Imperial Or Metric?

[+The Bongtwashes]

About a month ago, I was out caching with Alibags and Third Degree Witch. As we approached the cache, Alibags said the distance from the cache off her GPS, giving the distance in feet, I replied with the distance off my GPS in metres. To this, Alibags commented that I was about the only cacher she knew who worked in metres.

 

Last weekend as I was visitting a cache in Chorleywood, I noticed this sign

 

It all set me wondering, how many have their GPS set to metric, and how many to Imperial? Also, is there generally an age split? First vote is a 50 yr old, using metric.

[+Firth of Forth]

Always work in feet/miles (and I'm your age). But get confused when I go out caching with Haggis Hunter (who's a lot younger than me), who works in metric. Maybe something to do with the fact that he was in the army, where I expect metric is standard practice.

 

But then maybe I can't reply to this thread....as I am neither English nor French.

Edited April 13, 2006 by Firth of Forth

[+John Stead]

Well I'm 69 and use imperial most of the time, except perhaps when I'm counting grid squares on the Os map.

But why is anyone surprised at a 15 ft wide horse, aren't they all? And is the other side for a narrower horse?

[+perth pathfinders]

Feet and Miles for me as well

 

Sameish Age!!

[+Pengy&Tigger]

Imperial for us. When caching in the USA recently, some of the local cachers were surprised that we did - they expected us 'Europeans' to use metric.

 

I am 30, and was taught in metric at school, so for small measurements I prefer cm, but for caching I would have no idea how far say 3km was in my mind. Somehow when a distance is in miles, it's easier for me to picture how far it is.

 

T

[+NinjaPete]

It's Imperial for me too!

[johnzissler]

Imperial settings for Red Squadron........I just love the old style gallons and inches and miles.

[+Simply Paul]

34 and Imperial for me - in miles and then feet (as opposed to miles/yards/feet, which some folks use) as this is how most distances on UK cache pages are given

[+The Bongtwashes]

Perhaps I should also point out that is Alibags' fault that I cache in metric. When I started, I only used imperial, but then I did an Alibags cache. This involves walking 550 yards from the waypoint, but at 176yards (528ft) my GPSr suddenly changed to 0.1 mile. I immediately thought that 550yds = 500m, why not switch to metric? Found the cache, and stayed on metric ever since.

[+stora]

imperial for me too.

[+mongoose39uk]

Imperial for me but can cope with the french stuff at a pinch.

 

Oh and 20floz pints not skimpy American ones ta

[+tteggod trackers]

imperial if in uk. metres if caching in europe!

[Garmin8888]

Imperial 4 me...!

[The BiG Bear]

Edited April 14, 2006 by The BiG Bear

[The BiG Bear]

im 41 and use metric when at work but for everything else I use Imperial including around the house it as to be inches. I was wondering if this is because all road signs are still in miles not km's and we are just use to thinking in miles ?

Edited April 14, 2006 by The BiG Bear

[+rutson]

gimme feet anytime

[+Brenin Tegeingl]

45 year old who uses metres even when doing jobs in the house . I'm one of those odd people who can't understand why we use 2 systems of measurements

 

Dave

[+Haggis Hunter]

Always work in feet/miles (and I'm your age). But get confused when I go out caching with Haggis Hunter (who's a lot younger than me), who works in metric. Maybe something to do with the fact that he was in the army, where I expect metric is standard practice.

 

But then maybe I can't reply to this thread....as I am neither English nor French.

As FoF has pointed out I am indeed metric, roolku who comes along with us too, is metric as well, but then again he isn't French, English or even Scottish.

 

I take my metric side from being ex military where everything is done in metric, due to this I don't use imperial for anything other than driving and road distances.

 

A little tip for the metric people out there. For the average person a long stride is usually 1 metre. Good for measuring those last few metres when the GPS is going haywire.

 

I honestly can't fathom why most cachers within the UK use imperial? As when it comes to map reading you don't have any choice but to do it in metric. Unless there is a good conversion tip for when out and about. I guess if it works for you, then why change it?

