I bought a portable Delorme model, primarily for hiking and backpacking, but
haven't used it much. Its limited battery life plus small viewing window still
do not make it a viable replacement for a plain old paper map and compass. But
it does come in handy when I don't have a map like my trip to Las Vegas last
month for a convention. The rental car company didn't give me the limited area
map and I needed to find the highway route to Grapevine Canyon - my portable
gps proved its worth on that trip. Still a handy survival tool, much like the
compass I usually also have.
David Councill
67 BGT
72 B
64 B
-----Original Message-----
From: mgs-bounces at autox.team.net [mailto:mgs-bounces at autox.team.net] On
Behalf
Of WSpohn4 at aol.com
Sent: Sunday, March 27, 2011 8:35 AM
To: mgs at autox.team.net
Subject: Re: [Mgs] Sat Nav/GPS rant, was MG6 Review
That's hilarious.
We went on a trip to the Rhone last Fall and for the first time used a GPS.
I figure we saved a total of about a day we'd have spent trying to find our
way through some large towns etc., so it was very helpful, and I bought one
after I got home. It also has a pretty good capability to indicate speed, so
I use it in my Jamaican bodied MGA because I haven't got around to figuring
out why my electronic speedo insists on ignoring signals from the electronic
sender in the T5 trans attached to the 3.4 engine in that car.
But I've also noted that it doesn't always use the best and fastest route and
it insists that a street near my house is continuous even though it has never
connected where it indicates - the GPS tells you to turn up a street that
doesn't exist.
Like most modern aids, these things have to be used with a bit of common
sense, coupled with an ability to read a map, and shouldn't be relied upon as
your sole method of navigation.
If you don't think that aids like this derogate from learning necessary
skills, hand a cashier $4.21 some time when you are buying something that
costs $3.96 and watch them waiting until their electronic cash register tells
them how much to give you back - simple arithmetic and the idea that you'd
prefer to have a quarter in your pocket to a handful of small change just
doesn't seem to occur to them. Most of them just look at you as if you are
the weird one for giving them odd change.
Bill
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