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Semper Fi - 1775
Picture of Ronin1069
posted
Took a solo vacation in the Northern Wisconsin boonies. Heading to a place to hike, no signal out here. Car GPS is useless. Glad I brought (and can read) a highway map!

I shake my head when I think of the average person sitting in their car, absolutely panicked because they cannot get a GPS signal on their map and don’t even know how to get back into town, much less go find this this trail to the waterfall.


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Posts: 12419 | Location: Belly of the Beast | Registered: January 02, 2009Reply With QuoteReport This Post
The Unmanned Writer
Picture of LS1 GTO
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Rand McNally!






Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.



"If dogs don't go to Heaven, I want to go where they go" Will Rogers

The definition of the words we used, carry a meaning of their own...



 
Posts: 14199 | Location: It was Lat: 33.xxxx Lon: 44.xxxx now it's CA :( | Registered: March 22, 2008Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Min-Chin-Chu-Ru... Speed with Glare
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I'm not proficient in using a compass but I could certainly read a highway map presuming I had a sign or some kind of marker indicating what road I was on or what road I was approaching.

But I'm surprised your car GPS was useless, as I thought all built-into-the-vehicle GPS systems (and Garmin/Tom-Tom type portable GPS devices) work by linking to satellites. At least, my cars' GPS work that way.

In addition to paper maps and my car GPS, I keep an old Garmin and charger in my car just in case my cell phone can't get a signal.
 
Posts: 1280 | Location: MA | Registered: December 24, 2004Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Member
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I always keep an atlas in my vehicles. Its paid off more than once and sometimes helps with random detours and avoiding tolls.
 
Posts: 3123 | Location: Pnw | Registered: March 21, 2009Reply With QuoteReport This Post
His Royal Hiney
Picture of Rey HRH
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I've gone through places where there was no signal but my gps seems to still work until it could pick up a signal again. Those times I already had a destination programmed.



"It did not really matter what we expected from life, but rather what life expected from us. We needed to stop asking about the meaning of life, and instead to think of ourselves as those who were being questioned by life – daily and hourly. Our answer must consist not in talk and meditation, but in right action and in right conduct. Life ultimately means taking the responsibility to find the right answer to its problems and to fulfill the tasks which it constantly sets for each individual." Viktor Frankl, Man's Search for Meaning, 1946.
 
Posts: 20180 | Location: The Free State of Arizona - Ditat Deus | Registered: March 24, 2011Reply With QuoteReport This Post
If you see me running
try to keep up
Picture of mrvmax
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I can read a map and can use a compass, but I have a handheld Garmin if needed. I like multiple layers in case one fails.
 
Posts: 4260 | Location: Friendswood Texas | Registered: August 24, 2007Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Saluki
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I work with many younger drivers, somewhere around 40 map reading is rare.

I’m surprised at how difficult it is to even buy a map.


----------The weather is here I wish you were beautiful----------
 
Posts: 5250 | Location: southern Mn | Registered: February 26, 2006Reply With QuoteReport This Post
אַרְיֵה
Picture of V-Tail
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quote:
Originally posted by Rey HRH:

I've gone through places where there was no signal but my gps seems to still work until it could pick up a signal again. Those times I already had a destination programmed.
GPS works, in terms of "knowing" the present location's latitude and longitude coordinates.

Cell service might be required in order to download a map.

With no map, the lat / lon coordinates are not too useful.

If you already had a destination programmed, the required map segments were probably already pre-loaded.



הרחפת שלי מלאה בצלופחים
 
Posts: 31589 | Location: Central Florida, Orlando area | Registered: January 03, 2010Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Optimistic Cynic
Picture of architect
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When they make a cell phone screen large enough to provide locational context like a paper map can most of my frustrations with them will be gone. Of course, it would probably be too heavy to carry around so there's that. I'm sure that some enterprising software developer is working on a VR mapping program, likely coupled with an AI "assistant," but wearing a VR headset while driving seem somewhat problematic. I'm not tossing my paper maps yet.

I always pick up a State map at a "welcome center" when crossing into a new State. The nice ladies at the counter are always delighted to provide these, I suspect they secretly curse the Waze lady when saying their nightly prayers.
 
Posts: 6875 | Location: NoVA | Registered: July 22, 2009Reply With QuoteReport This Post
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Picture of cparktd
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Back in the day...I had a Magellan GPS with 7 inch screen for the car.

One of the best features of it was the bread crumb trail... remembering and displaying on the map every where you had been.

If you got lost, needed to back track or wanted to save a trip route etc it was great.

I wish my current cars had the feature.



Collecting dust.
 