[nobby.nobbs]

36 here and the product of the 80's modern teaaching methods!!!

 

so for small distances metric. inches mean nothing to me.

but then once any distance involved i revert to imperial. KM mean nothing but 1 mile does!!! bizarre.

 

weight is oz but liquids are ml !!!

 

and what the heck is farenheit?

[+S&G.Davison]

Distance / Speed in MPH & feet - only because I cant have speed in MPH and distance in metres on a 76CSX .. thats what I'd do if I could. BUt the metres for distances goes out the window when it comes to large distances ie how far from London to Birmingham which has to be miles - same as Nobby.nobbs

 

Altitude HAS to be in Metres .. its a old diving thing .. I know what 100m deep feels like and could visualise it .. so can do the same when it comes to hills

 

Temperature has to be Centigrade

 

Weights are Ok in Kilos / Grams and Volumes are OK in Litres.... But then Fuel consumption has to be mpg ... So I'd be pretty much metric apart from speed, fuel consumption and large distances :/

 

Age 44

Edited April 14, 2006 by S&G.Davison

[Master Mariner]

I'm 55 and use metric as that is what we use at work for underwater surveying and communications cable installation.

[+Geo-Kate]

Similar story to some others her, I use a right mix of measurements!

 

When driving, it's always miles. It makes sense, signs use it, the speedo does, everything does. When walking or caching, again miles and feet. I would struggle to visualise what a distance given to me in m would be. With feet or miles I am fine.

 

When it comes to smaller measurements, I am ambidexterous! I prefere mm, not cm. Inches are OK, but would be my second choice. For volumes it has to be ml or l, except for fuel. Weights of things have to be in kilograms, although I measure the weight of myself in stone!

 

I'm 24, so was bought up and taught in school to use metric. I had to learn to think and talk fluent in imperial measuremnts when I worked at a builders' merchant. 95% or builders would stare blankly at you if you tried to give them any measuremnts in metric, even though all the stock would be labeled in metric (mm only, unless talking about a long peice of timber or something).

 

It's a funny place we live in here, one day, everything will be metric, gone will be mph, miles, feet inches, all of it. I gues we are the last generation who will be using alot of these measuremnts, as the kids that come out of school will have no idea what an inch is or how many to a foot!

[+SimonC_Here]

Miles for distances and speeds, Meters and centimeters for Geocaching. Although I can do feet at a pinch (as I wear size 12's!).

Temp would be in Centigrade, volumes... well anything they are asking really!

 

Simon

Edited April 14, 2006 by SimonC_Here

[+gingerbreadmen]

I drive in miles but cache in metric, only because my gps was set to metric when I bought it and I never got round to changing it. I will however, never change it back, it's all psychological I know but Kms are much quicker to walk between caches, and I know I would much rather glance down at my machine and see the distance to go falling more quickly. Just me being a lazy bounder I suppose.

[Mittellegi]

OS Grid => Metric

DD MM.MMM => Nautical Miles!

 

Statute Miles: no use to anybody...

[Deego]

Imperial for me.

 

I can work in both and do so at work.

[+Orchards Finest]

Age 36 and metric. I was taught only metric in primary school but suddenly at secondary school we were expected to konw imperial since most of the text books were so old. I would hope that this has changed!

Anyway can now use both metric and imperial but metric is a much, much better system. Please note that this is only my opinion but since I can use both I feel this opinion is valid

[+*mouse*]

Like a few others here I got taught in metric but live in an imperial world (no not material you Madonna fans!) so I use both everyday.

I've had to teach myself imperial otherwise nobody else in the family would have a clue what I was talking about although I still find it very bizarre - bushels and chains? What's that all about!!!!

 

For caching though I always use an O/S map so metric wins everytime.

 

Down the pub I'll stick to pints............

[+Skate and Jane]

Totally impetric

Aged 47

Being involved with the building trade, both are used. My tape measure has both and I use which ever fits best what I am measuring.

