GPS for the caribbean

Does anyone know if there are GPS tracking devices usable in the Caribbean?

J.

Jeremy wrote:
> Jimmy wrote:
>>
>> Does anyone know if there are GPS tracking devices usable in the
>> Caribbean?
>>
>> J.
>
> GPS is the global positioning system, good anywhere in the world. They
> are using it to track the speed of Antarctic glaciers, continental
> drift, Himalayas uplift, and mid pacific ocean tsunami potential,
> pottering around the Caribbean should be no problem. You can buy chips
> with local charts for anywhere on earth, normally good to within 30
> feet lateral and in the more sophisticated units, 10 feet vertical.
> Add the options for cumulative logging and inertial deviance and they
> will give you tide changes of <one foot and lateral of <two feet. On
> open water you should get at least 6 differentials and usually 10 to
> 12. Performance degrades significantly under forest canopies, near
> tall buildings, during electrical storms and with short operation
> windows, but should give you <1,200 foot accuracy within 30 seconds
> with as few as three differentials. Most maps will be less accurate
> than your GPS plot, so you have to set waypoints as often as feasible
> to establish concordance with maps or charts.
>
> There is a GPS treasure hunt game that assumes that the lateral
> deviation is small enough that you can find clues by putting you
> within a 6 foot radius of the cache. If you need more accuracy than
> that, you have to apply to the US government for a special use permit.
>
> Hope this helps
>
> JJ

Great explanation and thank you very much. I have just recently become
familiar with GPS in a small way while attempting to track a friend across a
distant area. I have been tracking with the Nextel Mobile Locator which
works just ok. I just purchased MS S&T 2005 but only see the US for the most
part. I was wondering if there were any versions of this type of mapping SW
that covered Jamaica. I am sure that when I finally buy the hardware I will
be familiar with much of what is available. I also ordered Delorme Street
Atlas USA 2005 which I am pretty sure will not be any better than S&T.

Thanks

J.

Jimmy <JimmyCliff@xemaps.com> wrote:

>I have been tracking with the Nextel Mobile Locator which
>works just ok. I just purchased MS S&T 2005 but only see the US for the most
>part. I was wondering if there were any versions of this type of mapping SW
>that covered Jamaica. I am sure that when I finally buy the hardware I will
>be familiar with much of what is available. I also ordered Delorme Street
>Atlas USA 2005 which I am pretty sure will not be any better than S&T.

You can also convert any GPS-reported coordinates to normal lat+long,
so that any bog-standard atlas or map can be used. For Montserrat,
for example, there is a detailed local map which has some lat/long
points overlaid, so you can derive locations manually from that.

--
Ken Tough

Ken Tough wrote:
> Jimmy <JimmyCliff@xemaps.com> wrote:
>
>> I have been tracking with the Nextel Mobile Locator which
>> works just ok. I just purchased MS S&T 2005 but only see the US for
>> the most part. I was wondering if there were any versions of this
>> type of mapping SW that covered Jamaica. I am sure that when I
>> finally buy the hardware I will be familiar with much of what is
>> available. I also ordered Delorme Street Atlas USA 2005 which I am
>> pretty sure will not be any better than S&T.
>
> You can also convert any GPS-reported coordinates to normal lat+long,
> so that any bog-standard atlas or map can be used. For Montserrat,
> for example, there is a detailed local map which has some lat/long
> points overlaid, so you can derive locations manually from that.

Great. I am just getting familiar with GPS and can see there is a bit of a
learning circle involved.

J.

"Jimmy" <JimmyClifff@xemaps.com> wrote in message
news:25OdnSxZB7rIMMzfRVn-qA@...
> I would like to find some maps that I can view of the
> Caribbean like the software that came with MS S&T. Do you know if
there are
> any Caribbean versions of current mapware solutions?

My guess is that the market is considered to be too small for a
commercial product.

My suggestion would be to buy paper maps and scan them. Then use
Fugawi or something similar if you want them to be coupled to a GPS.

There are a number of map store which stock foreign maps. There are
excellent IGN maps of the French islands - Martinique, Guadeloupe, and
all of St Martin/Maarten. These are available in 100,000:1 and
25,000:1 scales. The British have produced good maps for some of the
(ex-) British islands, but they may be hard to find off-island.

Do a Google search for maps or map stores. I turned up the Jamaica
National Land Agency this way.

AS a hint, I'd try for stores in the UK for maps of the Caribbean
Commonwealth countries. It's pretty easy to order from the UK with a
credit card. I've bought a computer street map of Europe that way.
I'm trying to remember the outfit I did business with.

Jimmy, the Delorme SA 2005 is a pretty good program. I use it all the time
when traveling in the 50 United States. The GPS receiver works well when
placed on the dashboard and plugged into my laptop. There are a few roads
that haven't been updated for a couple of years that I frequent but their
route planning software will still get you there. While the GPS unit will,
the mapping program won't work outside the US at this time.

They also have a program called XMaps but I don't know how well their GPS
unit interfaces with the XMaps program.


"Jimmy" <JimmyCliff@xemaps.com> wrote in message
news:IdadnSI7ffCQk8zfRVn-2g@...
> Jeremy wrote:
>> Jimmy wrote:
>>>
>>> Does anyone know if there are GPS tracking devices usable in the
>>> Caribbean?
>>>
>>> J.
>>
>> GPS is the global positioning system, good anywhere in the world. They
>> are using it to track the speed of Antarctic glaciers, continental
>> drift, Himalayas uplift, and mid pacific ocean tsunami potential,
>> pottering around the Caribbean should be no problem. You can buy chips
>> with local charts for anywhere on earth, normally good to within 30
>> feet lateral and in the more sophisticated units, 10 feet vertical.
>> Add the options for cumulative logging and inertial deviance and they
>> will give you tide changes of <one foot and lateral of <two feet. On
>> open water you should get at least 6 differentials and usually 10 to
>> 12. Performance degrades significantly under forest canopies, near
>> tall buildings, during electrical storms and with short operation
>> windows, but should give you <1,200 foot accuracy within 30 seconds
>> with as few as three differentials. Most maps will be less accurate
>> than your GPS plot, so you have to set waypoints as often as feasible
>> to establish concordance with maps or charts.
>>
>> There is a GPS treasure hunt game that assumes that the lateral
>> deviation is small enough that you can find clues by putting you
>> within a 6 foot radius of the cache. If you need more accuracy than
>> that, you have to apply to the US government for a special use permit.
>>
>> Hope this helps
>>
>> JJ
>
> Great explanation and thank you very much. I have just recently become
> familiar with GPS in a small way while attempting to track a friend across
> a distant area. I have been tracking with the Nextel Mobile Locator which
> works just ok. I just purchased MS S&T 2005 but only see the US for the
> most part. I was wondering if there were any versions of this type of
> mapping SW that covered Jamaica. I am sure that when I finally buy the
> hardware I will be familiar with much of what is available. I also ordered
> Delorme Street Atlas USA 2005 which I am pretty sure will not be any
> better than S&T.
>
> Thanks
>
> J.
>
>