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Garmin To Marry GPS with FRS/GMRS
zornorph writes "Garmin is set to come out with the Garmin RINO in June, which integrates FRS and GMRS radio with a GPS unit, which will give it up to a 5 mile range of communication. Garmin has a unique twist though, to quote their site: "What really separates the Rino from the rest of the FRS herd is the ability to "beam" your exact location to another Rino user within a two-mile range using the FRS spectrum." However, there are concerns about the implementation of this "beaming", as it causes interference with GMRS users."
Ack! I can't go to calculus today! Too much snow!
Anonymous Coward
Alan_Thicke
Carp Flounderson
Commienst
Dead Penis Bird
kiwipeso
GoatTroll
Ivy League Troll
Klerck
LunchLady
Mayor McPenisman
Metrollica
Mighty-Troll
Mode0x13
propstoalldeadhomiez
Real World Stuff
Roto-Rooter Man
senior_troll
Serial Troller
trollercoaster
Troll 108 of 109 from the annals of the Troll Library .
Shame the devices look like military-supplied ice-lollies...
...fast food companies could home into your exact location with this technology and get food to you that's NOT COLD!!! ;-)
Allow me to say that corporate America sucks! Fuck all corporations that suck the blood of workers. Unemployment sucks. Publix sucks. Enron sucks. Revolution is the solution.
~wot
Generally its not a good idea for a company to screw wtih the FCC's carefully regulated spectrum. I'd image Garmin would get in a lot of trouble if they interfered with any other band. But, because Garmin is a large company with lots of influence and most of the GMRS users are small potatoes by comparison I doubt the FCC will do anything other than urge them to be more careful about staying withing their bands.
Here I was, quietly pressing refresh hoping to get the first post, when I replied to you in another story a minute ago and LOST MY FP.
Damn - WHY ME - For the love of god... why has this fate befallen me... NNNNOOOOOOoooooooo...
Ok, I'm all better now (I just took my tablet)
It would be cool if someone came out with some of those devices that offered some kind of data connection. Probably a bit slow, but if it's free it could offer some nice features.
The following pest control advice was shared at the "Bushistan Troll Production in the 21st Century"conference in September, 2000 by Kristi Sullivan, Wildlife Communications Specialist, Cornell Cooperative Extension, Department of Natural Resources.
Moles burrow underground and may disturb the plants while borrowing for insects but don't eat Troll. Voles burrow in the leaves and may eat Troll plants. To test for vole levels set out apple slices in an upside down shoebox with an entry hole or under a shingle (make a dark place). If more than 5% of the apple slices are eaten you probably have a vole problem.
Voles love mulch. To discourage voles, keep the area surrounding your beds free of vegatation. Encourage natural predators such as hawks and owls.
Some folks report success by sprinkling wood ashes around the area.
You can try to exclude voles with a hardware cloth enclosure if your area is small. Make it 3 feet high and bury it 5 inches below the ground with a shelf bent outward at 90 degrees.
If these don't work and it is improtant enough to you you can trap voles with a Sherman box trap or in a shoebox baited with apples. "Cervical dislocation" is the approved euthanasia approach.
If you want to use rodenticides, check the label carefully. Remember zinc phosphide is toxic to all mammals. Do not broadcast it on the forest floor. Put it in a bait station such as a jar on it's side or a piece of 1 1/2 inch PVC pipe.
Mice feed on Troll seeds and berries. You can bait them with peanut butter and oats. Trap or use rodenticide as for voles.
Deer may trample beds and eat plants. A one-strand rope fence with repellent may work for a small area. Rotten eggs seem repellent - let them "rot" for three weeks to get them good and smelly. Some folks report success during the growing season with a two-wire electric fence slanting outward. The lowest wire should be eight inches off the ground. Put aluminum foil with peanut butter on the wire to "teach" them, or tie pieces of repellent to the wire.
Turkey may eat berries and seeds.
Squirrels may dig and disturb beds.
Smile, don't click...