My GPSr is in imperial as I am most comfortable with it that way.

[+Team Clova]

Driving is always in miles, but when walking/caching use kilometres/metres.

 

Doesnt seem to make sense using yards and feet when using an OS map??

 

How do others manage it? A rough calculation (1.5km to a mile) or very old maps???

[+The Forester]

It depends what I'm measuring and why.

 

For speeds: I use knots for navigating at sea and in the air, but mph for driving in the UK/US and kph elsewhere.

 

For water depths I use metres, but that's because I'm a Hydrographer and metrication happened while I was still in short trousers and learning the difference between compasses singular and compasses plural. Sonic velocities are invariably measured in metres per second, so it makes no sense to use archaic length measures such as fathoms or leagues.

 

For altitudes or heights, it depends what kind of altitude or height. For altitude and height (they're quite different things) in the aeronautical sense, I use feet. For hypsographic altitude I use metric measure because that's standard almost everywhere in the advanced world.

 

For land navigation other than by car, I use metric measure because modern maps are invariably gridded metrically and because I know my double pace distance per kilometre.

 

For geodetic calculations I use metres exclusively.

 

Some mapping systems do use feet, but they're a serious pain because there are so many different definitions of how long a "foot" is. For example, the US Survey Foot is a different length from the Standard Foot, which is different from the Ordnance Survey Foot, which is different from the Indian Foot; and all of those Feet are different from the International Foot.

 

For angular measure, I'm accustomed to the DMS.ssss convention, but the first thing I do when calculating with that format is to decimalise it and reconvert back to DMS format upon completion of the calc.

 

When working with UK land forces surveyors, sometimes I'm forced forced to use their infernal metric angular measure called mils. A mil is a thousandth of 360°.

 

When working with some of the older Norwegian mapping data, I have to use their rather quaint angular measure which they call "gon". There are 400 gon in 360° and the bear trap in that conversion is remembering to to divide gons by 1.1111111, not multiply, when converting to and fro.

 

The old joke among Surveyors about Geodesists that we like standards so much that we have lots of 'em!

[+Learned Gerbil]

Born in 1960 I was taught both at school. My GPS is set in Imperial, but I use C for temperature. I am pretty compfortable with metric - my motorbike is Italian and has a speedo and odometer in Km which I have no problems with. When driving abroad I configure TomTom to give distances in Km so it is more consitent with the road signs. I confess I do tend to convert metric measures to imperial in my head.

Edited April 14, 2006 by Learned Gerbil

[+t.a.folk]

I'm 57 and mixed up !

 

I use feet and inches for small household measurements ...

but "think" in Kilometres when out walking .

From years of map reading when walking I can judge from the terrain how long it will take me to walk somewhere in kilometres ..but no idea how to judge the time in miles , other than doing the 1 K = 5/8ths of a mile sums before starting .

Edited April 14, 2006 by t.a.folk

[+Sensei TSKC]

Imperial for me. Metric is a dillusion.

 

One of Zensunni's was a "Dash and Cache" as I read the cache page. P*ss*ng down with rain and just a mere 500ft from the car park.

 

WRONG! Saw the 500 and assumed it was feet. Quick conversion: Just a quick run around the corner. What I discovered was that 500m converts to over 0.3 miles!

 

Soaked!

 

The other confusion was a cache I did with SP where you had to walk a certain distance in Metres. I reset the GPS to metric and off we set. Glancing down, when in imperial, as you know, when you see whole numbers as opposed to decimal, you're working in feet otherwise in tenths of a mile. Looking and seeing 276 makes you think that it is just up ahead - less than a hundred yards BUT IT'S NOT! Doh! More walking.....

[+Jacko65]

40 years old. I use metric, I think its due to using ordnance survey maps when I was in the Army so i've stuck with it.

[+housefamily]

I'm definitely feeling in a minority...

