid/7.6l V8 engine. Must have been some interesting compensation there. The Brunton made Field&Stream Magazine's "Best-of-the-Best" gear list one year, so I bought it.

Must be nice, out in the open, populated areas and have all those computer gizmos to lead you astray. I was always expected to learn where I was. Ground-truthing, it used to be called....

The electronic readout is in the rearview mirror; the actual sensors are likely elsewhere.

 

[OldJimbo]

Recta Prospector in a steel case, Brunton Eclipse 8066. Even an electric compass built into the rear view mirror of my 3/4T Suburban. That one is less than a meter from a 454cid/7.6l V8 engine. Must have been some interesting compensation there. The Brunton made Field&Stream Magazine's "Best-of-the-Best" gear list one year, so I bought it.

Must be nice, out in the open, populated areas and have all those computer gizmos to lead you astray. I was always expected to learn where I was. Ground-truthing, it used to be called.

Good choices of compass! You can have a compass or some sensor inside even a heavy vehicle and calibrate it because stuff stays fixed.

Back in the day it wasn't unheard of to tape a button magnet in someone's sleeve to see how fast they caught on in their field mapping. That was a harmless enough joke because the first principal of field mapping is to get to a known spot and see if triangulation is precise in marking you exactly on that spot. Then knowing everything is working, you can use triangulation to define other spots. Tedious stuff, but you knew that eventually a practicum supervisor was going to come along, see something interesting on your geological map, and then they'd go check if what you said was there actually was, and if it was precisely located. Any issues and you'd be looking at another education/career choice.

My first issue with using dead reckoning was when I was coming back down the mountains in Wales due to mist, and found an Outward Bound class going up, because they were going to learn to get by on dead reckoning in the mist. I was pretty good at dead reckoning even back in my first year of university, and I was doing a geological overlay of the area, so I had to say that I considered that foolhardy which of course was scoffed at. Apparently later things did not go well for a group, in similar circumstances. The thing which most got me was that the people were dropped off at a supposedly known position then trusted that with twenty plus properly set up compasses, they were set to go. Now in the first case I could substantiate that they were dropped off at exactly the position they expected.

I'd sure check my compass where I could, and I'm still good at dead reckoning even after decades, but getting to a previously known spot in this open and well populated place is a bit of a trick. The problem is that it isn't open any more, and so no triangulation. And everything is beaver swamp under the alders so you are constantly going around stuff. Could I get hopelessly lost here - nope. If I had to mark the best trail to a fishing hole from the highway, just half a mile direct distance, then that is some job and with all the walking around stuff, wouldn't be a half mile walk but several times that.. With a compass and dead reckoning and getting to know a good route, half a day's work will lead me to defining a good trail to clear, but I'll stop the cleared trail near the river and near the highway to prevent competition since this is a tourist area. I am seeing where a GPS might shorten that work considerably, as it could well shorten the time to find some favourite old spots which are now totally brushed in. Could I find them the old way - you bet!
I do enjoy when people get lost between the river and the highway - because then they'll never again mistake just how fast this place will take a person down when treated lightly. And those people will be found easily, or get out themselves. Things have not gone so well for many others.

In the end I'm going to become expert with GPS so when my grandson goes out hunting with his dad and I drill him beforehand on both compass use and GPS, then he'll happily deal with both. I'll be happy when he exceeds me. Given his excellence in math and the triggernometry I previously taught him, a bit of trigonometry shouldn't be any big deal. Then I won't worry about him going out into the wilds.

 

[Robson Valley]

GPS with dead batteries = you're hooped. Everybody needs to learn where they are and where they're going, on a map.
Spare me this theoretical/electronic rubbish, it fails. Got a reliable compass? Dress accordingly, we go.

Field& Stream magazine's "Best-of-the-Best" list of gear is no simple piece of crapola. They can afford to buy anything and everything and run it
all straight into the mud. The suppliers know darn well that they can get trashed, world-wide, with shirty gear. It is entirely public.

