Do You Turn The Map ?

[+Rattlehead]

GPSr: North up, true north

Maps: North up

[+EraSeek]

It is mostly just personal choice. Maps are it true north. Many roads are lined up to true north. Longitudinal lines are true north. Mag north varies not only as you move across the country ( it is 18 degrees east here), but also over time. It even moves in a 80km elipse over the course of the day. The north star is near true north. If I want to adjust to true with a magnetic compass I can manually do it with some compasses or simply point my north arrow to 18 degrees east of the bearing to get true. All gps's are giving you true north because that is how the triangulate the sats. They have to adjust to show you mag north, that is why you see the declination for your area when in the mag north setup, but not the true north setup. No big deal, but magnetic also has many local distubances. Anyway, those are my reasons.

 

On the screen I use north up for many of the same reasons, but also because with track up the screen it redrawing too often.

http://www.thecompassstore.com/decvar.html

Edited December 14, 2003 by EraSeek

[bnolan]

After reading posts about the 60C vs. the 60CS I might have to update my theory about map rotators vs. north uppers.

 

Question for you map rotators: do you prefer a GPS with build in magnetic compass so that the map can rotate when you turn while standing still ?