A Comprehensive Guide to Land Navigation with GPS - Softcover

Hotchkiss, Noel J.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 189268800X ISBN 13: 9781892688002

Publisher: Alexis Pub, 1999

Synopsis

This is a practical hands-on guide, written for the novice and experienced navigator alike, who wish to fully apply the advantages and experience the enjoyment of using the Global Positioning System (GPS) technology. Whether you are considering the first purchase of a GPS receiver, already using GPS for outdoor sports and recreational activities or would like to start using GPS in your car, this book will provide you will the knowledge and skills required to get the most out of this exciting new technology. Included with the book is a free CD ROM featuring MAPTECH's digital map software and a sample topographic map. With this software you can interpret, manipulate, and customize USGS topographic maps; determine distances and elevation changes; profile areas to be navigated; upload and download coordinates, waypoints, and routes between a PC and compatible GPS units; and print customized maps to carry along during treks in the woods.

About this title

From the Publisher

Originally published in 1994, this book was the first to recognize the tremendous potential of GPS navigation to the outdoor recreational user. It has become a widely used text for GPS instruction and is a popularly quoted reference in a rapidly expanding field of GPS training and education. This new Edition represents the most extensive revision and expansion of the book since its initial release over 5 years ago. The all new Third Edition has been expanded from 187 to 331 pages and remains the only full color publication of its kind, with hundreds of illustrations that help bring teaching points to life.

From the Author

Each time I browse through a bookstore, I'm always fascinated by the variety of books on what seems to be an infinite number of topics and I frequently wonder how some of these authors happened to develop both the interest and expertise in their subjects. As the author of "A Comprehensive Guide to Land Navigation with GPS", I decided to provide you with the answer to this question in regard to my book. Hopefully, you'll find it an interesting little story.

Writing this book certainly wasn't the culmination of any conscious long-range plan. Instead, it just seemed to come about naturally. My initial career choice was to become a social science teacher; therefore, I had taken a fair number of geography courses during my undergraduate years at Syracuse University. Having also participated in the U.S. Army ROTC program, I enjoyed a two-year hitch as an armor (tank corps) officer on active duty and another twenty-six years in the Army National Guard and Reserve. While continuing to advance my career in education, I pursued graduate study in education administration and instructional design. And, in addition to all this, I have always had a fascination with maps and greatly enjoy time spent outdoors.

More specifically, the road to writing this book started back in the mid-1980s when I submitted an article to "Infantry Magazine", a professional training journal published by the Army Infantry School at Fort Benning, GA. My paper suggested several instructional changes the Army might make to improve our soldiers' sorely lacking map interpretation and land navigation skills. It was clear from my own experiences, as well as the statistics coming out of the relatively new National Training Center at Fort Irwin, CA, that the inability of our soldiers to navigate over unfamiliar terrain was responsible for many of the mistakes being made on the training field and failed missions and casualties on the battlefield. In fact, I saw it as the "Murphy's Law" of tactical execution.

To my surprise, shortly after the article appeared in the journal, I was contacted by a representative of the Army Research Institute (ARI) and offered an opportunity to serve as a civilian consultant working as part of their newly formed land navigation task force charged with designing new instructional techniques and programs for improving these critical soldier skills. They said they liked my ideas and wished to further pursue them. By 1991, we had developed a number of prototype instructional packages and the Army's performance in the Gulf War demonstrates that soldiers can better find their way.

As the ARI project was winding down, Saddam Hussein was rapidly gaining the attention of the Royal Family in Saudi Arabia. Suddenly, it seemed imperative that the Saudi military hone their basic soldiering skills to keep the monster on their northern border at bay. Somehow my name was passed along to Alexis, which had been awarded a contract to train troops at the Royal Saudi Air Defense Forces Institute at Jeddah. Serving as an instructional design consultant for Alexis, as well as the author of their land navigation training package and contract navigation instructor, I was able to personally field test and further refine the work we had done at Fort Benning. Furthermore, this all coincided with the time the new GPS technology was moving from the experimental realm to real world applications.

It wasn't long before we were talking and consulting with GPS manufacturers, those involved in the commercial map industry, and groups wishing to explore the many applications for this new technology. By 1994, it was obvious that the fledgling GPS industry was about to explode into a vast new market and there was obviously a pressing need for this book. We are pleased to have been the first to provide outdoor and general GPS consumers with a guide written to apply the advantages of GPS to their navigational requirements. We are also pleased that it has been so well received and that we have been able to continue to revise and expand its contents to keep pace with both the developing technology and the needs of the consuming public. It has been an interesting and rewarding experience to have been involved in writing this book.

Edition details

• Publisher: Alexis Pub
• Publication date: 1999
• ISBN 10: 189268800X
• ISBN 13: 9781892688002
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Edition number: 3
• Number of pages: 316