My family travels with copies of the original maps. We discuss the plan of travel. We all agree where we are and where we are going.
For example, take a look at the Churchill River in central Saskatchewan = middle of freakin' nowhere. We will begin at Missinippe on Otter Lake and
we plan to spend the night just above Keg Falls. Nice place, you'd all like it.
Skip the map. I invite you to fly above me with Google Earth. When you get to Big Jim's Camp, you can quit for the night.

 

[rik_uk3]

I'm a great fan of map and compass and GPS, nothing written in stone saying you can't happily use both.

I'm teaching my seven year old grandson to use ordnance survey maps and compass, he's also comfortable with electronic mapping (and computers in general), for him they work easily together.

 

[ADz-1983]

GPS with dead batteries =

Put in spare batteries. Simple! ...or in alternative get out the map and compass.

NOBODY is saying that GPS Mapping should be in the only navigation you take, so if batteries DO run out and dont have spare you are in no way "hooped" as you can fall back to map and compass.

If you only like you use paper/analogue compass that is your choice, same as it can be others choice to like to use GPS/Electronic mapping/compass.

 

[ADz-1983]

No it can play actual LPs as these are Long Plays. It can also play Albums. But I need to do some ripping for it to play a "CD" or "Tape" or "Vinyl".

I'm off to do my hoovering.

Whether you rip it or not it's still not playing a CD/Tape/Vinyl. It's playing the end result audio file like mp3/flac/aac/wav/flac etc. That's like recording a VHS to DVD putting it in your DVD Player and saying you have a VHS player lol

Presumably you can also work without a preloaded map and just get a numbers based reading as well? (like the cheap wrist versions).

Correct.

 

[widu13]

Interesting to hear the phone hating comments. Mine's useful. I have loads of books on mine and occasionally listen to music/radio. It has UK maps on it but I don't use it for that though, but importantly it really is the pinnacle of safety equipment. I realise that not many schrafters go far from civilisation but some of us do and it's invaluable. I certainly don't hold telephone conversations with people when I want to be "away" from it all.

It's a tool just like a knife. As to which phone or knife is "better"; a Carlos Fandango one or a simple one- that is definitely a convoluted question.

 

[Robson Valley]

I don't hate mobile phones of any sort. In my hands, they are useless pieces of discouragement.
I have one in a box on a shelf, somewhere. Gift and set up for me. Tried to make 3 fairly important calls.
Nothing happened. So I put it away. Happy with that.

The biggest and best joke on me is that if I can't find the Suburban, the electric compass won't help.
The Brunton is extraordinary with all the waterproof pages of application usage. Batteries not required.

 

[rik_uk3]

Robson, your like a dog with a bone, just won't let go lol, we understand you don't like this new fangled tech stuff but you need to put the bone down and rest a while

 

[Robson Valley]

If it worked, I'd be in it like a rat up a drain.

 

[ADz-1983]

If it worked, I'd be in it like a rat up a drain.

Works fine for me.

 

[rik_uk3]

If it worked, I'd be in it like a rat up a drain.

Perhaps if you said "If it worked for me in my area" I'd cut you some slack GPS / smart phones / maps works for millions so sorry chap, your in the minority:borgsmile

 

[Robson Valley]

I don't need slack. Functional digital equipment is a delight, satellite services in particular.

 

[rik_uk3]

I don't need slack. Functional digital equipment is a delight, satellite services in particular.

So your now saying they work in your area?

 

[Robson Valley]

Certainly, I did. I have perfected the technique of buying digital things, like GPS, which fail. Plus there's the risk to depend upon batteries and signal strength.
Three computers, three printers, the scanner and the digital automation of my house all work just fine, on or off the grid. Sat TV with two SatRads with 120 channels hum right along.
If I want a map, I download and print the digital terrain topo map. Then I switch to sat. view and tilt the image to get a clear view of the pattern of avalanche tracks,
that's as good as a fingerprint for location. Print that. Plan the trip, leave a copy in town and away I go.

