Someone has today sent ARM a cutting of a newspaper report of crowds outside Old Trafford during the recent Test Match, captioned: "Waiting game: Hundreds of cricket fans queue up for tickets to the England v Australia Test Match at Old Trafford yesterday".

Also captured in the photo, however, was a sign in capital letters reading:

'MANCHESTER UNITED FOOTBALL GROUND - STRAIGHT ON 1000 MTS'.

What can it mean?

If it means what I think it means, it'll be added to the ARM hit-list.

The sign is unlawful. It needs replacing with a sign saying: '1/2 mile'. Or maybe '5 furlongs'

<<
The sign is unlawful. It needs replacing with a sign saying: '1/2 mile'. Or maybe '5 furlongs'
>>

"5 furlongs" would certainly be unlawful.

He might have been "joking"

It can't possibly mean "metres," Tony, the only acceptable symbol for metres is "m." Leave the sign alone.

Hey - perhaps to keep crowd violence down it could be an anacronym for "Mates".

So you can only take 1000 mates, into the stadium in Manchester, at once.

This means there's a limit to the number of times Manchunians can say "ahye ahye - maycht" in that daft way that they do.


And "dey do don't dey" etc

<<<And "dey do don't dey" etc>>>

isn't that the scousers?

Erm....



.


.


.

Moving on then, who think's metric is rubbish?

;-)

It could be '1,000 mitres'. Isn't Manchester Cathedral somewhere near there?

I just find it sad that the so-called supporters of England's biggest football club need directions when they turn up at the cricket ground by mistake.

Real Mancunians needed no directions to Maine Road during the time I was there. (More sadly, I still look for City's result on a Saturday)

<<
It could be '1,000 mitres'. Isn't Manchester Cathedral somewhere near there?
>>

Manchester Catehderal is on the northern edge of the central business area, Man City are about 2km to the south of the Central business area while Man United are at Old Trafford (a similar distance to the South West). (I only know this because I spent a year at Manchester and my duaghter is currently at University there.

At regards the "1,000 mitres" - the prononociation that I heard from a Dame when she was being inervierwed on the BBC was "10 mih'ers" :-)

Well, another possibility is '1000 masters', or even '1,000 masters and mistresses'. Maybe martin, with his local knowledge, could inform us if the University of Manchester is nearby

on a serious note, it does astound me that someone can put "1000 MTS" on a sign. If you're not going to use a recognised abbreviation write the word "metres"!

HAH! Nice one Andy!!!

"Man City are about 2km to the south of the Central business area "

Did you not see your absolute mortal sin of not putting a clear one-space between number and SI derived unit?

Check whose behind you!

If it ain't the boss wondering what the hell BWMA means it'll be the metric gestapo ready to march you off to spend a whole weekend with Daniel discussing vinyl records and the UK economy!!!!!!!

Boy I did enjoy that one!

Don't gloat Stimps, it's not clever.

Here, Andy, use this hanky.

Now you two shake hands and make up, y'hear?

er...whats going on?!

[Blush]

I mistook you for martin.

How do you reckon I feel now?

Manchester Uni & UMIST are in the centre.

Manchester Metropolitan Uni have campuses near Maine Road (City's old ground)

When I was there, City was a 15 minute walk, with a couple of nice pubs on the way. United was a half-hour bus ride through Moss Side.

Guess why I prefer City!

<<
Manchester Uni & UMIST are in the centre.
>>

Two points

1) The University of Manchester adjoins the Central Business Area on its Southern side and strethes for at least a kilometer southward with various halls of residence that are not on the actual campus itself scattered along another kilometer or so down the Oxford Road.

2) UMIST is no more. For more than half a century it awarded degrees (inculding one to me) on behalf of the Victoria University of Manchester. In 1991 it was made a University in its own right. On 1-Oct-2004, bioth it adn the Victoria University of Manchester ceased to exist and a new univerity, the University of Manchester was institiuted. The new university claims 1824 (the year in which the college that became UMIST was founded) as its original foundation year. All going well, my daughter, who registered as a student at the Victoria Univerity of Manchester a few days before the offical merger will have the rigth to choose whethwer to graduate from the VUoM or the UoM.

re (Beranger): "Guess why I prefer City!"

REPLY: 'Cos they're above United in the Prem at the moment

martin - do you believe it is clever to use units that no-one in the UK uses for long distances - or do you believe you are one step "higher" on the evolutionary scale - or is there any other reason?

If it *is* point one could I suggest that you, from now on, post all your messages in Afrikaans?

