GPS

I'm still a map and compass guy. but whenever I leave the truck I'm prepared to spend the night. does it count as being "LOST" if you know where you are, but it's just not where you want/are suupposed to be? did that last fri at citrus, wanted to go NW but the "road" kept taking me SW. and was to stubborn to go back & admit I missed a trail, was raining hard/cold had my hood up and head down, always thinking the trail will turn just up ahead and go back the way I want. a GUY thing I guess like stopping and asking for directions (NEVER). it all worked out fine just got a little more exercize than I planned on. my bro was worried though.

Did they mention how far the accuracy could be off? I remember hearing about them not being able to fund to maintain the current system, but didn't know if the effects had started to be felt yet. My handheld GPS will still put me more than close enough to be completely functional. In clear skies, it puts me within 9 foot of my objective.....It seems to average 30-40 ft in the woods. and maybe 70-80 in the really thick crap. Occasionally I'll temporarily lose enough satellites for it to give me a reading but 99% of the time I'm good. Unless the accuracy gets WAY bad, I don't see it being too much of an issue for us hunters...

Grouper/snapper fisherman could have a bit more of a hard time. We used to fish very small limestone outcroppings and other structures....stuff that you had to get RIGHT on top of to pick up on the bottom machine...and that stuff was usually most productive, because most people weren't capable of finding that stuff, or didn't know how to read their machines or tune their stuff well enough.

well that might be the reason why last year i marked stuff and when i went back this year i was off by like a long shot.

Things like orbital drift and picking up a different set of satellites can make readings vary. Say you go out and get a reading, plot a waypoint, and your unit was picking up 12 satellites. Next time you go out looking for that spot, it's been a year and now you can only pick up 7 satellites. Depending on which 5 you're missing from the first reading can have a big effect on your accuracy.

When GPS was first in use, the Special Ops helicopters (MH-53 Pave Lows) were some of the first to get them. There were times of the day we couldn't get enough satellites to calibrate the units so they could use them on their mission. And if they started taxiing before they had a good fix on at least 4 satellites, the GPS would be way off to where they couldn't use it. Back then just getting within 100 yards of where you were supposed to be was considered acceptable. Now folks expect to use them as rangefinders!