Posts: 4199 | Location: Middle Tennessee | Registered: February 07, 2013Reply With QuoteReport This Post
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Picture of ftttu
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I’m always trying to remember to get me a good road atlas for me and my family so we won’t be blinded when GPS goes down from attack, solar storm, etc.


Retired Texas Lawman
 
Posts: 1226 | Location: Texas | Registered: March 03, 2016Reply With QuoteReport This Post
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Picture of 229DAK
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quote:
I always keep an atlas in my vehicles.
quote:
I can read a map and can use a compass
Absolutely. I always look at a map (Google maps/atlas) prior to departing on a trip to see where I am going. The map picture is in my head. GPS then simply confirms where I need to go and how to get there.

I don't trust GPS. It's done some screwy things in the past. I trust my own dead reckoning and common sense before I trust GPS - it's simply a backup.


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“A man’s treatment of a dog is no indication of the man’s nature, but his treatment of a cat is. It is the crucial test. None but the humane treat a cat well.”
-- Mark Twain, 1902
 
Posts: 9343 | Location: Northern Virginia | Registered: November 04, 2005Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Baroque Bloke
Picture of Pipe Smoker
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quote:
Originally posted by Ronin1069:
Took a solo vacation in the Northern Wisconsin boonies. Heading to a place to hike, no signal out here. Car GPS is useless. Glad I brought (and can read) a highway map!

I shake my head when I think of the average person sitting in their car, absolutely panicked because they cannot get a GPS signal on their map and don’t even know how to get back into town, much less go find this this trail to the waterfall.

What makes you think that there’ll be no GPS signal in Northern Wisconsin?

Maybe if you’re in a tunnel, or have constant dense overhead foliage…



Serious about crackers
 
Posts: 9601 | Location: San Diego | Registered: July 26, 2014Reply With QuoteReport This Post
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Another lost skill. They still sell compasses I believe. I wss taught to reae a map in forth grade.
 
Posts: 17622 | Location: Stuck at home | Registered: January 02, 2015Reply With QuoteReport This Post
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Thanks,
Going to AAA this week for some maps.





Safety, Situational Awareness and proficiency.



Neck Ties, Hats and ammo brass, Never ,ever touch'em w/o asking first
 
Posts: 55282 | Location: Henry County , Il | Registered: February 10, 2004Reply With QuoteReport This Post
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Picture of Prefontaine
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I don’t buy the maps but if going remote, or some place I don’t know too well, I print out maps on my printer so I have the whole area cased. Fold em up and carry them around with me just in case. Emergency lighting, blanket, water, etc. These Gen Z’s, oh my, they’d be fucked. They have to have the device in their hands at all times like a baby and a pacifier Big Grin



What am I doing? I'm talking to an empty telephone
 
Posts: 13046 | Location: Down South | Registered: January 16, 2010Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Objectively Reasonable
Picture of DennisM
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I train folks who will spend a good chunk of their career outdoors. For many, showing them a topographic map is like handing a first-grader a Physics textbook. Explaining contour lines and asking them to visualize the landscape? Might as well ask them to speak classical Greek.

This was 12-year-old Boy Scout stuff for me and my contemporaries. Dad showed me how to shoot an azimuth younger than that, and we were suburban dwellers, not hardcore survivalists.

The next natural or man-made disaster that takes out the grid in any significant way, for any significant time, may be the first in history where the "elderly" fare better than those in their theoretical prime. If you can figure out how to make fire, secure clean drinking water, find elementary food, make your way without GPS, or protect the provisions you DO have from those who don't, you're positioned to be a local warlord.

I look forward to taking my pick of abandoned stuff in the aftermath, though.
 
Posts: 2549 | Registered: January 01, 2004Reply With QuoteReport This Post
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quote:
Originally posted by ZSMICHAEL:
Another lost skill. They still sell compasses I believe. I wss taught to read a map in forth grade.
 
Posts: 17622 | Location: Stuck at home | Registered: January 02, 2015Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Baroque Bloke
Picture of Pipe Smoker
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quote:
Originally posted by ZSMICHAEL:
quote:
Originally posted by ZSMICHAEL:
Another lost skill. They still sell compasses I believe. I wss taught to read a map in forth grade.

Why quote your own post with no additional information?

And probably fourth grade, rather than forth grade. I know: a simple typo. It caught my eye because I know a programming language named ‘forth’. Smile It’s an interesting threaded language.

P. S. I now suspect that you intended to edit your post rather than quote it. I’ve made that mistake myself.



Serious about crackers
 
Posts: 9601 | Location: San Diego | Registered: July 26, 2014Reply With QuoteReport This Post
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Picture of sourdough44
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N WI, Sprint was the worst, 10 years ago, could very different now.
 
Posts: 6491 | Location: WI | Registered: February 29, 2012Reply With QuoteReport This Post
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