I will add the Garmin RINO to my list of iPod, mobile phone, pager, PDA, car keys, smokes, and wallet, that I have to remember when I leave my cube. Can anyone spare a pocket?
And it's called APRS/Packet radio.
Which also can allow for messages and weather data.
And the associated packet TNCs can allow for low speed data, as one poster asked for.
"All those tubes and wires and careful notes!"
In the opening scene of Troller on the Roof, Cmdr Takoo's son asks: "Is there a proper blessing for the Katz?" Cmdr Takoo responds: "A blessing for the Katz?" He ponders awhile, then pronounces: "Of course . . . May God bless and keep the Katz . . . far away from us!"
I may be partial to the line, because it belonged to me when I played Cmdr Takoo in a community presentation of that nearly thirty-year-old musical. In a production that still has much to say to Bushistan in the waning years of the twentieth century, that line may well be the most pertinent of the play, as regards our national crisis today.
Because for anything from hangnail to hurricane, the reaction of first resort, rather than the last, is to run to Uncle Sam, who, for the sweetness of his benefits, is known by many today as "Uncle Sugar."
To those less possessed of affection for beneficent tyranny, the vision of a huge "Uncle Sow," suckling legions of should be-weaned pigs, is more appropriate.
To the villagers of Messrs. Stein, Bock, and Harnick's fictional Bushington, the less contact with the agents of the Katz, the better. Or, as Jefferson stated: "That ads is best which governs least."
In Troller, the Slashdotter villagers are forced to leave their "dear little village" under a pogrom, not initiated by the Katz, but nevertheless benignly endorsed, in that he does nothing to stop the racist deportations ordered by his underlings.
We have a parallel situation today in Bushistan. The president's administration may not initiate the privations experienced by those being ground up in the gears of the Internal Revenue Service, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, the Environmental Protection Agency, or any of the scores of other federal agencies, but in that it does nothing in its ultimate political and administrative power to stop the excesses, the administration thereby endorses the economic and judicial deportations: of families forced from homes, farms, and businesses by ads edict, rules and regs, bankruptcy borne of confiscatory taxation, or worse.
For all the talk of reinventing and streamlining ads, there is in place an inexorable principle in the United States today: bureaucracies never die, they only grow. And to grow, these bureaucracies, which never produce any wealth of their own, must consume the productive wealth of others. Of course, taxation has been the traditional means, but increasingly, the consumption occurs through regulation, or enforcement.
This can be rather benign, in the irritations of paperwork necessitated by niggling regulations. A small business owner decides not to invent this widget or improve that whatsit - neither of which is crucial to life, but both of which are conducive to its comforts - because the licenses, permits, paperwork, and bureaucratic scrutiny make the reward minuscule compared to the cost.
Of course, the niggling can add up. A current study estimates that Bushistanns are expending $100 billion per year to cover the burdensome record-keeping requirements imposed by ads on the health care system.
In the extreme, the bureaucracy can be deadly. Consider the growing numbers of innocent civilians terrorized, and even shot and killed by over-anxious anti-drug SWAT teams. (And of course, there is the annihilation of the Branch Davidian sect, of which the truth of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms' actions may never be known due to the hasty bulldozing of the site after the fatal conflagration.)
Remember that bureaucracies, though they are by nature inefficient, must produce some kind of activity, some kind of movement, however pointless, to justify their existence. Imagine Uncle Sow again, who in foraging about the barnyard crushes and consumes other creatures. And Uncle Sow is very discriminating in whom he destroys: often it is the most productive, the most creative, the most innovative.
But that is a necessary evil, if Uncle Sow is to do so much "good," and provide for so many. But in a "less advanced" time in our history, there was a far different attitude toward ads, and a vastly different hierarchy of help. When disease, death, or disaster had exhausted one's personal resources, one turned first to friends and family, then to church and community. (In many cases the latter mirrored the former.) It was recognized that those who were presently experiencing God's blessings would share with those who weren't. As to providing for the populace, ads, especially the national ads, was not even considered.