The quickest way to estimate distances on a map of the UK is to count the Ordinance Survey Grid Reference squares - depending on the map scale they are usually a round number of kilometres (or in some cases such as my London A-Z 500m).

Sorry, that looks like English to me with units Brits don't use.

Afrikaans please......

re (martin): "The quickest way to estimate distances on a map of the UK is to count the Ordinance Survey Grid Reference squares - "

REPLY: More or less.

My wife and I do a lot of walking and I tend to plan individual routes - up to 16 miles in a full day.

I first have to calculate the distance we propose to travel in kilometres. This is done, as you say, by estimating the distance travelled over O.S. map kilometre squares. Thus a road or footapth that is more or less due north-south or east-west will be counted as 1 km. If it is diagonal (NW-SE or NE-SW), then according to Pythagoras' theorem I count this as 1.4km. If it's half way between, then the distance is taken as around 1.1km or 1.2km.

Then one has to imagine the length of the (mostly) bendy footpaths, bridleways and roads as pieces of string, and mentally straighten them, to work out the distance over a kilometre square. Due allowance is made for walking up or down steep hills (not that much usually).

These distances are added together and then converted into miles so as to work out the total number of miles to be walked. Roughly 1.6km to the mile, of course.

Then I calculate the likely length of the walk, using an estimated average walking speed. If very straight, and not too hilly, then around 3mph, if quite steeply uphill then 2mph, mostly around 2.5 mph, all allowing for sufficient short rests.

Then there is the task of converting metric heights to feet. I find 30 metres to 100 feet quite a good approximation for most purposes, though it's actually a little short - 98.4 feet.

In mountainous areas like the Lake District and Scotland, a useful benchmark is 700 metres = 2300 feet, though it's actually 2,297 feet.

When I walked up England's highest mountain, Scafell Pikes, earlier this year, much of it was in the company of an American with a Spanish-made altimeter, regrettably calibrated only in metres. I must admit that multiplying heights like 560 and 630 metres by 3.28 was a bit of a challenge. But all great fun, as one was able to chart precisely one's slow progress towards the summit.

The American (like it or not) went back to the United States with a greatly enhanced knowledge of the Imperial system of weights and measures and the signficance of retaining it.

These activities all help to ensure that physical exercise is accompanied by mental exercise

Stimpy - you seem to be being a bit hypocritical here. You state that you don't have a problem with metric, but you believe everyone should have the choice to use the units they want.

Martin chooses to use metric, and you complain...

Its ironic that the imposing of measures on people that the pro-imperial side so bitterly resent, is exactly what they do all the time.

<<My wife and I do a lot of walking and I tend to plan individual routes - up to 16 miles in a full day.>>

Stimpy will laugh at me for measuring everything, but you might enjoy carrying a GPS with you. It will capture in its memory a precise track that you can compare to your map and calculations. Some models will include altitude in the track log, either from 3D GPS or a built-in pressure altimeter. I don't have that feature as it is pretty flat around here.

If you record your exercise, it would allow a much rougher estimate of distance (that looks like a nice walk) as, at the end, you'd have a precise record. (It will let you choose your units)

When calculating the speed of a brisk walk on a flat course with no obstacle I assume 100m/minute. If there are obstacles, then I assume a slower speed.

<<When calculating the speed of a brisk walk on a flat course with no obstacle I assume 100m/minute.>>

That's quite brisk. I have a 3.4 km course (GPS measured) that I walk in my neighborhood. I'd be hard pressed to break 34:00, but I can do it in 34:30-35:00. (And I couldn't come close to that pace over 26 km)

re (JohnS-MI): "Stimpy will laugh at me for measuring everything, but you might enjoy carrying a GPS with you. It will capture in its memory a precise track that you can compare to your map and calculations. Some models will include altitude in the track log, either from 3D GPS or a built-in pressure altimeter. I don't have that feature as it is pretty flat around here. If you record your exercise, it would allow a much rougher estimate of distance (that looks like a nice walk) as, at the end, you'd have a precise record. (It will let you choose your units)"

REPLY: Thanks. I like the last bit. Freedom of choice! It's what these boards are all about. I'd often thought of buying a pedometer but I hear they're quite inaccurate.

For once, we succumbed to the charms of a Lake District official guided walk earlier this year and the walk leader, an ex-S.A.S. man who walked at a furious pace, had one of these GPS thingies, it looked like a giant wrist-watch; he was very proud of it and kept mentioning it and checking it every few minutes. I think he'd just got it.

