jdege

"The illegality of merely having the feathers dramatically reduces the demand for art objects incorporating them." So it does. It also makes criminals out of people who have done nothing wrong. The next step in the chain is to imprison people in advance, because they're the sort who you think are likely to commit crimes.

Dan'l Boone was once asked if had ever been lost, in his travels in the wilderness. "Nope," he said, "but I was once a might bewildered for three days."

Dan'l Boone was once asked if had ever been lost, in his travels in the wilderness. "Nope," he said, "but I was once a might bewildered for three days."

I read the thread, realized I didn't have an avatar, and went looking. Thanks.

I read the thread, realized I didn't have an avatar, and went looking. Thanks.

The differences that matter to the average user: FRS is lower powered (FRS is limitted to 1/2 watt, GMRS is not - though battery power in a handheld will generally limit a GMRS to 2 watts at best. The result is GRMS has longer range). GMRS requires a license ($75/five years). The frequency assignments overlap - there are 7 FRS-only channels, 7 FRS/GRMS channels, and 8 GMRS-only channels. So a FRS radio can have 14 channels, and a GRMS 15. (Some GRMS radios can also work on the FRS-only frequencies, but they do it at FRS power levels. Similarly, some GMRS radios allow you the option of dropping down to FRS power levels, which means that if you have such a radio, and you stick to the FRS power levels and the FRS frequencies, you could arguably claim that you don't need the license.) GMRS has some neater stuff, for the more technically inclined - you can set up higher-powered repeater base stations with GMRS, etc., but if you're the sort who was going to be doing that soon, you'd not be asking these sorts of questions.

Why was it "good" that you listened to it? Were you in a hurry? Was there some reason why finding the most efficient way home was critical? It may have been that had you wandered around lost for a while, you might have found something you'd never have seen, otherwise.

Why was it "good" that you listened to it? Were you in a hurry? Was there some reason why finding the most efficient way home was critical? It may have been that had you wandered around lost for a while, you might have found something you'd never have seen, otherwise.

If you are standing at the North (Magnetic) Pole, with a handheld compass you bought pretty much anywhere in the world, it won't point, it will stick. The magnet in the compass lines up with the lines of magnetic force, and those do not always run parallel to the surface of the earth. They run into the ground at an angle, and the closer to the pole the steeper the angle. Now on a free-floating ball compass, this doesn't matter. But on the more common pointer/pivot compasses, one end or the other is counterweighted, to keep the pointer reasonably close to level. It's not something that has to be very precise - your compass isn't going to be out of balance because you head north a couple of hundred miles. But if you change lattitude by 45 degrees or more, you can expect that the pointer of your compass will be sufficiently out-of-balance that you'll have to hold the compass noticably off horizontal in order for the pointer to swing free. (When I headed off for college, I put my old Silva Boy Scout compass in a metal cookie tin, along with a bunch of other assorted junk that I didn't need and didn't want to throw away. When I opened the tin, 15 years later, the compass had reversed polarity, the southern end of the pointer pointed towards the North - if I held the compass about 30 degress off of horizontal so that the pointer would swing free. I put the compass in a dresser drawer, and forgot about it, and a couple of years later it worked normally again. It's a puzzlement

If you are standing at the North (Magnetic) Pole, with a handheld compass you bought pretty much anywhere in the world, it won't point, it will stick. The magnet in the compass lines up with the lines of magnetic force, and those do not always run parallel to the surface of the earth. They run into the ground at an angle, and the closer to the pole the steeper the angle. Now on a free-floating ball compass, this doesn't matter. But on the more common pointer/pivot compasses, one end or the other is counterweighted, to keep the pointer reasonably close to level. It's not something that has to be very precise - your compass isn't going to be out of balance because you head north a couple of hundred miles. But if you change lattitude by 45 degrees or more, you can expect that the pointer of your compass will be sufficiently out-of-balance that you'll have to hold the compass noticably off horizontal in order for the pointer to swing free. (When I headed off for college, I put my old Silva Boy Scout compass in a metal cookie tin, along with a bunch of other assorted junk that I didn't need and didn't want to throw away. When I opened the tin, 15 years later, the compass had reversed polarity, the southern end of the pointer pointed towards the North - if I held the compass about 30 degress off of horizontal so that the pointer would swing free. I put the compass in a dresser drawer, and forgot about it, and a couple of years later it worked normally again. It's a puzzlement

I'm new to GPS, and I've seen the neato modern gadgets with the built-in maps, and I was wondering if they were worth the bother and extra expense. The displays seem awfully limited - do the maps have sufficient detail for them to be of any real use? I've spent enough time wandering through the woods that I can, in most terrain, track my location pretty precisely on a USGS topo map just with pace count and contour lines - with only an occassional confirmation with the compass. (Assuming, of course, that there actually is some terrain - on flat ground it's back to the compass.) Can I do that with the topo maps included with the fancy GPS receivers?