Urgent - really stupid GPS question...

On Fri, 15 Oct 2004 12:57:18 +0100, Peewiglet <[email hidden]>
wrote:

Ok, I've partly worked it out but now I have an even more embarrassing
question....

I've gone to Mark and then highlighted "NY ***** BNB ***** (where *
represents a digit)" and pressed OK. That allows me to make changes to
the NY digits and the BNG digits.

However, I'm not sure what the NY and BNG stand for. Here's exactly
what it says.

NY 23325
BNG 08108

The 6 figure reference I want to enter is 350122.

I'm not sure whether I should put 350 next to NY, and delete the last
2 digits, and then put 122 next to BNG etc, or whether I should try to
enter all 6 of my digits next to one of NY or BNG.

Can anyone help? I'm going back to the manual now, but I'm asking here
in case I can't find the answer. I'd have thought that how to do this
was so fundamental that it would be on the first page of the manual...

Please help... <more sobs>...

Best wishes,
--
(**)PeeWiglet~~
/ \ / \

On Fri, 15 Oct 2004 13:09:51 +0100, Peewiglet <[email hidden]>
wrote:

Ok.... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_grid suggests that the
whole 6 figure reference should come after the NY, but why is the NY
currently shown on the GPS only a 5 figure grid reference??

<fx: confused...>

Best wishes,
--
(**)PeeWiglet~~
/ \ / \

Peewiglet said:

However, I'm not sure what the NY and BNG stand for.

NY will probably be the 100 km grid square code. The British National
Grid (that would be BNG!) is subdivided into 100 km grid squares with a
letter designation. You'll see these in large blue outline type at the
corners of the squares, anywhere the 00 eastings and northings meet. It
should say somewhere on any given map which grid square you're in if
it's all within one.

Quoted message said:

NY 23325
BNG 08108

The 6 figure reference I want to enter is 350122.

I'm not sure whether I should put 350 next to NY, and delete the last
2 digits, and then put 122 next to BNG etc, or whether I should try to
enter all 6 of my digits next to one of NY or BNG.

What you have is a 10 figure reference rather than a 6, so you're down
to a 1m square rather than the 100m one a 6 figure reference denotes.
Change the 23325 to 35000 and the 08108 to 12200.

But do make sure you are in the right 100 km grid! If you're just down
the road and haven't crossed the 00 boundary point you should be okay
there. Plugging NY350122 into Streetmap gives me the end of a track by
Grisedale Tarn.

Quoted message said:

Can anyone help? I'm going back to the manual now, but I'm asking here
in case I can't find the answer. I'd have thought that how to do this
was so fundamental that it would be on the first page of the manual...

In one of Garmin's manuals! <guffaw> ;-/

Pete.
--
Peter Clinch Medical Physics IT Officer
Tel 44 1382 660111 ext. 33637 Univ. of Dundee, Ninewells Hospital
Fax 44 1382 640177 Dundee DD1 9SY Scotland UK
net [email hidden] http://www.dundee.ac.uk/~pjclinch/

Peewiglet said:

On Fri, 15 Oct 2004 12:57:18 +0100, Peewiglet <[email hidden]>
wrote:

Ok, I've partly worked it out but now I have an even more embarrassing
question....

I've gone to Mark and then highlighted "NY ***** BNB ***** (where *
represents a digit)" and pressed OK. That allows me to make changes to
the NY digits and the BNG digits.

However, I'm not sure what the NY and BNG stand for. Here's exactly
what it says.

NY 23325
BNG 08108

The 6 figure reference I want to enter is 350122.

I'm not sure whether I should put 350 next to NY, and delete the last
2 digits, and then put 122 next to BNG etc, or whether I should try to
enter all 6 of my digits next to one of NY or BNG.

Can anyone help? I'm going back to the manual now, but I'm asking here
in case I can't find the answer. I'd have thought that how to do this
was so fundamental that it would be on the first page of the manual...

Please help... <more sobs>...

Have a tissue...