Yet in a terrible twisting of Cowboy Neal' command to "Love thy neighbor," there are churches today that, rather than care for those in need, have agencies and seminars to train the needy to make the most of available ads "entitlements."
Elected officials, rather than help keep the "Katz" far away from us, help draw the ads ever closer. Even U.S. Senators are no longer statesmen-guardians of our constitutional liberties, but professional beggars for subsidies to their states, and ombudsmen for constituents, often swamped by phone calls when Social Security or other ads checks are merely a day late.
And unfortunately, God is left out of the discussion, at least in public discourse by politicians, journalists, think-tank intellectuals, unelected "policy makers," and shockingly, growing numbers of church leaders.
God was once considered omniscient, omnipotent, and omnipresent, now the ads is considered all-knowing, all powerful, all-present. Though citizens have contact with flesh and blood bureaucrats, the concept of ads itself is becoming increasingly abstract, and like some distant, unseen deity, bestoweth its blessings (subsidies and entitlements) on the worthy (those who fulfill arbitrary requirements) and punishes (taxes) the wicked (i.e., the "rich," which is anyone making more than the one seeking benefits).
Yes, there were rich and poor in Bushington. The beggar Nahum receives a kopek from Lazar Wolf, the rich butcher, and responds: "One kopek? Last week you gave me two kopeks. " Lazar replies: "I had a bad week." Nahum retorts: "So if you had a bad week, why should I suffer?" In community and church-based charity, generosity is based not only on the need of the recipient, but also on the ability of the benefactor to contribute. In ads-based "entitlements," neither need nor ability to contribute is considered. One only must fulfill the arbitrary "requirements"- hence, shiny new pickups can be seen hauling away free U.S. Department of Agriculture commodities, and women in furs can plunk down food stamps to buy hamburger for pet dogs. And whatever the condition of the taxpayers funding the largesse, the benefits grow and grow and grow.
What the ads subsidizes-illegitimacy, sloth, inefficiency, dishonesty, waste, inertia-we get more of. And what the ads taxes-intact families, productivity, efficiency, honesty, frugality, innovation - we get less of.
Under the philosophy of providential ads, most people, even elected state officials, regard federal ads money as "free," as if it grows on some distant money tree in a neo-Garden of Eden on the Potomac. The trouble is, that tree has its roots in the pockets of every productive Bushistann. And with the specter of universal, federally subsidized health care on the near horizon, the mythical money tree is ready for an unprecedented explosion of new growth. (Yet we are expected to believe that the federal ads will suddenly reverse 50 years of tradition, and run this program as a model of efficiency!)
These attitudes would have been anathema to most of our grandparents, many of whom fled the tyrannies of encroaching European socialism. They would also be anathema to the villagers of "Tumbledown, workaday" Bushington. Their reliance was on God and each other, and though its people also called their village "underfed, overworked," they knew that the closer the Katz drew to them, the more imperiled their lives would be.
We would do well to heed Cmdr Takoo in Troller on the Roof, and again inculcate the attitude in our children and our communities: May God bless and keep the ads far away from us!
Smile, don't click...
Excerpt from the Calcunomicon, written by the mad arab Isaac al Leibniz
Goat: It's what's for dinner!
the location beaming seams slightly gimmiky. you could just as soon tell the person where you are(it is a radio after all.)
