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Garmin Rino-GPS Show and Tell
jspectre writes: "Garmin, makers of fine GPS products, has a sneak peek of their upcoming Rino (Radios Integrated with Navigation for the Outdoors). A new handheld combination of GPS and 2-way Radio using the common FRS spectrum. In addition to downloadable maps, trip planning, weighing 8.5oz and being waterproof you can "beam" your location to other Rino users while you talk to them. Your location will show up on their GPS display allowing you to navigate to each other. Expected availability, June 2002. Great fun for geocaching parties I'd think."
... or does it only tell you the location of other Rinos, not rhinos?
lysergically yours
One step closer to making a tricorder.
Hacker Media
eParka.com's digital maps are a cool way to visualize GPS mapping technology for free. Supports the entire country (sans alaska) and will support the Garmin GPS...
-Sean
It's.. it's.. Becoming obsolete!
It's.. it's.. Losing that gleam of desirablilty!
It's.. it's.. Acquired a bit of dust and a scratch i never noticed before!
It's.. it's... Hey, is that a vacuum tube sticking out the back?
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
...if it's sending GPS location data over common FRS frequencies the non-Rino FRS users will be treated to wonderful bursts of data-farts over their analog freqs.
We've been discussing the RINOs (and all sorts of other GPS and GPS-related devices) for some time over on the geocaching neck of the woods. (At times, the Magellan/Garmin/Lowrance/etc. debate looks like a distro-fest.)
;)
The RINOs have a quadrifilar (quad-helix) antenna, which means they should have reception up there with the Magellan 300-series and Meridian receivers (and the Garmin GPS V). The poor reception of the Garmin eTrex line will not affect them. (And the Garminites all cry "Yipee!" and no longer have to cower before those of us who have been using Magellans the whole time.)
Anyway, for group caching, the RINOs look really fun. I do most of my geocaching alone, so I'd probably pass on them, though.
RINO usefulness for the existing GPS sports:
- Geocaching: Excellent if in groups.
- Geodashing: Maybe, but not likely.
- Degree Confluences: Same as geodashing.
- Geodrawing: Multi-pen art? Cool.
- MinuteWar: Possibly... occasionally.
So now those AOL IM stalkers we all know about will be able to get at our children that much faster!
So are there any open source G.P.S. mapping software packages (topographical mapping)?
For week long hiking trips - it would be nesessary to turn off the FRS feture in order to save battery life. Anybody know if you can?
Kudo's for Garmin for using AA batteries - there are readbly available back country solar chargers out there, and it would be useless if they used YAPBP (Yet Another Propriatary Battery Pack)
Moneyed corporations, non-working 'poor' and criminal prisoners are turning productive citizens into tax-slaves.
The same story was posted on the 4th of March by Hemos, see 'Garmin To Marry GPS with FRS/GMRS'.
Al.The Daily ACK - Eclectic posts by yet another hacker
The sats do not determine your position. They are accurately positioned and have synchronized clocks. Your reciever gets a signal from several satelites. From data in the signals, the reciever knows the satelites' locations & the times that the signals were sent. The reciever does all of the calculations to determine position, the satelites don't know where you are, or even that you have recieved their signal.
"Glory is fleeting, but obscurity is forever." --Napoleon Bonaparte
Uh, GPS receivers are just that, receivers. They send no data to the satellites, and they do not operate by making "requests," ala HTTP. By using a standard GPS receiver there is utterly no way the government or anyone else can determine your whereabouts. The only way your position can be transmitted is by using a transmitter like the Rino uses, or something like APRS (Automatic Position Reporting System).
The only thing to be worried about right now would be cell phones incorporating GPS technology that transmit your location, something which the government is considering mandating.
Of course the black helicopters can always find you, GPS or not.
-Vercingetorix
"Necessitas non habet legem." -St. Augustine
What I want to know is when is a GPS company going to release a GPS for the car that does traffic analysis and automatically can route you around bad traffic spots?
Lets say that (eventually) there is a significant installed base of GPS enabled cars. They each register their location anonymously with a central DB (anonymity could be turned off by the owner remotely for the low-jack, car recovery, option perhaps) and since the central DB would know what the speed limit on your road is (and the presence of stop lights etc...) if could monitor how traffic is flowing all across a local region.
