Well, we seem to have something in common - a 2019 Mazda. In addition to what the Mazda has, which is good, I would like to see outside temp, instantaneous MPG and compass heading up in the HUD as well as the dash.
Cool! My first Mazda (CX-5 GTR) and I love it...although I'm almost wishing I had got the current version of the Miata. (I did dodge the 2018 cylinder deactivation debacle.) I agree about the compass heading. My truck has it in the rear-view mirror, so I don't have to look at the dash to see it. I have a shortcut to the compass feature on my SmartWatch, and I use that so I can keep my eyes forward and not down. I'd also like to see an analog speedometer displayed on the HUD. I bought a Bluetooth OBD-2 reader and a used tablet so I could affix the tablet to the info screen and have an extended dash. I had the whole thing set up so I could easily fold the tablet up & down as needed to view the infoscreen. It was then I discovered that Mazdas do not have oil pressure sending units...they have High/Low switches. Who woulda thought the computer does not monitor discrete oil pressure? Ability to monitor the oil pressure was the main reason I got the set-up. All the other stuff (tranny temp, turbo info) was subordinate to that. So I've not messed with it (another hurdle was that the Mazda-specific PIDs for the 2019 took over a year to develop.) You gotta wonder the logic of putting a tach in an automatic but not having a way to monitor something as crucial as oil pressure. I detest idiot lights. Back on topic: I do like the Mazda NAV system. Having the upcoming cross street constantly displayed is a very nice feature. I've used it as a NAV System-lite when going to seldom-travelled areas and knowing the street I want to turn on is "somewhere around there."
GPS on the Moon? NASA’s working on it Lunar GPS "If you’re driving your car from Portland to Merced, you probably rely on GPS to see where you are. But what if you’re driving your Moon rover from Oceanus Procellarum to the Sea of Tranquility? Actually, GPS should be fine — if this NASA research pans out". "Knowing exactly where you are in space, relative to other bodies anyway, is definitely a non-trivial problem. Fortunately the stars are fixed and by triangulating with them and other known landmarks, a spacecraft can figure out its location quite precisely". But that’s so much work! Here on Earth we gave that up years ago, and now rely (perhaps too much) on GPS to tell us where we are within a few meters. "By creating our own fixed stars — satellites in geosynchronous orbits — constantly emitting known signals, we made it possible for our devices to quickly sample those signals and immediately locate themselves". READ MORE
GPS History: Satellites & Submarines "GPS has its origins in the Sputnik era when scientists were able to track the satellite with shifts in its radio signal known as the "Doppler Effect." The United States Navy conducted satellite navigation experiments in the mid 1960's to track US submarines carrying nuclear missiles. With six satellites orbiting the poles, submarines were able to observe the satellite changes in Doppler and pinpoint the submarine's location within a matter of minutes".
GPS vs paper maps for a motorcycle tour in Europe? "Old school, low tech, conservative paper maps. No POI, no music inside. But, in terms of navigation, they will do the job. They don’t lose signals and don’t run out of juice- ever. That’s important. If you pair a good map with a compass, you’re almost certain you’ll find your way even when off roading. Another good usage of maps is that you can draw the daily route you took and have it as a souvenir after your motorcycle tour, along with the notes on the back sides. When you look at it that way, it can be pretty useful. They are also cheap, so you don’t need to worry about it being stolen. Down side is they are almost impossible to read while riding and you will definitely need to stop to refold it and put it back into a tank bag. Not to forget, at the end of the daily ride, you will need to fold it- which is definitely a science for itself- so you often end up with a teared map".
I've often wanted to take orienteering classes. I have no idea how to use a compass to navigate with.
Remember the books of regional street maps? You would look up your street in the back, and it would direct you to a page with grid coordinates (Pg 10, F-14.) Then you had to try to find the darned thing. Or the grid would border another page, so you couldn't really figure out exactly how to get there without flipping back & forth between pages. I could not find the one I'm thinking of...this is close:
I found this book to be great as far as learning orienteering: Book I taught the subject to Boy Scouts back when it was a credible organization. The Chinese now have the ability to turn off our GPS system, but fortunately theirs is piggybacked on to ours, so if they turn ours off, they may lose theirs as well. When they get more satellites up and calibrated, that may not be the case. I doubt that even the Chinese will be able to move Magnetic North though.
Thanks, Don. I just chucked it on my Wish List. My lot is a sorta rectangular shape with compass references to stones and trees and stump (that are pols apart), and would have cost me $5,000 to get surveyed had my lender required it. I'd like to be able to roughly do this myself to stake up No Hunting signs (or to at least know I can walk though the thick stuff and not get all turned around...again.) My neighbor's been a Scout leader for 30+ years and just stepped down (they now have a female Scout Master in a troop of all boys), but he's not an orienteering guy.
If you are just wanting compass bearings on your lot, you just need a compass and declination for your area. You should be able to get that from the internet if your scouting buddy doesn't already know it.
I was gonna talk about declination when you said the Chinese can't change magnetic north, since it's moving all on its own. I'm around 10° here, changing roughly .03° annually. I learned all this when on TV Fool some years ago, orienting my TV antennas to 2 opposed markets.
I don't know about today but in the 90s Death Valley had no cell phone link and you were pretty much out of luck if you needed fast help. The below sea level doesn't work very well with towers. There may be phone service on the highway but not sure of that either since I have never been deep inside Death Valley only the entrance at around Furnace Creek. The wrecker driver there at the resort Furnace Creek told me they bought a satellite phone monthly service and it was like 900 dollars a month in 98. It never paid for itself so they just stopped the service.
That's like what I used when I drove a tow truck in Orange County, California. I wasn't overly familiar with the area but the maps were actually pretty easy to navigate. Of course, that was before GPS.