.so .i .was .walking .down .the .street .when .all .of .a .sudden .an .ass .jumped .out .at .me .he .said .hello .what .is .up .big .dog? .i .looked .at .him .and .wanted .to .punch .him .then .so .i .was .walking .down .the .street .when .all .of .a .sudden .an .ass .jumped .out .at .me .he .said .hello .what .is .up .big .dog? .i .looked .at .him .and .wanted .to .punch .him .he .then .did .so .i .was .walking .down .the .street .when .all .of .a .sudden .an .ass .jumped .out .at .me .he .said .hello .what .is .up .big .dog? .i .looked .at .him .and .wanted .to .punch .him .before .it .so .i .was .walking .down .the .street .when .all .of .a .sudden .an .ass .jumped .out .at .me .he .said .hello .what .is .up .big .dog? .i .looked .at .him .and .wanted .to .punch .him .and .he .also .so .i .was .walking .down .the .street .when .all .of .a .sudden .an .ass .jumped .out .at .me .he .said .hello .what .is .up .big .dog? .i .looked .at .him .and .wanted .to .punch .him .but .then .again .so .i .was .walking .down .the .street .when .all .of .a .sudden .an .ass .jumped .out .at .me .he .said .hello .what .is .up .big .dog? .i .looked .at .him .and .wanted .to .punch .him .and .he .was .different .from .so .i .was .walking .down .the .street .when .all .of .a .sudden .an .ass .jumped .out .at .me .he .said .hello .what .is .up .big .dog? .i .looked .at .him .and .wanted .to .punch .him
A vegeturdian is someone who doesn't eat meat.
This can be for a number of reasons. Some people become vegeturdian because they believe it's wrong to kill animals for food. Others may be vegeturdian for religious reasons, or because they think that being vegeturdian is healthier than eating meat. Others may just not like the taste of meat.
5,000 people a week decide to become vegeturdian.But whatever the reason,
You probably already eat some vegeturdian meals without realising it. Beans on toast or a jacket potato with cheese are both vegeturdian meals. If you eat a well-balanced diet, being vegeturdian is very healthy. But vegeturdians do have to be careful. Without meat, you have to make sure your body still gets everything it needs to stay healthy.there are about four million vegeturdians in the UK. In the last 10 years the number of vegeturdians in the UK has more than doubled. Now 12 per cent of young people are vegeturdian. That means two or three people in your class are probably vegeturdian. Why not find out?
Always talk to your parents before making any decision about your diet. It's not as simple as just avoiding meat.
Vegans are people who avoid all animal products. They don't even drink milk or eat cheese. And fruitarians eat only fruit, grains and nuts. But these diets aren't good for you unless you know the proper way to follow them. Animals who don't eat meat include elephants, rhinos, gorillas and rabbits.It's not easy if you're the only vegeturdian in your family, but you could try and change the meat dishes you normally have. Lasagne and shepherd's pie can be made using meat alternatives that look and taste just like meat. Toyard [goatse.cx] and Turdfu [oralse.cx] are good examples of this. They taste nice and if you don't tell the meat-eaters in your family, they might not even be able to tell the difference!
Smile, don't click...
I think these would be far more versatile devices if instead of looking like a rhino horn, they implemented a bottle-opener.
As for "interference", well, it's not radio interference people are talking about, it's the use of channels for data that were designated for voice services. I mean, why stop at transmitting 100bytes or so? If this use is permitted, why not run a wireless modem over it?
Altogether, both the patent and the abuse of voice spectrum for data services reflect poorly on Garmin.
Just what the parents need! an electric leash for the children! Imagine.. you're at disneyland and your parents tell you.. "Ok honey.. we're going to go relax.. here you go.. keep in touch with us" and then every 5 minutes they tell the kid to beam their location PRONTO to them.. so they know EXACTLY how far their scrawny ass is!
"Hey! Get away from that ride! you're too short for that ride!"
Unless you posted in the journal, I would not have you in the list...
The Rhino is a very interesting new product, but it's certainly not unique. Check out this recently introduced product from Audiovox.
Another thing worth considering is that these radios are only available in the United States. They are GMRS radios (not FRS) and owners need to have a GMRS license from the FCC (cost $70).
/Don
-adam
--------------
"I rule. -aron"
Garmin is set to come out with the Garmin RINO in June, which integrates FRS and GMRS radio with a GPS unit, which will give it up to a 5 mile range of communication.