How much do they cost? - it's my birthday soon and my wife wants to know what to get me

Cost is difficult to say, very feature dependent. The basic location, track memory, waypoints can be had for $100 US. The size of display (and color) and internal map memory can drive the price way up. A really nice one with a small enough screen to carry might be $500 to $900 depending on map memory, automatic routing, etc. A very large display (permanent installation in a car or boat) could reach $2000.

Mine is a marine model from when I had a sailboat. No map to speak of, but a buoy database for US. It was $200 new, but the feature content can be had now in a basic $100 model. I tend to favor a basic model and a paper map. The highly featured models are hard to read small screen, and operate small buttons, at least IMO.

On the water, I always used latitude, longitude as it went with the charts available. Hiking, I tend to use the UTM projections (1 km grid) as the grid is on US topographic maps. The Ordnance Survey grid is similar, but has a different origin (I don't know details). You'd have to make sure the unit supported that to use conveniently with an OS map.

With a simple unit, the first priority is to relate your location, displayed in numbers to your paper map. You really want to use the same units as the map. You can, at various points, change units, look at the trip odometer function in miles, etc, but I suspect most of the time, you'd use OS grid.

For long distance driving in car, I use Microsoft Streets and Trips to define the route, I pick latitude and longitude of rod intersections or interchanges off their computer map and store in my GPS. It warns me before the intersection, and I make a list of what to do at each critical intersection. For me, that is easier than trying to read map on small screen, 2" x 3" or less.

I find mine a reasonable compromise for boating, hiking, and driving.

<<I'd often thought of buying a pedometer but I hear they're quite inaccurate. >>

I have one. Smaller, cheaper than GPS. Two facets to inaccuracy:
*Everybody's stride is different. You have to calibrate it to yours over a measured course. It counts steps and multiples by a stide (steps per mile) to convert. If your stride varies over uneven ground, on hills, etc, it may not be too useful. If you have some measured routes over terrain of the same type as you will hike, it can be good.
*Counting accuracy: On soft ground or if you wear soft shoes, it may miss some steps. If you walk the same course, wearing same shoes, it will all balance out. If the ground or your shoues change, the error may too.

Having said all that, I trust the second digit on mine, but the third is dubious. That's in an X.XX format over a few (like 5) miles. But that's walking routes of generally similar road where the pedometer has been calibrated to GPS over some of the routes.

JohnS-MI,

Many thanks indeed for the GPS info.

Does it know where you are when you switch it off? - indeed, *can* you switch it off?

There might be occasions when I don't want it to know where I am

You can turn it off. In fact, the batteries only last about 24 hours of usage, so you should turn it off when not in use. In car or boat, you can plug into cigarette lighter and leave on continuously. Most hikes are less than 24 hours, so you can leave on or switch off. If camping and hiking (several days in the wilderness), you should use sparingly to avoid carrying a lot of batteries. You could, for example, turn it on a couple of minutes every hour to update position. It would know where you were before and now, but not the track detail of getting between the two places -- it will "fake it" with a straight line.

The GPS has to know where the satellites are, the time and where it is (roughly). It then receives signal and refines all those things. If it knows well enough to jump straight into high accuracy mode, that is called a "hot start," and may take a few seconds to a couple of minutes. The minimum on time to update position is the "hot start" spec. If it hasn't been used in months or is moved hundreds of miles with power off, it needs a much slower search to get and process the signal, this is a cold start, and can take 10-30 minutes. For intermittent use, the hot start spec is important, the cold start, not so much.

A pure GPS can usually be hooked to a computer, but barring that, can't reveal your location. It is only a receiver. People have invented GPS-based cell phones however, and the phone can transmit the GPS coordinates. That could be good or bad depending on situation. If I looked at one of those products, I would want to look at security and privacy arrangements carefully.

Tony,

This site probably has WAY TOO MUCH info, but if you want more info, is the best site I know of on GPS.
http://gpsinformation.net/

JohnS-MI, thanks again very much for all the info.

I have some questions in my mind about the use of GPS in parts of America (wasn't it Wisconsin?) already - for working out fuel tax according to how many miles/km you drive every month. Or something like that.

I also need to know if it's conspiracy theory or not that if your car has - in the future - to have a GPS device in it, 'they' could use GPS to disable your car, i.e. stop you travelling.

But I guess I can research that myself somewhere

Tony,
Yes and no.

I believe the state fuel tax was either Washington or Oregon. The system had to exclude miles driven in other states, so they couldn't just use the odometer.

