| Author | Message | ||
     David Sheriff Board Administrator Username: admin Post Number: 294 Registered: 01-2004 |
I have filled out a work order with the ITC to have a copy of the radar simulator installed on a computer in LAS in the Library. Susie does not have a PC that will run the simulator and others may have problems as well. If this works I do not know how long it will be available (like until next fall?). ITC also functions as the software license police so this may not work as the computer may be "public" and outside the scope of the license. But I tried. I'll keep you informed. | ||
| David Sheriff Board Administrator Username: admin Post Number: 292 Registered: 01-2004 |
Mark, On your image of tracks from the first at-sea session, the CG depth curves show a canyon pointing in the general direction of SJR. The later bathymetric data barely shows any canyon (or other non-uniformities) at all. What going on? Did all the bottom depressions silt up? Did fishing with drag nets move material across the bottom? Are we homogenizing the seafloor the way we are homogenizing the land? | ||
| David Sheriff Board Administrator Username: admin Post Number: 273 Registered: 01-2004 |
I've spent quite a bit of time familiarizing myself with the GPS76SX and explaining the unit to others. My conclusion is that most of us would be better off with a much simpler, less "capable" GPS. The 76SX may succeed in being all things to all people. It can be setup for geocachers, fishermen, hikers, hunters, boaters, drivers looking for turn-by-turn directions - ad nauseum. The largest barrier to mastery is learning how to customize the pages for your intended purpose. The GPS part is simple. The menu structure seems to go on forever. Whether you press "menu" or "enter" at some given point to travel out some branch follows some logic that almost eludes me. Given that the number of buttons clustered around the central 4-way cursor control has increased dramatically, the cursor button (at least on my unit) is much harder to control. I have some units from the mid 1990's which are not quite as accurate, lacking WAAS, but they are useful from the moment you pick them up. I may go online and see how many used "GPS 12" units I can buy for next year's class. They are going for less than $50 on eBay at the moment. Please nominate your favorite "obsolete" GPS that's not much good for anything but position, waypoints, routes and tracks, which all have been capable of since the beginning. | ||
| Mark Howe Moderator Username: unclemark Post Number: 412 Registered: 08-2003 |
Regarding the Garmin 76Cx The thing I found to be the most interesting and thought provoking was deciding which data fields to set up for the 'trip computer' and the order of presentation. It makes you really think about what you want to be able to call up on one screen. The next, but similarly thought provoking, is the page sequence you want to be able to view; both what view and the order of viewing. The non intuitive things; David mentioned that 'quit' is the back button. 'find' is the only way I found to get to the waypoint list. Regarding the 'track' page; it is important to turn the tracking 'off' when you terminate a track or it will just connect to the previous track when you resume. I couldn't understand why all my tracks seemed to originate and end at my house. Every time I turned it on it tacked on a track, until I learned. *** How to connect the old 4 pin 'cigaret lighter' plug to a computer still eludes me. The USB cable connection is easy; but the round one requires something else and I still have no idea what it is or if it is called a RS422 [you drew it on the board], or is the same as an RS232. I think we showed it was a 'serial port' and somethng about tricking something into thinking it was something else. <headache> | ||
| David Sheriff Board Administrator Username: admin Post Number: 236 Registered: 01-2004 |
Sorry, I re-arranged the reading order and left out the dates for 9/11. I updated the page in the readings. There are 4 items, but the Garmin manual is only good if you have one and then you can ignore most of it as it is about driving and hiking. I have a GPS presentation worked up including programming a handheld. But for the grimy details you might have to look at the manual. These are the points I suggest to do in order: Initialize receiver, stumble around in wonder Determine button functions Choose application if handheld: marine Choose Units: NM, kt, t, time zone, depth Choose revolving pages & options Chose databox contents Enter personal waypoints Practice I started to make a presentation taking us through every possible page, but it's too big a task right now. Also, not every possible page in in the manual. By "revolving pages" above I mean select which half-dozen of the potential 20 odd pages to cycle through when pressing the "page" button. I have thought about fabricating a holder for the GPS that has a web camera focused on the screen so everyone in the class can follow along, but that's too much too right now. Anyone who has a new unit should start making friends with it. | ||
| Eric Gritzmacher New member Username: eneveaux Post Number: 1 Registered: 08-2008 |
Sorry for being confused (happens to me all of the time) but what are the readings for this week? It looks like you added one but I don't know where to find it. | ||
| David Sheriff Board Administrator Username: admin Post Number: 233 Registered: 01-2004 |
I pulled the Garmin manual and the Wikipedia article out of the GPS readings and added the executive summary of the Volpe report. This should lighten the load a little | ||
| David Sheriff Board Administrator Username: admin Post Number: 217 Registered: 01-2004 |
You may notice that the discussion board keeps track of postings since each registered member last visited. This is an easy way to avoid missing anything. | ||
| David Sheriff Board Administrator Username: admin Post Number: 181 Registered: 01-2004 |
Marine electronics is an extremely dynamic field. If you wrote a textbook about it, the book would be out of date in a few years. Consequently, I decided to pull readings from the web to get the freshest perspective. This course of action faces several hazards. First, it's tough to get the 10,000 foot comprehensive perspective on the subject with just the right selection of basic detail. That is what a textbook does. Second, you are constantly in danger of fragmenting, losing cohesion, so what you have is a thousand unrelated facets of a subject. Third, you are also in danger of what I used to call (in business) "chasing down a rat hole." This is boring so deeply into some minute aspect of "the big picture" that you run out of time to get any picture at all. The way we are going to avoid these problems is through the lectures. I will try to make sense of all the fragments and answer the questions. This means that, more than usual, you must both come to class and read the readings because the two will overlap less than they might in a course where it was possible to publish a good text. Test questions could come from anywhere. I will talk about most things that might be on a test in class, but not necessarily at the level of detail that will make it stick in your head. I have published a reading list for the class based on what I have been able to pull together in a limited period of time. It is most certainly not the only selection of readings, or even the best selection of readings, that might be possible. It's just better than turning you loose on the web with a search engine and no real idea of what you are after. I expect as the semester progresses you will uncover better sources on at least some of the topics than I have. Good. This is where you post them and make the case for why you find them more helpful. This is a class that meets one day per week in person and any other day through this discussion board. Get it? We are going to discuss the subject here in some detail. I will assume that every student has read all the discussion. If it is on the board it is fair game for a test. I do not believe in tricky or obscure questions. I have a duty to measure whether you know the subject or you do not. If you know the subject, you will do fine, no matter how you come to know it. If you do not know the subject because you did not look for understanding in all of the described places, then you may not do well. |