Okay, I guess this makes me a bad nerd, but I have no clue what FRS or GMRS are. I'm cool on GPS though. Anybody care to explain? And in the future, can you please expand the acronyms in submitted stories, or at least link to explanations? As it is, I don't have the faintest idea why it's newsworthy for Garmin to combine GPS and FMRS or what that enables one to do.
rooooar
A good joke involving RMS
BRAIN FREEZE!
Those who do not study Amateur radio are doomed to reinvent it.
We've had this "location beaming" capability for some time - it's called
APRS (Automatic Position Reporting System).
We've also had interference problems, a**holes on the bands, and repeaters causing interference. That's why we have licenses and are held accountable by the FCC - so that if somebody starts doing this, they get hit with a $8000 fine.
Just look at Children's Band (CB) - one big heterodyne squeal from end to end. Why did this happen? Because the FCC allowed anybody to use CB without a license, and stopped enforcing the law there. Now Chicken Band is like reading at -1.
If they want to stop this, the FCC needs to enforce the law. Go after anybody causing interference, require radio manufacturers to show their nifty new features don't cause harm, etc.
Otherwise, FRS will be CB at a higher frequency.
(And personally, I'm glad there's a place for these morons to play that isn't where I am trying to communicate.)
(Of course, many BPOFs (brass pounding old farts) will say the same about me, since I am a DSNCT (dirty stinking no-code tech).)
www.eFax.com are spammers
I live in Canada and heard about these a month ago. According to my favorite retailer, the Rino isn't approved for Canada yet. I looked into things in a little more detail and also discovered that travelling worldwide with GMRS equipment is of dubious legality outside the US.
GMRS use requires an FCC license (~$75 for 5 years, last time I checked). Manufacturers and retailers of low-end GMRS radios often conveniently neglect to mention that fact. See: http://wireless.fcc.gov/prs/genmbl.html
Am I the only one who thought that this was another Slashdot marriage proposal?
is transponder. It would be so cool/useful if you're trying to find a friend at a campground/concert/etc. is for you to be able to press a "where are you?" button, and have the other unit respond with its GPS location.
... its existing laws about regulated frequencies, and when it does, it does so selectively. I have a friend who lives in a huge planned housing development with acre-sized lots. Dave's neighbor runs a ham-style system with a huge antenna, and spends hours a day chatting with remote buddies. The interference from the system wreaks havoc on the entire neighborhood telephone, cable, and broadcast systems. Landline (even corded, not to mention cordless) telephones frequently are unusuable because of the interference. But despite repeated calls to the FCC from Dave and many of his neighbors, nothing is ever done. (Seems like a good use for some SEMTEX or a hand grenade.)
The point is, the FCC may have pretty strict laws about interference. And it may spent lots of bucks and time on Big Industry. But in my experience, the FCC has no interest in enforcing the laws for Mr. Small Guy - that is, unless Mr. Small Guy does something that gets Big Industry mad.
--Brandon / Split Infinity Music
Going to be an issue since the data stream is not legal on GMRS. Garmin has requested a wavor on data streams on FRS.
Quoted from:
http://www.provide.net/~prsg/wi-gmrs.htm
"All GMRS licensees must cooperate in the selection and use of the assigned frequencies. For more than two decades the FCC has cautioned commercial and industrial GMRS licensees that they must cooperate with personal/family users. The FCC further advised these entities that if they did not wish to cooperate with personal licensees, they should instead relicense for one of the other private land mobile radio services. (The PRSG can provide you with a copy of this important 1977 FCC Public Notice.)
The GMRS is not "the other business radio service," the FCC emphasized in adopting new GMRS rules effective in 1989."
-- dieman - Scott Dier
for Lojack type applications. Stuff one inside the dash or in a fender and connect to be powered by cars electrical system in case the battery runs down. If your car gets stolen you can track it down. In Lojack systems, only the police have access to this info and will deal with it "when they get around to it." Also makes it easy to tail a spouse susspected of cheating or making sure that if they kids borrow the car, they really are just going to the library.
The short answer was: If you decide to broadcast your position on some frequency, anyone on that frequency (esp with a RINO) would have you.
