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Gpsr???


skillett

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How did the term GPSr come about? I have used a gps for years in ham radio and have never seen them called GPSr's untill i found geocaching. we dont call them TVr's or RADIOr's It's a given that it is a reciever so why tack the "r" on the end.

color me curious.

skillett :D

Edited by skillett
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It's not a TV receiver, it's a Television set. It doesn't receive a television, it receives programming.

The point I am trying to make here is that GPSr seem redundant. we all know that it doesn,t transmit a signal . nor does a tv or a car radio. but, we don't include the word reicever in everyday conversation when speaking of tv or radio. I was just curious how the term came about. I use Automatic Position Reporting System. (APRS for short) in ham radio. It uses a two-way radio and a gps to report my position which is mapped to street level so other hams can see where i am. it can also message other hams if needed. it also reports speed, heading, and altitude. it gets this info from the gps unit.

Skillett :D

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How did the term GPSr come about? I have used a gps for years in ham radio and have never seen them called GPSr's untill i found geocaching. we dont call them TVr's or RADIOr's It's a given that it is a reciever so why tack the "r" on the end.

color me curious.

skillett :D

I don't know, either. And considering Google can't find the use of "GPSr" on garmin.com or magellangps.com, I wonder where the heck it came from.

 

Must be a geocaching peculiarity.

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Geocaching is also the only place I have encountered the use of the 'r' on the end of GPS. As Skillet said, we don't use it in HAM radio, and we don't use it at the agency where I work (and at least half our employees are issued GPS units and they are listed on our inventory as GPS not GPSr).

 

That I can think of off hand, any device that receives an RF signal, such as a TV, Radar, Radio, for example, do not have the 'r' appended, and a GPS is receiving an RF signal also, so it makes sense to me not to use it, so I don't, but I don't care one way or the other if someone else does, just as some folks call it TV, some call it Television, some call it the Telly and some call it other names. As long as the people you are talking to understand what you are talking about, that is what counts.

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Geocaching is also the only place I have encountered the use of the 'r' on the end of GPS. As Skillet said, we don't use it in HAM radio, and we don't use it at the agency where I work (and at least half our employees are issued GPS units and they are listed on our inventory as GPS not GPSr).

 

That I can think of off hand, any device that receives an RF signal, such as a TV, Radar, Radio, for example, do not have the 'r' appended, and a GPS is receiving an RF signal also, so it makes sense to me not to use it, so I don't, but I don't care one way or the other if someone else does, just as some folks call it TV, some call it Television, some call it the Telly and some call it other names. As long as the people you are talking to understand what you are talking about, that is what counts.

Now, Thats what i'm 'talkin 'bout. get 'em hank!

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Maybe this thread needs an analogy? :D

 

Imagine, if you will, that all television shows were broadcast on a system called the National Broadcast System (NBS). The term NBS would refer to the whole system, the transmitters, the repeaters, the revcievers, and whatnot. A nationwide integrated moving picture broadcast system.

 

Now, would you refer to the little box in your house that you watch the pictures on as your NBS?

 

I don't think so.

 

If you only ever listened to NPR on your radio I could call your radio your NPR.

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If you hang on there for a short while we maybe can call it Galileo. :D

It would still be a global positioning system.

Yes it is still a gps but this one is European and called Galileo, therefore maybe name the units thereafter instead of gpsr. (Ie. Galileo's?). Why not?

 

Ps. Sorry for my bad English. I come from Barcelona!

Edited by baø
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It's not a TV receiver, it's a Television set. It doesn't receive a television, it receives programming.

Actually Fly, it is a receiver. As you pointed out in your post....

 

it receives programming

 

It doesn't transmit. Calling it a television set doesn't make it "not a receiver."

 

A rose by any other name is still a rose.

 

A receiver by any other name is still a receiver.

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Well, now I also remember there was another thread on this....and I think I posted about the same comment there, that it doesn' t really matter what you call it, that my wife calls it the "Geocaching thingy"........ and she laughs at me for having my face buried in the "Geocaching thingy" and doing the dance of the drunken bumblebee while she finds the cache. :(

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Yes it is still a gps but this one is European and called Galileo, therefore maybe name the units thereafter instead of gpsr. (Ie. Galileo's?). Why not?

 

Ps. Sorry for my bad English. I come from Barcelona!

Your English is better than my Barcelonian.

 

Galileo is too hard to spell for us dumb Americans. We like it spelled out for us like GPS and TV. Maybe GAL or LEO will work. Whatever the case I personally look forward to the additional system. Just make sure it covers the globe and not just your part, ok? Seems fair.

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I apologize for kinda of cross posting, but since this thread seems to have somehow missed the thread from like last week on the same thing, I'll repost my post MWUAHAHAHAHA!!!....

 

In "the other" GPSr thread I posted this....

 

I'm going to stick my neck out here and be a dissenter amongst the group. Personally it sounds a little ridiculous for some reason to refer to their device as "my GPS" because the acronym GPS is used to define the "system" not end-user device. Saying "my GPS" is like saying you have your own personal set of satellites for global positioning. Now if anyone here does then I fully endorse your use of GPS sans "r" s :laughing: A GPS receiver is used to access _THE_ GPS. So it is not in any way redundant. The lower case "r" in GPSr is used because GPS... "Global Positioning System" is a proper name... like the "Internet" (Upper case "I"), while the "r" in receiver is not proper. So, even though the "r" is part of an acronym a case change is used to delimit the proper name from the non-proper word in the acronym. I fully admit that this is picking all kinds of nits.... but being a techie, and often technical writer this kind of thing drives me bonkers.

 

I know... I'm a geek :anibad:

 

-FlatLander

Edited by flat_lander
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I think that a major part of it is that it seems silly to say "my GPS receiver" when I could shorten it significantly and say "my GPSr" and have everyone know what I meant. GPSr sounds like GPS-er when pronounced(usually), and, at least to me, indicates "the thing that is used by me to receive the GPS signals".

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I think that a major part of it is that it seems silly to say "my GPS receiver" when I could shorten it significantly and say "my GPSr" and have everyone know what I meant.  GPSr sounds like GPS-er when pronounced(usually), and, at least to me, indicates "the thing that is used by me to receive the GPS signals".

A few things

  • * I think when you tell people about "your GPS" they KNOW you're talking about the unit in your hand, not your own personal fleet of sats in the sky. :lol:
    * Anyone who constantly uses "GPSr" instead of just "GPS" is a goober, and they know it. :huh:
    * Does that mean
JoGPS needs to change his username to JoGPSr? :huh:

Sorry, but every time I see "GPSr" I just :ph34r: mostly because of #1 on my list up there. :huh:

 

[disclaimer: this post was an attempt at mild humor. apologies to all the goobers out there :lol: ]

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