Cardinal Red

I just "Edit Deleted" a test post. This isn't rocket science. Well then, I guess I learned something too. Thanks.

Yes I saw it too. You are NOT making this up. But I am thinking it was Snowboards.

After reading your post, it hit me that your estimate seems very reasonable. We're talking Canada now, so 1/1000th of a minute of LONG is very nearly only ONE meter. Of course the same 1/1000th of a minute of LAT will be very nearly TWO meters anywhere. I also never thought to point out that the GREAT CIRCLE CALCULATOR on the Internet will give Projections to the 1/10,000 of a minute. Obviously you are going to have to round off the result from 4 decimal places to 3 decimal places to enter it into your GPS as a waypoint. But you could remember about how much you had to round off (up or down), and nudge the final result back in that direction. Probably to nitpicky.

I really am interested to hear how you make out with this. Notice I edited the message I wrote last night to correct some directional references. You wrote "GPS can be OFF". Well certainly we all know there is some error associated with our GPS Technology. But, consider this. Error is always discussed in term of deviation from absolute accuracy. Have you ever considered the accuracy of the relative position of multiple points. Say the accuracy of the cords of the one known corner are off by 20 Feet. Fine. You calculate waypoints for the other 3 corners. You locate them while you still have the same satellite cluster in the sky. Won't they all be off by almost exactly the same 20 Feet? Won't the actual relative position accuracy of the 3 FOUND property corners compared to the 1 KNOWN corner be MUCH more accurate than 20 Feet? You say the lot is in the woods. Pick a time of year when the foliage is at a minimum, to maximize GPS reception. GOOD LUCK! Glenn

OK. We are getting some interesting discussion, but we are NOT answering the question. The question as I see it is: You have a 4 sided, 4 corner lot with an Iron Pin in each corner of the lot. Using a GPS how do I find ALL the Pins? STEP 1> You must have a property description with all 4 "calls" of the lines as Paul described them. You provided one "call" in your question: N 69 Deg. 05' 50" E That is NORTH 69 Degrees, 5 Minutes, 50 Seconds EAST. Part of the call will also be the length of each line. This line is 1360.77 Feet long. STEP 2> You must find one of the pins just by searching the area. A general idea of the property outlines, and a metal detector could be a big help here. STEP 3> You need to calculate the PROJECTED WAYPOINT to another pin. You will need to convert the Angle of the line from Degrees, Minutes , and Seconds to Decimal Degrees. Because the WAYPOINT PROJECTION feature on my GPS is so poorly implemented, I will assume it sucks on all of them. So here is a link to A GREAT CIRCLE CALCULATOR on the web: Compute Lat/Lon given radial and distance from a known point Drop down the page to the second set of boxes. Make sure to set the Distance Units to Feet. And make sure the Earth Model is set the same as your GPS (probably WGS84). It will give you space to enter the LAT and LONG of the one pin you found. It gives you space to enter the line length into the Distance 1-2 box. It wants the line angle in the Course 1-2 box. Entering an angle of 0 Degrees (zero) would project you directly North. A 90 Degree entry would point you East. 180 Degrees is South, and 270 Degrees is West. In this case: 50 / 60 = .83333 5+.83333 = 5.83333 5.83333 / 60 = .09722 69 + .09722 = 69.09722 Degrees Again as Paul and I both said: Because the first letter of this line is N, you must think to look North and rotate 69.09722 Degrees Clockwise (toward the letter E, or East). So North = 0 Degrees. Rotate Clockwise ADDS. 0 + 60.09722 = 69.0722 So you just enter 69.09722 That is fine if you found the Pin at the SOUTHERN most end of this line. What if you found the Pin at the NORTHERN most end of the line instead. Looking at the line from this different point of view would change the "call" of the line to S 69 Degrees 5' 50" W. Think: look SOUTH. Rotate 69.09722 Degrees Clockwise toward the WEST. South = 180 Degrees. Rotate Clockwise ADDS. 180 + 69.09722 = 249.09722 which you would enter into the Course 1-2 box. Click on the Compute Button to calculate the Lat 2 and Lon 2 which is the PROJECTED WAYPOINT to enter into the GPS as a Waypoint. You can look for the Pin right away, or just enter the newly computed Waypoint as your new Lat1 and Lon1 and calculate the next projection to the end of another line. Continue till you are done. If this is too confusing. Find one Pin. Mark the cords. Note if it is in the NE, NW, SE, or SW corner. Post this information along with the "calls" of the North, Soulh, East and West lines. And I will calculate where you should look for the other 3 Pins. Let me know how you make out. AFTER SOME SLEEP, EDITED IN THE MORNING TO REVERSE A NORTHERN AND SOUTHERN LINE REFERENCE.