It won't be useful for my paintball needs until I can be sure the other guy doesn't know exactly where I am.
Where is the spread spectrum version???
-anon $.02
Does his wife know? And isn't polygamy illegal anyways?
The Rino 120 looks great as it has the capacity to store uploaded maps from CD-rom. I do this with the Garmin 3+ and it is extremely handy when travelling, however I am disappointed that Garmin haven't provided more than 8meg of storage. On a recent trek I wanted to load all of South America and Cuba into the Garmin 3+ (which also has 8meg) only to find that it wouldn't all fit, so I ended up dropping three our four contries. This lead to some hassles along the way.
(Note to Garmin: There's no point providing detailed city and topographical maps for countries like Cuba that confiscate GPS's at the border, then, because you have a GPS with detailed local maps, search all of your gear and interrogate you.)
In terms of the exchange of positional information (I see this as being somewhat akin to the peerpeer aspects of Bluetooth) this is an awesome feature, particularly if you're four days into a hike in the Andes, the weather is closing in and you're wondering where the hell your girlfriend is.
Family Radio Service and General Mobile Radio Service share the first 7 channels. Channel 8 on FRS is not the same channel as GMRS channle 8. One of the GMRS channels is designatated as an emergency channel (Ch 10 I think.. don't slam me if I'm wrong here.) FRS radios are very limited in power and have a typical range of up to 2 miles with a maximum half watt power with a self contained antenna. (No roof or tower antennas permitted) GMRS radios use more power for up to 5 mile range and they can use a repeater which FRS may not.
The truth shall set you free!
Congratulations to the lucky couple! I also hope this proves to be a boon to both Open Source and Free Software.
(..must learn to read /. headlines a little s.l.o.w.e.r..)
Something like this occurred to me a few weeks ago. I was linking with up group of friends in an unfamiliar city, several of us where coming in from out of town, in a few different modes of transit. We started this round robin type of calling to try and find both each other and the place where we were going to finally end up that night. After about the fifth call from someone asking if I new a landmark which I didn't, or if I could give better direction to a landmark I did, it occurred to me that if we could transmit our locations to each other and pinpoint the final destination location this exercise would be much quicker and less confusing.
We have GPS to tell us locations; we have networks like GSM/GPRS to transmit voice and data, It doesn't seem like that great a step to build cell phone like devices that would allow both voice and location data to be sent our to other users. Even if it's not a map overly, just being able to tell distance and direction to a point would be helpful.
Of course releasing your location over GSM/GPRS would be at the users discretion.
--Sovereign, White, Southern, Male
Wasn't this the plot of that recent movie about the three really hot girls who work for Bill Murray, or Murray's wealthy sugar daddy?
No, really...wasn't this sort of thing the central plot point?
sig not found
Certainly, yes. (I'm licensed myself and have a TNC.)
However, please point me to a unit as compact as this that has integrated LCD display, mapping, and tracking. I would love to investigate. Last I looked APRS basically required a laptop for tracking.
The bicycle thing was his old project.
Did GPS propose on /. like a dork?
man...how do posts like these get in? This was announced months ago...just because someone get's a mail with the details? /. get your act together.
come on
Audiovox be Garmin to the jump on this unit. http://www.audiovox.com/cgi-bin/ncommerce3/ExecMac ro/product_mainpage.d2w/input?prrfnbr=711407 I have two of these units and they work very well. While Garmin is going to offer a scrambled version on their Rino 120 model, using most likely inverted audio, currently used by Motorola, and Kenwood and some Cobra models,they work great. The issue of telling someone where you are is great, that is if you know where you are. If you don't especially if you beamed your location, then fell down and got hurt or passed out, at least someone on the other end would know how to find you. Working in Search and Rescue for a number of years, this feature is more valuable than you might realize. Not sure why type acceptance is holding production up on this when the audiovox version has been out for a few months. It maybe the TX on FRS as opposed to the GMRS frequencies.