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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
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!
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?
"(*) Quiet codes are little bursts that are sent prior to transmitting, so that multiple people can share the same channel. It's not perfect, but it works pretty well."
Actually the "quiet codes" are subaudible tones that open the squelch of the radio when received. Also called CTCSS (Continuous Tone Controlled Squelch System), they've been in use for years. They are not "little bursts".
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."
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.
While there is a lot of "open source" map data out there, there aren't a whole lot of free tools that will help you use it.
The tools and data fall under the GIS heading. Check out these sites to get started:
I've used these tools to build maps of GPS tracks on my website. A couple examples:
I've done most of these maps with a lot of manual labor...if anyone knows of open source/free ways to improve the process, I'd appreciate it!
This is no different than what happens on VHF Ham's that use a Mic-E encoder for APRS position reporting. There is a 1/4-1/2 second 1200 baud data burst at the end of the transmission. It's really not annoying, and when you consider that either 1) the communication is important enough that you really shouldn't care about being interrupted for 1/4 second when someone else talking on a channel you are using is interrupting you for far longer, or 2) you wouln't even hear it anyway if you are using a coded squelch.
:)
This whole product undoubtadely evolved from APRS. Anyone really interested in this unit would be blown away by APRS - It's the same idea but wider-range, internet-repeated, and has digital messaging capabilities.
~GoRK