The NY is the two-letter prefix for the grid reference, and if that's wrong
you change it. The first set of five digits are the Easting and the second
set the Northing. Obviously if you're transcribing off a paper map the last
two digits of each group will be zero.
--
Dave

On Fri, 15 Oct 2004 13:20:19 +0100, Peewiglet <[email hidden]>
wrote:

Yippee!!! :-)

I rang Garmin UK and they told me. The man said I wasn't really
stupid, but I'm not sure he was right...

Anyway, the answer (if there was anyone else out there who didn't
know) is that the NY and BNG stuff are actually a 10 figure grid
reference. Therefore, the first 3 figures of my 6 figure reference go
by the NY (and I then insert two 0s to make up the 5 figures) and the
last 3 by the BNG.

Actually, I do think it might be an idea to put that on page 1 of the
book...

Byeeeeee :-)

<Peewiglet skips happily back to enter the waypoints>

Best wishes,
--
(**)PeeWiglet~~
/ \ / \

Peter Clinch said:

Plugging NY350122 into Streetmap gives me the end of a track by
Grisedale Tarn.

That's the one!

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Can anyone help? I'm going back to the manual now, but I'm asking here
in case I can't find the answer. I'd have thought that how to do this
was so fundamental that it would be on the first page of the manual...

In one of Garmin's manuals! <guffaw> ;-/

I see what you mean...

Many thanks for helping - how extremely confusing! 🙂

Best wishes,
--
(**)PeeWiglet~~
/ \ / \

Dave Pickles said:

Quoted message said:

Please help... <more sobs>...

Have a tissue...

Thank you.

<wipes eyes>

Quoted message said:

The NY is the two-letter prefix for the grid reference, and if that's wrong
you change it. The first set of five digits are the Easting and the second
set the Northing. Obviously if you're transcribing off a paper map the last
two digits of each group will be zero.

Many thanks for that 🙂 Istr that I knew that once, but I forgot...

Best wishes,
--
(**)PeeWiglet~~
/ \ / \

The message <[email hidden]>
from Peewiglet <[email hidden]> contains these words:

Quoted message said:

However, I'm not sure what the NY and BNG stand for. Here's exactly
what it says.

Quoted message said:

NY 23325
BNG 08108

Quoted message said:

The 6 figure reference I want to enter is 350122.

The NY is an integral part of the full grid ref (shown in the notes on
most maps). The Northern 2 thirds (or more) of the LD is NY, the
Southern third. SD.

BNG is British National Grid just in case you forget what reference you
are inputting. You need to input 10 figures not six - 35000 12200 - but
you would be wise to give yourself a bit more North, say 12250, if you
want to avoid a swim.

--
Roger Chapman so far this year 69 summits
New - 47 (Marilyns 13, Sweats 5, Outlying Fells 35)
Repeats - 22( Marilyns 7, Sweats 16, Wainwrights 16)

Dave Pickles said:

Peewiglet said:

On Fri, 15 Oct 2004 12:57:18 +0100, Peewiglet <[email hidden]>
wrote:

Ok, I've partly worked it out but now I have an even more embarrassing
question....

I've gone to Mark and then highlighted "NY ***** BNB ***** (where *
represents a digit)" and pressed OK. That allows me to make changes to
the NY digits and the BNG digits.

However, I'm not sure what the NY and BNG stand for. Here's exactly
what it says.

NY 23325
BNG 08108

The 6 figure reference I want to enter is 350122.

I'm not sure whether I should put 350 next to NY, and delete the last
2 digits, and then put 122 next to BNG etc, or whether I should try to
enter all 6 of my digits next to one of NY or BNG.

Can anyone help? I'm going back to the manual now, but I'm asking here
in case I can't find the answer. I'd have thought that how to do this
was so fundamental that it would be on the first page of the manual...

Please help... <more sobs>...

Have a tissue...

The NY is the two-letter prefix for the grid reference, and if that's wrong
you change it. The first set of five digits are the Easting and the second
set the Northing. Obviously if you're transcribing off a paper map the last
two digits of each group will be zero.

