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Cross-Greenland Ski Trip Tracked with Google Maps
notmartinfrobisher writes "Around Guardian Mobility offices we have been excited to support an exploratory ski trip across Greenland. Anne Marte Pensgaard is skiing across Greenland with only a friend and some husky dogs for company. She has been outfitted with one of our Tracer units which has a GPS receiver and send data to our backoffice through Globalstars Low-earth orbit satellite network. We're tracking her progress using Google Maps and using MyGMaps. to map multiple points onto Google Map's satellite imagery.
When asked about her trip Anne Marte wrote:
"Our expedition consist of two phases. This year we (Marit and myself and 12 greenland huskies) are going to find a passage into the inland ice (the icecap itself) where we will be able to bring all the dogs and our sledges up on the ice. We will start in Ilulissat on the west coast and then travel north.(around 70degrees N) How far north we will go this year depends on the conditions. Our main expedition will be a more than 1000 km trip from Ilulissat to Qaanaq (Thule Air Base) in the north, either in 2006 or in 2007."
We provided her with a Tracer unit set up to wake up every 30 minutes but to transmit only when she has moved at least 200m, this way she won't have to worry about turning off the unit when she's camping at night. We'll be updating you on this exciting trip by posting maps of her current location every couple of days. Maps and satellite imagery are courtesy Google Maps."
You appear to be correct, from the very bottom of this page: http://www.skycallcommunications.com/Coverage.html
DRM 'manages access' in the same way that a prison 'manages freedom'
Your bets bet for truly global coverage is Iridium. It uses a streets-of-coverage style constellation that covers the polar areas, and uses inter-satellite links to relay calls so the service is available globally.
_Last Place on Earth_ tells the story (it's one of the best nonfiction books I've ever read). While it's pretty clear that the author has an axe to grind- he's very much an admirer of Amundsen and a detractor of Scott- from the facts he marshals, he makes a pretty strong case. Amundsen did everything possible to ensure victory; he had basically won before he even left camp. Scott did virtually everything he possibly could to ensure total failure. The guy even brought ponies to Antarctica. Thing is... ponies eat grass. And as you may have noticed, there's not a lot of that in Antarctica. Amundsen, on the other hand, knew what he was doing, because he learned from the world experts in arctic travel- the Eskimos.
Qaanaaq isn't Thule Air Base, it's 180 km. away.
Thule Air Base is also called Pituffik.
Impressive area though. I wish these people the best of luck with their trip. It looks like they'll need it...
-qabi
Well, as long as we're just advertising in this thread....why not come by and try Earthcomber! (I'm one of the engineers there...)
We've built a free (as in beer) location finding utility with integrated mapping which runs on the PalmOS. Lets you mark spots out in the field (with or without GPS), then push them back to the mothership where you can share them with location-based interest groups in the Earthcomber Community area (think Yahoo Groups with maps). It's an early version, so we've got lots of issues (coverage area is US-only right now, our maps aren't the prettiest, the desired features list is a mile long, etc.).
And technically, you don't even need a Palm to use the interest groups -- we let you mark and view spots right on the web. But the Palm makes it cooler. You could use this to keep a travel log, go geocaching, start a group for great photography spots -- whatever you want. Come on by and let us know what you think. We'd love to get feedback from tech savvy users.
Regards,
-Chris
More accounts are now available.
--Phil. (myGmaps.com developer)
Note: myGmaps is not a Google service.