RE: [Philmont]: GPS

When you say at each stop, do you mean the end of the day?

My first impression would be that it is only calculating distances one point
to the next in a straight line. GPS doesn't know how to follow trails, it
just measures distance on a straight line. Last time I hiked the trails at
Philmont, not many of them were all that straight. I don't think it takes in
all the altitude changess into consideration during each day. Something
like this:

Remember the days of right triangles in geometry? Where the hypotonuse is
the longest side of the triangle, no matter what. Put two right triangles
end to end to simulate hiking from one peak to the next.
      B D
*---------------------*
 \ | /
  \ | /
   \ | /
    \ C| /
    A\ | /E
      \ | /
       \ | /
        \ | /
         \ | /
          \|/

Where the two * simulate the tops of the peaks. The trail resembles sides
A+E. The GPS unit only measures B+D

Make sense?

Jason
><>
Retired Ranger

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-philmont@troop47.com [mailto:owner-philmont@troop47.com]On
Behalf Of SIHIWI@aol.com
Sent: Monday, March 10, 2003 12:21 PM
To: Multiple recipients of list philmont
Subject: Re: [Philmont]: GPS

Many of you seem to know about GPS so I thought I would ask for help. Last
trek I took my Magellan 315 and although I thought I had all set correctly,
it only recorded 35 miles. Not possible. I had waypoints set at each stop,
and they appear to be correct. I did have it horizontal in a pouch on top
of my bag. Any ideas? I hate to waste the lists time on this, but it was
very annoying to not have it work right and maybe we can save someone else
from having the same problem this year. BTW, it worked great around the
neighborhood.

Going back in 2003!!
YIS(P)
Bruce

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Received on Wed Mar 12 16:54:45 2003