It could then do load balancing of traffic by telling others with the same network where to go and where to not go. If you have a specific destination programmed in it could tell you the quickest way to get there and actually be right because it would tell everyone a different way to get there to avoid congestion.
42 - So long and thanks for all the fish.
AFAIK, Galileo (the EU version of GPS) will be compatable with the existing GPS system.
There are a few articles on the BBC about it.
"It will be a rival to the existing Global Positioning System (GPS) run by the United States, although the EU says the two networks will be compatible." -BBC "Green Light for Galileo project"
will this beam your location to only the person you want, or to anyone on that freq? I've used FRS radios for caravaning on long trips, and in big cities, or big events, there is a good chance of other people on the frequency. Does this specify who gets your location, or can anyone on that freq see that quantumRiff is standing in the bathroom??
What are we going to do tonight Brain?
You rock. There hasn't had a troll of your calibre on /. since the delightful MEEPT. Keep up the good work.
http://rareformnewmedia.com/
To make the functionality complete would be if each device could serve as a relay in a wireless network.
[Assuming relay usage isn't going to chew up your batteries too much] you could relay messages further than the limited range that these devices have for direct point to point contact.
Better, a few "wormholes" with stationary TX/RX that allow you to connect to land lines would be icing on the cake.
"Provided by the management for your protection."
They probably haven't got a blanket patent- there's a VHF spec out there for transmitting GPS coordinates along with the VHF signal- it's intended for marine use, when calling friends or the coast guard for help. Models are already out on the market now, with support incrementally being phased in at all the coast guard monitoring stations- IIRC, they should be available across the US coastal waters by 2004.
What a strange bird is the pelican, his beak can hold more than his belly can.
The more satellites your receiver can see, the more accurate your position is. Some receivers available now make use of the Russian Glonass system AND the GPS system at the same time. So you get better accuracy than GPS.
I don't know if anybody makes an affordable consumer one though-- I have only heard about them through an engineer friend who sometimes does survey work for the state.
Imagine the accuracy and the reliability you could get with all three!
I have it in my car.
The display gets these little pictures like the road signs for road works, and others for traffic speed etc.
It just routes around them, only seems to bother if the traffic is very slow for a long distance though.
I guess it takes the data from the Traffic Master which gets info from the road side traffic sensors and gantrys etc. and pumps it into the (Siemens?) navigation system.
Sorry, don't have many more details, it's like all built in, car's still on warranty, so have not got round to hacking around in it yet.
threadeds blog
It should be operational in 2008.
It may be a long time to wait.
However, the resolution of your (receiver) location will be 1 meter (a little more than 3 feet for the fellow Americans). This is much better than GPS.
What is that, a mountaintop that creeps up on you?
Everyone has a spelling pet peeve. That's mine.
This sounds sweet, but my only question is what OS does it run? RhinocerOS?
--
Some weasel took the cork out of my lunch.
Garmin used to (make still) make a GPS with a fishfinder on it, with the various data integrated into one display, and exportable to computer. A few years ago, a student at the lab where I work mapped a portion of Lake Travis here in Austin, TX, for use by the projects doing sonar research out there. I'd tell you what model it was, but the lake is a 45 minute drive away. It's still on the boat in question, and still works, though.
Amateur radio has had a system called APRS for a while. This protocol, based on AX.25, periodically broadcasts the user's callsign and present coordinates. It's a really cool system; it's fun to watch a computer track the APRS coordinates of everyone in the city.
-John
(KG4RUO)
Great. Just what I need. Now my wife won't only know where I am, she can tell me to get the hell OUT of there as well.
The patent is definately narrow.
If it's broad, Garmin will get toasted for prior art. See http://www.tapr.org/ - APRS and MIC-E have existed for a LONG time.
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
While there hasn't been any official statement, the unofficial consensus is that Uncle Sam turned off SA to stunt the development of the European system. SA turns off - Much less need for an alternative.
If that was their goal, it was a success. The European program got hurt badly by the deactivation of SA.
Now, by the time it gets off the ground, the next generation of civilian GPS will be available. (I believe that there will be support for civilian dual-frequency - The current batch of satellites doesn't support it though, so it'll be quite a while.)
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?