I thought the discussion was GPS and land-based transport - pardon me!  :-)

On Sun, Sep 28, 2008 at 11:11 AM, David Beierl <dbeierl@attglobal.net>wrote:

> I was a Corpsman, kinda wish I'd been a QM.  I've used LORAN A,
> turning the crank to match the pips on the scope and reading off the
> time delay.  I've used LORAN C a good deal for coastwise piloting,
> often in dense fog, and GPS likewise, though it -- civilian-style --
> was crap compared to LORAN until they took off the SA.  I've used a
> sextant, but never in anger except a little bit for piloting.
>
> I have a Garmin GPSMap 76 which I'm quite fond of, but I wish I had a
> magnifying setup for the screen.  It's mainly a marine unit (18,000
> buoys, beacons, lights etc), but its built-in database includes large
> roads and US highway exits, along with apparently most towns in the
> world.  It doesn't give directions.  On the water it drives Fugawi
> chart software; on the road sometimes I've used Fugawi, which knows
> roads but doesn't understand them, and sometimes DeLorme which does
> understand them and will recalculate routes on the fly for you.  But
> it's also quite useful on the road all by itself, even without
> detailed street maps, and extremely so on the water even without the
> charting software -- its built-in plotting and database of buoys etc.
> give an easy comparison with a paper chart and make it unlikely to
> enter waypoints incorrectly.  The place it totally falls down is
> alarms -- it gives a single shy little beep, and there's no output to
> drive the klaxon from.
>
> When used with either type of charting software, it functions solely
> by providing a stream of positions; all navigation is done by the
> PC.  Conversely, its own navigation is totally independent of the PC,
> so for marine use where it matters, it provides a highly capable
> fallback should the PC crash.  It communicates by NMEA 0183 which
> gives position and satellite info, or by a proprietary Garmin
> protocol which doesn't give satellite info but does allow uploading
> and downloading of routes, tracks, waypoints and such without
> reconfiguring.
>
> :-)
> d
>
> At 11:39 AM 9/28/2008, Chuck Mathis wrote:
>
>> I'll chime in kind of late on this one.  I'm a retired Coast Guard
>> Quartermaster that started learning navigation when LORAN C was the up
>> and coming thing - I actually learned to use a LORAN A receiver.  I
>> was also a hot s##t with a sextant.  By the time I retired GPS was the
>> thing and most of the new guys hadn't heard of LORAN or OMEGA or
>> SATNAV.  I had a brief exposure to Commander Ivan Luke a navigation
>>
>
> --
> David Beierl - Providence RI USA -- http://pws.prserv.net/synergy/Vanagon/
> '84 Westy "Dutiful Passage," '85 GL "Poor Relation"
>

--
Jake
1984 Vanagon GL
1986 Westy Weekender "Dixie"
Crescent Beach, BC
www.crescentbeachguitar.com
http://subyjake.googlepages.com/mydixiedarlin%27