I am finding GPS Gab to be an interesting and informative site. I wouldn.t care if there was an option to buy anything. Just say NO. Just today saw information about the Boeing contract to build the newest GPS satellites and information about the newest Explorists (400, 500, 600) units. Some messages on THIS board are still speculating about new features. Why speculate. Read it. And by the way, all 3 are claimed to have amoung other things a "High Speed USB Data Port". All this available to view WITHOUT the need to even register. Where's the harm?

Hi always lost. I am very interested to hear what kind of response you get from the knowledgeable Benchmarkers on this forum. Let me add what I THINK I know to further stimulate the dialog. My interest in GPS started with a 60 acre Site Plan with exactly that type of information (N69 deg 05' 50" E @ 1360.77'). Total Greek to me then. I bought a GPS and researched LAT and LONG on the internet. I visited a local Benchmark to "verify" the accuracy of my new toy (seemed to be darn good). I found Geocaching from a Benchmark link. The Site Plan was in AutoCAD. I determined as close as possible the LAT/LONG grid to overlay on the Site Plan. Used my GPS to verify and add detail. Crude, but it worked for me. Found out I could enter "Surveyors" angles into AutoCAD. Based on that I think I know that your angle is 69.09722222 degrees clockwise of your North reference. That would be 20.9027778 degrees counter clockwise of your East reference. All such angles I have ever seen either have the North or South prefix. They then have either an East or West suffix. Look toward your prefix reference. Rotate toward the suffix direction by the number of degrees indicated. Then walk in that direction the number of feet indicated. X should mark the spot. If any of this is wrong, someone will correct it and we will both be smarter. Now about your astronomic bearings. What is the North reference you want to use. Good question. In my case, I wanted to orient my Site Plan with TRUE North. It seemed to be over 10 degrees off. Found this site:Estimated Value Of Magnetic Declination I corrected for the LOCAL Magnetic Declination in Southeast PA at the time the original drawing was done. Again the results seemed to "fit". Are astronomic bearings TRUE, MAGNETIC, or something else? Now the last part. How do you use this with a GPS. My answer is: Not as easy as it should be. I own a Garmin GPS Map 76S. Only unit I have ANY experience with. This would seem to be the perfect use for the Project Waypoint feature. But you can only enter a distance to an accuracy of 1/100th of a Mile (52.8') and you can only enter integer degrees. What good is that? So unless someone convinces Garmin to rewrite their software, you can do your own rough calculation to determine the next Waypoint (property corner), or there are sites on the Internet with calculators for this type of data. I hope you find some of this usefull as we both await further comment.

Look above for the Screenshot provided by Poindexter. His location at that moment is Maryland. Actually he could be in a boat on the Chesapeake Bay. It's a bit cold for that right now, isn't it? What he didn't specify is that #35 is the WAAS Satellite. You can see it is at about 45 Degrees elevation on the horizon, in a Southeast direction. Anywhere in the U.S. Mainland, Satelite #35 will generally be in a Southeast direction. Find an open spot with a clear view to the Southeast to attempt your first WAAS reception. And give it time! I got tired of waiting the very first time and just left it sit for half an hour. When I went back, I had it. This is taken from the book A GPS USER MANUAL (WORKING WITH GARMIN RECEIVERS) by Dale DePriest. "From the west coast of the US you can access (Satellite) number 47 and (Satellite) number 35 while from the east coast you can only see number 35." "Find a clear sky view in the direction of the WAAS GEO satellites you are interested in. If necessary set a waypoint to their approximite location so that you can use the GPS itself to provide a bearing to the satellite. GEOS 35 is at Lat 0 and Lon 54 West (somewhere over Brazil) while 47 is at Lat 0 and Lon 179 West (very nearly over Howland Island)." Remember Amelia Earhart? The very thing that could have saved her life, now orbits over the destination she was trying to reach. Not sure if this is Garmin specific or not. " Be sure that your GPS is set normal mode (not battery save) for this procedure. The nature of WAAS corrections precludes it's use in Garmin battery save mode."

Has anyone else noticed that Pennsylvania will probably have a six week Deer hunting season in 2005-2006. "HARRISBURG - The state Game Commission voted Tuesday to lengthen doe hunting in southeastern Pennsylvania ... Commission members said they were comfortable giving preliminary approval to the longer firearms doe-hunting season, which will be subject to a final vote in April. Under the plan, firearms doe hunting in a region including parts of Berks, Lehigh, Bucks, Montgomery, and Chester counties would be expanded from about 2 1/2 weeks to six weeks over December and January in the 2005-2006 season. That would exclude Sundays, when deer hunting is not permitted." I personally am NOT opposed to hunting, but that's a long time. Anyone else have an opinon ? This is not universally popular with Pennsylvania hunters. "Members decided not to shorten the deer season despite complaints from hunters who said during a hearing Sunday that policies intended to reduce the herd have made deer too scarce." "Game Commission spokesman Jerry Feaser said the doe-hunting season expansion is intended to address concerns about an overpopulation of deer in the region's suburban communities. If we don't allow additional hunting pressure, then there are more problems about crop damage, as well as motorists striking more deer. It's a delicate balancing act." Will this influence your caching activities during those additional 3 1/2 weeks ?

