NavList:
A Community Devoted to the Preservation and Practice of Celestial Navigation and Other Methods of Traditional Wayfinding
Re: Role of CN at sea
From: Jared Sherman
Date: 2004 Oct 13, 12:35 -0400
From: Jared Sherman
Date: 2004 Oct 13, 12:35 -0400
Dan- I don't know the mortality of the GPS birds, offhand I hadn't heard of ANY failures in them. And, there are spare birds kept in orbit so that even if one or two failed "now" they could be replaced as soon as the spares shifted orbit, no need for launching anything. It is, after all, a hardened military system designed for combat performance--not a consumer device allowed to casually fail. On the flip side, i.e. "What if the GPS unit fails" I think that's a poor question, best answered by the reply "What if you drop your sextant?" The sextant is instantly trashed, the GPS usually continues to work. www.bestbuy.com has been clearancing Garmin eTrex units for $49.95. At that price, you can buy 4 GPSes, two solar battery charger sets, cushioned afloat pouches, and a couple of hundred premium AA cells for the price of one lowest-price metal sextant. Then of course, there is the other problem with a sextant: What if the navigator fails?! Gets sick, hit in the head, is thrown overboard by the cook? The sextant is useless without a trained operator. The GPS can often be coaxed into providing some useful information in a few minutes, by anyone else on board.