It one of those things that is blindingly obvious when you are told,
but the display of:

XY 12345
BNG 67890

Is a ten figure grid reference of XY 1234567890. To enter a six figure
reference just enter XY 1230067800. The BNG just tells you the GPS is
set to British National Grid position format. Make sure you have map
datum set to Ord Srvy because if you have left it at WGS84 it will be
reporting positions about 200m away from where they should be.
--
Phil Cook looking north over the park to the "Westminster Gasworks"

Peewiglet said:

I've just taken down the grid references of about 10 places I hope to
visit in the Lakes over the w/e, and I'm now trying to enter them as
waypoints in my Geko 201 so that I can do a 'go to'. Embarrassingly, I
can't see how to enter a waypoint. I assumed I'd highlight Waypoint and
then I'd be offered an 'add', but that's not happened. I'm now reading
the book and I still can't see how to do it.

Judging from your newsreader, you are not running linux, but if by chance
you do have access to a linux box and want to try some *free* gps software
I can recommend gpsman, which (though a little idiosyncratic), does much
of what (eg) oziexplorer can. I too bought a geko this week and have been
having fun programming it with said software :

http://www.ncc.up.pt/gpsman/gpsman.html

saki

Peewiglet <[email hidden]> wrote in
news:[email hidden]:

Quoted message said:

I've just taken down the grid references of about 10 places I hope to
visit in the Lakes over the w/e, and I'm now trying to enter them as
waypoints in my Geko 201 so that I can do a 'go to'. Embarrassingly, I
can't see how to enter a waypoint. I assumed I'd highlight Waypoint
and then I'd be offered an 'add', but that's not happened. I'm now
reading the book and I still can't see how to do it.

Can anyone help? Surely it's simple! I've left the PC lead at home so
I have to do it manually this time, but I'm sure it can't be
complicated. Is it hidden somewhere in Routes or somethign?

Its easy, but perhaps not obvious!

Use 'Mark' rather than Waypoint which marks your present location. Then
edit the grid ref to the value you want.

John

saki said:

I can recommend gpsman,

Just curious: is that a "first one I tried" or a "best of the bunch"
reference? I have a nice little Geko 301 that pretty much just sits in the
bottom of my sack in winter "just in case" (used precisely once in anger in
the hills). I have this lurking doubt that I ought to do something more
techy with it, given that I'm a geek'n'all...

Quoted message said:

saki

A subtle Munro[e] reference?

Martin Carpenter said:

saki said:

I can recommend gpsman,

Just curious: is that a "first one I tried" or a "best of the bunch"
reference? I have a nice little Geko 301 that pretty much just sits in
the bottom of my sack in winter "just in case" (used precisely once in
anger in the hills). I have this lurking doubt that I ought to do
something more techy with it, given that I'm a geek'n'all...

Caution, what follows may be extraordinarily boring.

In (I hope), a quiet and balanced way I am a linux and open source fanatic
- but not to the point of idiocy. I keep a Windows machine next to the
linux boxen and I KVM to it when I really have to. If I need something
new, I will always investigate the open source alternative first. Having
decided to buy the geko I spent a few evenings playing with demos of
Tracklogs and Oziexplorer as well as gpsman. There is no doubt at all
that both of the former are slicker and offer more facilities than gpsman.
As to slickness, part of gpsman's problem is its use of tcl and its clunky
widget set rather than gtk or qt. Most Windows users would not like its
non-optional multiple-window model either. That said, however, it works
perfectly well and is very configurable (eg wrt window geometry and
postion), and my only major reservations are: (a) that the map window does
not zoom and (b) that geo-referencing maps is a bit of a pain. I am still
investigating the latter problem, and I may yet be proved wrong about it.

Continuing the open source theme, I am using gpsman in conjunction with
the Vips imaging system, whose wonderful mosaicing feature makes it
possible (with a little practice and gimp cropping), to assemble large
images from small scans : http://www.vips.ecs.soton.ac.uk/index.php

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

saki

A subtle Munro[e] reference?

Nice thought, but he (or sredni when I am in a bad mood), has been a
posting identity since a time before walking became a strong interest.

saki

On Fri, 15 Oct 2004 13:34:02 +0100, Peewiglet <[email hidden]>

Quoted message said:

I rang Garmin UK and they told me. The man said I wasn't really
stupid, but I'm not sure he was right...