I am also Harry Potter clueless and intend to stay that way. But you don't need to change your profile on my account.

Here are two varieties of Terraserver that I like. Only good for U.S.A. addresses I think. terraserver.microsoft.com terraserver.com

Another one from Berks County. Do we win a prize if we keep stuffing the ballot box ?

I would like to have two options when I download a Manual. Keep the .pdf option, but also allow me to choose a manual where I can do a Find (on This Page) search of the text in the document.

The Northeast U.S. has some snow on the ground right now. A lot of people are driving regular cars and they get around. I have a 4x4. I get around better. I am not saying that an Electric Compass over a GPS Compass will be nearly as dramatic, but the people who have never had one can't know for sure what they are missing. I do carry a regular compass that doesn't require batteries. But, I still appreciate my Electronic Compass. It can still direct you toward a GOTO point in a small patch of very heavy tree cover, even if you are having trouble maintaining a satelite lock. This won't come in handy very often, so you have to decide if it's worth it to you. And the Electronic Compass will eat into your battery life. My Garmin GPS Map76S gives me a very easy ON / OFF shortcut key to quickly bring it on line for short periods of time.

I have not been able to find another post on this board that adresses the Garmin GPSMAP76S issues that matter to me. I guess this is as good a place as any to see if there is any reaction. I have had this unit for 19 months. The original Software Version 3.2 is still in there. But I have never read that the available upgrades would change any of the areas of my concern. I do like this unit. It is NOT too large in my opinion. The size of the unit is perfect for me. BUT, I do have many software issues with this unit. 1) The Power and Data port is not accessable when the unit is held in a generic dashboard mount. If it was located higher up on the case, that might not be a problem. 2) I usually use my unit inside a protective soft case. You have to be very precise to turn the unit OFF this way. Pressing that recessed Power Key through a layer of clear plastic usually also presses an adjacent Key. It won't turn off when that happens. The Power Key should ignore adjacent Keys. I seem to have basically the same problem with the Rocker Key. Trying to enter waypoint names while the unit is inside that soft case can be very frustrating. It just seems to have a mind of it's own. When you try to shift to the next column to the right, it often changes the current letter instead. 3) The Distance to Destination field is displayed to a resolution of 1/100th of a foot within 100' of Dest. Is displayed to a resoluton of 1/10th of a foot within 528' of Dest. Is displayed to a resolution of 52.8' above that. WHY? At the very least they could switch from Miles to Feet below 1000'. Also those Miles and Feet designations are very small. Why not just show one large capital letter of F(eet) or M(iles). 4) The Project Location feature is very lame. You can only enter distance as Miles to a resolution of 52.8 Feet. At the very least give me miles to .001 (5.28 Feet) or better yet just let me enter feet to one decimal place. Also when I enter a Bearing I want it to stay at what I entered. This thing sometimes tweaks the Bearing for no reason that makes any sense to me. And how about being able to enter a decimal Bearing. 5) If you gave us more memory could we have longer waypoint names ? 6) Under the Setup Page Layout category I want more flexibility. Take for example the Plot Page. Useless to me. So why can't I choose 4,5, or 6 rows. Let me fill up the whole page. Also why isn't the GOTO Waypoint Name listed on this page? Why isn't DATUM one of my data field choices? Why don't you show Lat/Long in the list of choices when you have chosen small boxes. Grey it out. Don't hide it. Also why don't I have the option to choose LAT or LONG separately so they can be larger text, and more visible. I want a MEMO field that I can choose and edit. And if you make it long enough you can give me a Left, Center, and Right Justify option, and I can have 3 MEMO fields. I really want this flexibility for most of the pages. And how about letting me turn a page off so I don't have to scroll through it if I don't want to see it. 7) Why can't I see more NEAREST Waypoints? I seem to recall being limited to only 15. 8) When I mark a Waypoint why is the altitude data so finicky? It might seem like I have a decent lock, but when I mark the waypoint the altitude can be quite a bit off what was on the display when I pressed the Mark Key. Give me the altitude I was looking at when I mark, or give me a reason why. 9) If I press MENU MENU I can see the Light Status, the Memory Status, and the Power Status. How about WAAS, Compass, Altimiter Calibration ON/OFF Status ect. One place to quickly view ALL important settings. 10) The Electronic Compass has an ON/OFF shortcut. What about one for WAAS ect. Except for possibly your lower cost units, don't assume you know how your customers are going to use your product. Give them maximum flexibility and let them be creative.

Garmin GPS Map 76S