On Sunday, December 18, 2016 at 4:23:18 PM UTC-5, wrote:
On Sun, 18 Dec 2016 06:09:15 -0800 (PST), DerbyDad03
wrote:
On Sunday, December 18, 2016 at 3:18:33 AM UTC-5, micky wrote:
In alt.home.repair, on Sun, 18 Dec 2016 00:01:43 -0500,
wrote:
On Sat, 17 Dec 2016 22:07:16 -0500, micky
wrote:
In alt.home.repair, on Sat, 17 Dec 2016 11:45:00 -0500, Ed Pawlowski
wrote:
I don't carry paper maps any more but long before a trip I do use them.
Always good to know the relative distance to where you are and where you
want to go. Compass is handy but you have to be careful. The roads
often twist and turn so you may show south in portions but the road is
going to end up east.
Last few trips to Europe I used a GPS and it is very handy to have.
Bigger and better than using a phone, IMO.
I'm just not willing to spend more money on something I will only use on
this trip.
By phone, do you mean an app for the cellphone. I thought you meant
that so Iwent to the Playstore and it lists 20 compass apps.
However about half require the phone to have a magnetometer, which I
don't have,, and I don't know what they others require. Maybe that cell
towers be nearby and that won't be true everywhere I plan to go.
There are several ways the cell phone can get position, and I suppose
they will also tell north, but other than using cell towers, I don't
know what they are.
Magnetometer or GPS will give you north with a "compass" app. There
are apps that use magnetometer, and ones that use GPS. GPS tells you
which way you are going while in motion but will not tell you which
way is north when standing still
That's good enough. When I'm not moving, I really don't have to know
which way I'm (not) going.
.Magnetometer gives you north
reference even when not using, but can be affected by external
magnetics.
Good point. So we're back to "in the car" problem, what makes it so
hard to set the compensating magnets on early car compasses.. Maybe my
rear view mirror one works so well because it's up high, away from
speakers, and surrounded by glass. (And in my car the roof is mostly
canvas.)
So I'm better off with the GPS, which works out since I don't have a
magnetometer.
It only showed 20 apps when I looked the first time, but now it shows
more than 100. I'm sure I'll find some that say they use GPS. I just
checked and the phone itself has A-GPS.
Just to be clear, any GPS app on a smartphone, whether built in like Google Maps or
one that you download, will require cell service. It not a like a standalone GPS that
uses the GPS satellites.
That is the issue that I ran into out west. No cell service, no routing information.
Not true. They use the GPS satelites. If you have downloadable maps
you don't need a data connection. The GPS will aso give you direction
of travel and precise location co-ordinates without a data (or even
phone) connection.
There are downloadable map apps available for almost all smart phones
- but your storage may not allow much area to be covered, or much
detait. depends on the phone.
Going into the settings menues you can almost always get the actual
GPS co-ordinates in raw form. Apps like Speedview give you
groundspeed and heading, as well as elevation when in motion.
You are correct, I was rushing and had a brain fart. Smartphones do indeed
use GPS.
As far as downloading the maps for use offline, that works fine if you
know/suspect that you will need the offline maps before you leave.
Aside from the limited space allowable for downloaded maps (I think mine is
about 1750 MB) you need a data connection in order to do the download. In the
case of my trip out west, I had no idea that I was going to lose Google Maps's
routing capability until it was already lost. I guess I could have backtracked
until I had a signal again and then used a bunch of data to download the area
but that wastes time, gas and data.
Since I still have my Garmin 350 with lifetime map updates, I'll keep it
updated from now on and be sure it's with me the next time I head out into
the more rural areas of our fine country.
The main point of all this was to let micky know that a GPS with the proper
maps is probably his best option. The "buy and sell later" seems like the
best strategy if he really doesn't need one for the long term.