"NY" wrote in message
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"charles" wrote in message
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In article ,
Harry Bloomfield wrote:
Peter Johnson used his keyboard to write :
I spent 30 years in fire service communications and would have no
difficulty with that. Inputting locations using grid references was
never considered for the two systems I was involved with and I suspect
that the cost of putting in place a system that could accept them
would have been expensive and rarely used.

So how were locations outside a built-up area identified? When did people
begin to use postcodes as a means of identifying a place on a map in
addition to a postal delivery address. "Between Town 1 and Town 2" could
be a long stretch of road, and it would be difficult to identify even if
someone read distances off a road sign "Town 1 = 10 miles, Town 2 = 4
miles" if there were very twisty roads.


A paper OS map would have been comparatively cheap and shows much more
detail than Google does.

and how many would you need to access and how long would a paper map
last?

Given that we're talking about Google maps, we're in the era of online OS
maps as well.

Even before that, I'd expect an emergency control room to have all the
paper OS maps, maybe unfolded, laminated and mounted on boards for extra
durability, for the area that they cover. (*)

I wouldn't regard Google maps as being up to the job of identifying
locations given over the phone, because they lack landmarks such as
churches, rivers/streams, woodland etc which people might use when
specifying a location

Our google maps does.

("It's near Anytown church, on the road that goes to Anyvillage, just
before you get to the stream.

Did that last saturday, for a garage sale. Very poor description
of the location, 'third driveway in on the Whitton Road'
There is in fact a Whitton Road, but its in an adjacent town
tens of km away from the one she was talking about. Turns
out it was actually the road to whitton, which is actually
called the Kooba North Settlers Road. She didn’t even
manage to get the number of driveways right either,
there is another just after the turnoff from the Kidman Way.

Unusually she had included a mobile in the garage sale
ad and the mate of mine who is always first with me at
all the garage sales had rung her the night before and
had asked her whether she was near where he gets
chook manure from when she had said it wasn’t the
Whitton Road in Yenda. So I was able to report where
she was on my own facebook garage sale group where
I list all the garage sales so that those who use my
group could find it.
https://www.google.com/maps/place/N+...!4d146.0658902

That does have Mirrool Creek on it so my mate was able to tell me
that what she called Whitton Road was actually the first turn off on
the left after crossing Mirrool Creek.

Also, Google maps don't have OS grid references printed on them and the
search doesn't understand grid references.

Nowadays I'd expect emergency operators to be able to process all location
formats: OS grid ref (both all-numeric, and with initial two letter to
define the 100x100 km square), lat/long (DDMMSS and DDMM.MMM), postcodes.
And maybe things like Three Little Words. And then they should to display
that location on an OS map at a suitable scale (1:50,000 and 1:25,000, and
maybe 1:10,000 and larger scale in towns, to identify buildings as in
"it's near Jones the Butchers").

Another mate of mine runs the local SES.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_Emergency_Service

I prefer to walk for exercise well out of town on rough bush tracks
and fire trails. I did wonder what would happen if I managed to
trip over and break a leg or something. No one would go past
for months where I walk. He said that they would love to get
a lat long and come and get me that way for the practice.

(*) I remember even in the early 1970s my dad bought several unfolded OS
maps of the area where we lived, and he cut them so they joined, and
mounted them on a large sheet of chipboard on the wall of his office at
home. Not sure why, because he didn't need them for his job, so maybe it
was more for interest.

Yeah, I have a full set of this part of the country that
I used before the internet or mobiles showed up.
Never mounted them on the wall, used them in the car.