GM Onstar integrates GPS with cellular phone and the vehicle's computerized network. The capability to do stuff like that exists. Onstar uses the car position info to track stolen cars, send help if the air bag deploys, etc. If there is no emergency, or you don't call them, I don't think they have the resources to track everybody, but theoretically, it could be abused -- especially with a court order from the Feds.

All GPS can output to a computer. If the computer has enough memory it could record everywhere you've ever been. If it has a cell phone, or an Internet connection, it could report it somewhere. But the key is tying these things together (and knowing how to program all these features.)

But if it is not hooked to a phone, no one can query your location via the GPS alone. In theory, if you hooked up to your computer, they could download it, but only if they could download other files and that depends on your firewall, anti-virus programs, etc. Just avoid phones with built-in GPS and you don't have to worry.

Tony Bennett wrote

<<
How much do they cost? - it's my birthday soon and my wife wants to know what to get me
>>

Tony - do a search on "Gemini" and "GPS". "Gemini is one of the better known brands. This will lead you to a number of UK sites where can see other brands. Most of the sites that I have examinde also allow you to load the instuction manual. It seems that most of them allow you to choose between lat-long, UK OS grid references plus a host of other grids. They also allow you to choose metric or inmperial units for height. Of course, if you are using one in conjunction with an OS map, the OS grid reference and metric heights is the most useful selection.

re: your last comment, Andy:

You have said yourself that stuff like road distances and people's heights are almost 100% imperial.

To quote differently would be akin to me suggesting how many cubic inches my caterham engine is or that I had X scruples of aspiriin this morning.

Normally we are in agreement on this particular bit.

Stimpy said
<<re: your last comment, Andy:

You have said yourself that stuff like road distances and people's heights are almost 100% imperial.
>>

For driving, I think you are correct, between highway signs in miles, mile odometers, maps that show mileage along highway routes, etc.

It sounds like Tony's main use would be hiking. I believe due to the metric grid on maps, and the process he, himself, described, that he would be better off using kilometers for hiking.

By the way, in the US, there are plastic grids available that match the common scales on topographical maps. By placing them over the map, it is possible to very easily divide the 1 km square grid. On 7.5' (minutes of arc) quadrangles, it is possible to easily measure to 10 m with only the grid.

<<
By the way, in the US, there are plastic grids available that match the common scales on topographical maps. By placing them over the map, it is possible to very easily divide the 1 km square grid. On 7.5' (minutes of arc) quadrangles, it is possible to easily measure to 10 m with only the grid.
>>

Are they latitude-sensitive. If so, not much use in the UK unless they are also available for Alaska as 99.99% of the UK is North of 50N. (For the record a tiny bit of Cornwall near The Lizard is SOuth of 50N).

<<Are they latitude-sensitive. If so, not much use in the UK unless they are also available for Alaska as 99.99% of the UK is North of 50N. (For the record a tiny bit of Cornwall near The Lizard is SOuth of 50N).
>>

No, but I don't know if they work for OS maps.

US Topographical maps use a Universal Transverse Mercator Projection, based on strips of longitude 6° wide, running from pole to pole. They are not very useful at the pole because of convergence, but the US military uses the projection from 80°S to 84°N. The maps are generally only 7.5 minute quardrangles, although larger scale quadrangles are available. The shape of the map depends on latitude (the strip is physically narrower in high latitude), but each size quadrangle is a fixed scale, and the 1 km grid is square.

I don't know that the OS grid is UTM. If it is, these should work, but may need to be designed to specific scales used for OS maps. The scale for the 7.5' US maps is 1:24000. Here is an example of the grid (a second grid for a different scale is shown, not sure what maps that is used for.
http://mainegov-images.informe.org/doc/nrimc/pubedinf/crest/activity/images/7b.gif

You can either buy these (more durable) or download artwork to print on transparency film for overhead projectors (flimsies)

I did a little Google research. Ordnance Survey gid is a Tranverse Mercator projection, only slightly different than the UTM. The plastic grid protractor concept should work, however, your standard scales are 1:25 000, 1:50 000, and 1:100 000, so it would have to be a different size than the US ones. On the largest scale, 1 kilometer on the ground is 40 mm on the map, vs 41.66... on a US topographical map.

A link: http://www.bangor.ac.uk/is/iss025/osgbfaq.htm

<<
I don't know that the OS grid is UTM.
>>

The OS-grid is quasi-UTM. UTM works in 6deg strips centerd on 3deg, 9deg, 15deg etc. The OS grid uses the point 49N, 2W as its origin and has a "false origin" 500km to the West 2W. The OS grid is defined for a rectangle 1000km from West to East (500km either side of 2W) and 1500km going northwards from 49N.