We can experience as many as 60 power failures in a day (the staff in the grocery store stopped counting at 60). Maybe a flicker, maybe a minute, maybe 4-6 hours.
Today, here is Saturday. Last Thursday was a glorious sunny day with a gentle breeze. Power off 2X, 40 minutes and 10 minutes. Why? Who knows? I went off-grid.
At -25C or colder I need to be mindful of my house plumbing freezing up. I can do 8 hours off the grid for heating when I have to.
My LED lighting hardly registers in the 2kW digital display of the full sine wave inverter.

If I butchered a few of the neighbor's trees, you might see this:

 

[santaman2000]

Certainly, I did. I have perfected the technique of buying digital things, like GPS, which fail. Plus there's the risk to depend upon batteries and signal strength.
Three computers, three printers, the scanner and the digital automation of my house all work just fine, on or off the grid. Sat TV with two SatRads with 120 channels hum right along........

So the commercial satellite system the tv depends on work; but the navigation satellite system that our military depends on (GPS) doesn't?

Batteries go dead? Yeah; so what? Put in the spare pair.

Yeah, it's true that overhead cover such as heavy tree cover or mountains will obscure reception. That's why you just climb uphill a bit and move out from under the tree cover to get a signal (just like you'd do with a map to get a view of the next landmark) All that said, if the tv satellite signal's getting through there's no reason the GPS satellite signal shouldn't be too. When I was still active duty working aircraft maintenance the avionics troops would sign off write-ups such as you describe as "No defect noted; operator error."

 

[Robson Valley]

Operator Error = Deja Moo. Won more than a few bets, just asking: "OK, you make it work."
Response: "No, you must have upscrewed the device."
Me: "No, it worked really well until last week. If it works, why fix it?"
I don't know enough to fool with full function to make that even better.

The GPS receivers (Garmin) that I was buying would quit after no more than a couple of months.
"We're sorry, that model cannot be repaired." Left outdoors for 12 hours to initialize, no result.
I quit buying expensive field equipment years ago since I could not depend on it from one week to the next.
Set up and working, I'm not quite so stupid as to kill that off, fooling with buttons and menus.
Go to the city airport, new GPS. I know within 3 feet where the benchmark is for elevation. The machine could see 6-8 satellites.
6 weeks and it died. Buy another one. Next one was 4 weeks. I fed them as many batteries as they could eat.
I "borrowed" a GPS total station from a surveying company = what a piece of magic! Day after day, under and out of the trees, data all day.
Use Google Earth to see my terrain. Wet tree cover has obscured radio comms for decades, I know that. Mountains tend to block signals, I know that.
Sell me a piece of consumer gear that works, reliably so, on the summit.

Somebody told me that there's no place in Britain more that 5 miles from a paved road. I might believe that.
My local travels are 221km from door to door. If we leave out the valley farms, maybe 150km is uninhabited.
6-8 people live near the highway but I would not point out where their houses are. There is no crutch like a cell phone (unless you have a sat-phone.)
We're sort of all alone travelling HWY 16, like we always were. Need to be just as resourceful as ever.
If I'm up 25K on the Holmes Forest Service Road, nobody else is there. Nobody at all and there is no radio communication.
If the loggers were in there, yes, there would be traffic and radio comm.

 

[santaman2000]

Yeah I get the idea of no cell service. That's reasonably common to be honest (I'm not in England either) especially in more remote areas. But there's just no place on earth that's out of range of satellite (GPS) signals; it's a military system designed for global navigation and satellites are visible everywhere (dependent on terrain)

Only three things could reasonably interfere with a unit getting a signal:
1) blocked by something (mountains, tree cover, tall buildings, etc.)
2) operator error
3) poor quality/damaged unit