Read Online Timecachers by Glenn R. Petrucci - Free Book Online

I marked on the trail map,” said Tom, “where the stream crosses the trail for the first time. The mountain on our right is Rich Knob, which according to the topographical map is close to 3400 feet high. My GPS receiver indicates we are down to about 2700 feet now. We can begin our tests here, and bushwhack our way up the southern end of Rich Knob to the waypoints I set up in my receiver. As we continue south, we will descend back to the creek and pick up the trail again in about a half-mile.”
    “Let’s get to it then,” said Adam. “If we complete this first series of testing on schedule, we will be at the end of the trail by early afternoon and can setup a camping spot for the evening. This stream feeds a pond further south, and our outfitter friend James said the creek has plenty of native trout. I packed a fold-up fishing rod. With a little luck we can dine on trout tonight instead of freeze-dried backpacking food.
    “We all know the scenarios, but just to refresh—this first set of tests will confirm basic usability and the accuracy of the LANav by comparing it to the GPS receivers. The LANav has all the features of a standard GPSr, so we will begin with some simple exercises. Usability is one of the major concerns to TSO, and the scenarios today will put the unit through its paces as if it were a regular GPS receiver. Geocaching makes use of a few basic GPS functions, so we’ll make today’s testing interesting by playing a sort of makeshift geocaching game, only we’re going to use flags instead of ammo cans.”
    “Dang, dude! No searching for swag to trade?” Sal joked. “You mean I carried all these Happy Meal toys Nutso gave me for nothing?” Swag was a term geocachers used to refer to the trade items they placed in ammo cans, which in urban caches was mostly junk, such as small toys and other useless baubles.
    Adam ignored him and continued. “Tom, you have the Trimble® reference series GPS receiver and Sal is probably the fastest walker, so you two go ahead and mark out a few waypoints and place the flags. Radio me the coordinates as you place the flags, and Alice and I will follow from a different direction and check accuracy. Pick some spots that have a weak satellite signal so we can see if the TSO LANav has any difficulty at those places.”
    After a quick radio check, Tom and Sal left the trail and climbed up the slope of the mountain, while Alice and Adam headed a little further down the trail to begin bushwhacking up to the peak. It was still early spring and the foliage had not yet become overgrown enough to make off-trail hiking difficult. They picked a spot to ascend about an eighth of a mile south of where they left Tom and Sal. Within a few minutes Tom radioed the coordinates of the first flag, and Adam entered them into the LANav using the touch screen and activated the GOTO function. The device immediately displayed a topographic map indicating the area where he had set waypoints, their present position, and a dotted line indicating the path they had taken. Alongside the map, there were several soft keys for zooming and repositioning the map’s viewpoint. One key was labeled SAT-MAP. When Adam pressed it, the view changed from a topographical map to a satellite image of the area.
    “It has unbelievable resolution on these satellite maps,” Adam said, showing the screen to Alice. “I can zoom in close enough that I can almost see individual trees. Wow! I can see our SUV! I thought real-time imaging was restricted to military use only.”
    “Cool!” said Alice, “can you zoom in to my house and make sure I remembered to close all the windows?”
    “You can check that out later,” he replied. “Just don’t let Sal see you or he’ll be trying to zoom in on all kinds of things he shouldn’t.”
    They followed the LANav to each point that Tom and Sal set, which guided them to within a foot of every flag. A few of the flags were placed in positions that would not allow them