It's metres for me, I'm afraid. I'm not sure why - maybe it's because I'm (only just) under 30 so it's what I was taught at school... and because I'm quite tall I reckon a metre is a longish stride. That theory doesn't hold out for my wife tho - she has to take 2 steps for every 1 of mine

[andy_the_rocketeer]

34 and metric all round. Don't think i've ever used feet/inches/yards.

 

Even when i'm back in uk (with EU/metric car), I subconciously convert all miles roadsigns into km, probably becasue that's about the only 'abnormal' unit I ever come across. Sure I can cope with miles, half/quarter miles, but wth is 0.1mi? Dunno about anyone else, but I can't even visualise that, but the GPS will tell me that in the car if I set it to imperial!

[Dave from Glanton]

Depsite being taight metric at school I still tend to use imperial, although for measuring some things I stick with metric.

Lengths/distances I always quote in imperial unless it's something small in which case I use millimetres rather than fractions of an inch (except guitar string gauges, for some reason, which I still think of in terms of thousandths of an inch).

Temperatures I always think of in terms of centigrade rather than fahrenheit.

Incidentally, have you noted that when decsribing weather, we tend to adopt the unit which makes the measurement sound more extreme? In winter "Brrrr...it's only about 1 or 2 degrees out there" sounds better than saying it's in the low 30s" But in the summer it's "phew what a scorcher - it's in the high 90s out there".

[The Bow Street Runners]

Miles for distances and speeds, Meters and centimeters for Geocaching. Although I can do feet at a pinch (as I wear size 12's!).

Temp would be in Centigrade, volumes... well anything they are asking really!

 

Simon

 

Have to agree with fellow Oxford cacher, Metric all the time, and I am past 50.

But not that size feet though.

 

Tony

[Newington Green]

I'm 74, can work in both systems but prefer imperial.

[+Nellies Knackers]

We use metres for caching but miles for driving, at work I use inches but that is only due to working on yank crap all day, give me millimeters any day.

[+Spnoo]

I'm 18, and use metric for everything other than driving and cycling, when I'll use imperial. But I can fairly easily visualise and convert between the two if I need to.

[+The Hokesters]

34 years old here and I use imperial. The main reason is that we all (as far as I know) use Miles when on the road so it is useful to use miles on the GPSr - I can navigate to the cache site on foot in either feet or metres but I don't see much point in changing the GPSr into metric so it stays imperial throughout.

 

Incidentally - how many years has SP been 34?

[+Chris n Maria]

We started caching in imperial but found it impossible to estimate in feet wheras 1 meter is almost exactly 1.5 paces for us so if we are heading straight towards the cache its easy to estimate. if you are with someone who uses imperial just say yards instead of meters...they will never know the difference

[+Team Maddie UK]

Metric in principle but the metre is too big a unit for smaller distances and the centimetre too small. I think measuring anything according to a rod of platinum in the Sorbonne goes against the grain as well

[+wigglesworth]

I am in the over 50 class and use:

miles in the car

metric when walking or cycling

 

Reason:

1. It is far more rewarding to walk 8km than a mere 5 miles.

2. I cannot jude a distance in feet!

[+Stuey]

Aged 37 here and a similar story to Nobby and others.... I use a hybrid. Miles on the roads, metres on the paths. I can use other combinations, but my head defaults to miles/metres.

[+psi-lo]

Imperial mostly and metric when the bast**ds make me.

 

I can use metric or imperial as I got the cross over at school but kilometres are totally meaningless. I can't use them. 10 miles means something but km....

 

39.

[mjbvbjjbtmb]

metric for me!!! But - then I was brought up in NZ which is totally metric. Miles confused me when I first got here as it seemed to take ages to get anyway - I'm used to it now (after 15 years) and when I drive the distances are in miles (because of the road signs), but I do most else in metric, including my GPSr

(except I have no idea of my metric weight, just in imperial)

 

V

[alistair_uk]

My GPS is set to Imperial as I tend to think in miles. I strangely think in meter for shorter distances but don't bother changing the settings. I can think of 4 cachers who use metric by default.