Couch_Potato

Alaska looks huge on that image, but it's not as big as it looks. The method of transferring the surface of a sphere into a flat sheet distorts distances at the poles. That's the big drawback of the mercatur projection map. Look at Greenland for example, it looks gigantic, nearly the size of the US. It's not really that big - check a globe. That is a prety cool image. I think I'll set it as my desktop background. Mike I'm not lost! I just don't know where I am.

Alaska looks huge on that image, but it's not as big as it looks. The method of transferring the surface of a sphere into a flat sheet distorts distances at the poles. That's the big drawback of the mercatur projection map. Look at Greenland for example, it looks gigantic, nearly the size of the US. It's not really that big - check a globe. That is a prety cool image. I think I'll set it as my desktop background. Mike I'm not lost! I just don't know where I am.

I have a Legend that I use in my Xterra with only the occasional lost reception problem. I place it in a cell phone holder that clips on to the heat/AC vent in the dash next to the driver's side window. When it's there it can usually lock on to my position with no problem. I recently travelled over 300 miles with it there and never lost reception. Maybe trying other locations than on the dash would help. Was the car moving while you tried to place it? Maybe it wasn't the placement within the vehicle that was causing the problem. Hope you get it to work for you. Mik I'm not lost! I just don't know where I am.

I'm not sure about every unit, but my etrex legend will automatically update with daylight time if it is set to. I remember seeing somewhere in the setup menu the option to have the change to daylight time to either be done automatically or not done at all. Mine did it automatically so I'm all set. I'm not lost! I just don't know where I am.

quote:Originally posted by st_richardson: Great work! I like the tail animation. How does one go about making an animated signature? Do you need a special program or software? To make an animated gif you need a program that is capable of doing so. I have an old version of Animation Shop that came with Paint Shop Pro. To make the animation I have an image in Paint Shop with a layer for each frame of animation. Then I can copy and paste from Paint Shop to Animation Shop frame by frame and save as an animated gif. Mike I'm not lost! I just don't know where I am.

quote:Originally posted by Paul, Kim & Baron:I just found my first yesterday and am now officially addicted! As a recent new cacher myself I can completely understand. I can't wait for my next opportunity to do some geocaching. I think it's good to start on some easy ones. The thrill of actually finding the first few caches almost guarantees an addiction. quote:It was in the woods beside a path and I just backtracked my way back out. Curiously, I did notice that the outgoing tracking path was slightly off the incomming path track. Is there something I did wrong or is the unit not calibrated correctly somehow? I've noticed the same thing with my etrex legend. I think it's just a fact that the gpsr accuracy is not great. The difference between the incoming and outgiong track is probably less that the uncertanty of the gpsr's calculated location. While cycling I've had tracks recorded over the same section of singletrack show up as more than 30 meters apart. I know I was on the same trail and that it's only a few feet wide so the gpsr must be wrong. Mik

quote:Originally posted by rdw: You guys know that the avatar images have to be JPEG format, right? The yellow dog icons you guys made are GIF. They would work as signature images, but not for the avatar. rdw Actually I didn't know that. Live and learn. Mike

quote:Mvwood and Fractal- Thanks for your help! Now I must ask each of you permission to use this as my logo- Permission granted! I was actually playing around with it a bit at lunch today. I changed colors, rotated text, added detail to the dog and best of all - animation Mike

quote:Mvwood and Fractal- Thanks for your help! Now I must ask each of you permission to use this as my logo- Permission granted! I was actually playing around with it a bit at lunch today. I changed colors, rotated text, added detail to the dog and best of all - animation Mike

quote:Ok Artist rise to the challenge. I accept that challenge. I'm not exactly an artist, but I know a few tricks. How's this: If you like it I have a larger version that looks better that I could email. Mike

quote:Ok Artist rise to the challenge. I accept that challenge. I'm not exactly an artist, but I know a few tricks. How's this: If you like it I have a larger version that looks better that I could email. Mike

Ok, let me try to 'splain it a bit. The electonic compass uses a ferrite core material (metal or magnetic ceramic) to magnetically couple 4 coils of wire along different axes. One of those coils has an AC current applied to it to create a known magnetic field. The compass then measures the current induced on the other 3 coils due to magnetic coupling. The amount of coupling and therefore the amount of current induced is a function of the orientation of each individual coil to the earth's magnetic field. North can be determined by the amount of current from each of the 3 coils. Another way to think of it is that the electronic compass creates a local magnetic field and then measures how that local field interacts with the earth's magnetic field and thus determine the orientation of the earth's magnetic field. This type of measurement works best when the axes of the coils is co-planar with the field that you're trying to measure. For the earth's field that typically means that the device must stay parallel to the surface of the earth. Thus the level in the watch. The coils that induce and measure the magnetic fields don't necessarily have to be large. I imagine that an electronic compass setup could be designed to fit within a wristwatch and I'm positive that palm - sized units are available. Any clearer? Mik [This message was edited by mvwood on March 21, 2002 at 08:15 PM.]