Oh silly Peewiglet. How could you not understand something that
simple?

Judith
(Blushing at the memory of how all of my first manually entered
waypoints turned out to be hundreds of miles from where I actually was
..... and I thought BNG stood for Bearing .... which made no sense at
all! Doh!)

Peewiglet said:

Anyway, the answer (if there was anyone else out there who didn't
know) is that the NY and BNG stuff are actually a 10 figure grid
reference. Therefore, the first 3 figures of my 6 figure reference go
by the NY (and I then insert two 0s to make up the 5 figures) and the
last 3 by the BNG.

This may be too late if you've already left, but now that you know how
the grid refs work, might I point out that a 6 figure grid ref just
isn't good enough for a GPS, it's way more accurate than that. A six
figure grid ref is only accurate to 100m, which could put you a long way
from your target. For this reason I recommend using 8 figure grid refs,
estimating to the nearest 10m.

It's not too hard to estimate down to 10m when using a romer, especially
on a 25k map, since the romer shows increments of 50m, so you only have
to estimate fifths. Your estimates don't have to be perfect, but they
will put you a lot closer to your target. Trying to estimate to the
nearest metre isn't really necessary, or possible!

Paul
--
http://www.wilderness-wales.co.uk
http://www.wildwales.fsnet.co.uk

saki said:

Judging from your newsreader, you are not running linux, but if by
chance you do have access to a linux box and want to try some *free*
gps software

Since you aren't running Linux, try GPS Utility. I believe the demo is
fully working but with reduced capacity, I think you can enter up to 100
waypoints. Even if you haven't got a map loaded, entering the grid refs
in software is still much easier than doing it on the GPS, and you can
save them too.

Paul
--
http://www.wilderness-wales.co.uk
http://www.wildwales.fsnet.co.uk

On Fri, 15 Oct 2004 13:34:02 +0100, Peewiglet <[email hidden]>

Quoted message said:

I rang Garmin UK and they told me. The man said I wasn't really
stupid, but I'm not sure he was right...

Oh silly Peewiglet. How could you not understand something that
simple?

Judith
(Blushing at the memory of how all of my first manually entered
waypoints turned out to be hundreds of miles from where I actually was
..... and I thought BNG stood for Bearing .... which made no sense at
all! Doh!)

Judith said:

On Fri, 15 Oct 2004 13:34:02 +0100, Peewiglet <[email hidden]>

Quoted message said:

I rang Garmin UK and they told me. The man said I wasn't really
stupid, but I'm not sure he was right...

Oh silly Peewiglet. How could you not understand something that
simple?

Judith
(Blushing at the memory of how all of my first manually entered
waypoints turned out to be hundreds of miles from where I actually was
.... and I thought BNG stood for Bearing .... which made no sense at
all! Doh!)

I don't normally say things twice. I say, I don't usually say things
twice, but on this occasion...

The message <[email hidden]>
from Judith <[email hidden]> contains these words:

Quoted message said:

(Blushing at the memory of how all of my first manually entered
waypoints turned out to be hundreds of miles from where I actually was
..... and I thought BNG stood for Bearing .... which made no sense at
all! Doh!)

As I bought my GPS to record where I had been rather than show me where
to go it was many months (more probably measured in years) before I as
much as entered a waypoint in it. When the great day finally dawned (it
was one of my longer LD walks last year) I input the principal summits
from Ozi and then decided to add a few cols and things. I don't know
what went wrong but all the earlier ones (which by default got entered
twice) ended up back here in Yorkshire and only those I put in later
remained true to their original position. It is not something I have
tried to replicate so I don't know it was a transient glitch or
something to be worried about but since then I have only input waypoints
from Ozi in a single operation.

--
Roger Chapman so far this year 69 summits
New - 47 (Marilyns 13, Sweats 5, Outlying Fells 35)
Repeats - 22( Marilyns 7, Sweats 16, Wainwrights 16)