Ok, let me try to 'splain it a bit. The electonic compass uses a ferrite core material (metal or magnetic ceramic) to magnetically couple 4 coils of wire along different axes. One of those coils has an AC current applied to it to create a known magnetic field. The compass then measures the current induced on the other 3 coils due to magnetic coupling. The amount of coupling and therefore the amount of current induced is a function of the orientation of each individual coil to the earth's magnetic field. North can be determined by the amount of current from each of the 3 coils. Another way to think of it is that the electronic compass creates a local magnetic field and then measures how that local field interacts with the earth's magnetic field and thus determine the orientation of the earth's magnetic field. This type of measurement works best when the axes of the coils is co-planar with the field that you're trying to measure. For the earth's field that typically means that the device must stay parallel to the surface of the earth. Thus the level in the watch. The coils that induce and measure the magnetic fields don't necessarily have to be large. I imagine that an electronic compass setup could be designed to fit within a wristwatch and I'm positive that palm - sized units are available. Any clearer? Mik [This message was edited by mvwood on March 21, 2002 at 08:15 PM.]

quote:How do electronic Compas' work? How reliable are they? I was wondering this myself so I did a search and found the following at BoatUS.com: quote:The source of magnetic heading information in electronic form on most recreational vessels is supplied by a sensor system called a magnetic flux gate. The typical flux gate is comprised of a core of easily magnetized metal on which four coils of fine wire have been wound. An AC voltage is applied to one of the coils. The relative magnitude of the voltage induced in each of the other coils will depend on the angle of each coil to the earth's magnetic field. The magnetic heading information supplied will be accurate as long as the coil assembly is parallel to the earth's surface. For this reason, the coil assembly is usually suspended in a housing, which may, like many compasses, be filled with light oil to dampen its movements . . . Unlike conventional compasses which require manual adjustment to compensate for local magnetic fields, most flux gate systems can be automatically compensated often by pressing a button and performing a 540 to 720 degree turn in one direction in a period of from two to three minutes. The compensation procedure can be repeated whenever the user suspects that a change may have occurred in the local magnetic environment. These flux gate or flux detector compasses are quite accurate, however they do suffer from the same errors that occur with conventional compassses. In the northern hemisphere they are least accurate on headings close to north, most accurate on headings close to south (with the reverse true in the southern hemisphere). They can provide momentarily misleading heading information on east or west headings when subject to rapid acceleration or deceleration . . . Rapid turns can create time lag errors, it takes a moment for the system to catch up . . . I thought it was something like that Mike

quote:How do electronic Compas' work? How reliable are they? I was wondering this myself so I did a search and found the following at BoatUS.com: quote:The source of magnetic heading information in electronic form on most recreational vessels is supplied by a sensor system called a magnetic flux gate. The typical flux gate is comprised of a core of easily magnetized metal on which four coils of fine wire have been wound. An AC voltage is applied to one of the coils. The relative magnitude of the voltage induced in each of the other coils will depend on the angle of each coil to the earth's magnetic field. The magnetic heading information supplied will be accurate as long as the coil assembly is parallel to the earth's surface. For this reason, the coil assembly is usually suspended in a housing, which may, like many compasses, be filled with light oil to dampen its movements . . . Unlike conventional compasses which require manual adjustment to compensate for local magnetic fields, most flux gate systems can be automatically compensated often by pressing a button and performing a 540 to 720 degree turn in one direction in a period of from two to three minutes. The compensation procedure can be repeated whenever the user suspects that a change may have occurred in the local magnetic environment. These flux gate or flux detector compasses are quite accurate, however they do suffer from the same errors that occur with conventional compassses. In the northern hemisphere they are least accurate on headings close to north, most accurate on headings close to south (with the reverse true in the southern hemisphere). They can provide momentarily misleading heading information on east or west headings when subject to rapid acceleration or deceleration . . . Rapid turns can create time lag errors, it takes a moment for the system to catch up . . . I thought it was something like that Mike