Author Topic: New iPhone App helps MR find lost couple  (Read 2779 times)

adi

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New iPhone App helps MR find lost couple
« on: December 22, 2011, 02:16:02 PM »
Phone download helps rescuers find lost walkers

Fall story here
http://www.grough.co.uk/magazine/2011/12/22/phone-download-helps-rescuers-find-lost-walkers

And here is a link to the app
http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/os-grid-converter/id382369923?mt=8

Looks like a good tool for emergencies, particularly those that happen off the hill but in rural locations where you might not have your normal nav kit. But, the moral of this story is always have your nav kit when on the hill!
"We do not belong to those who only get their thought from books, or at the prompting of books - it is our custom to think in the open air, walking, leaping, climbing or dancing, of lonesome mountains by preference, or close to the sea, where even the paths become thoughtful." Friedrich Nietzsche

Egg

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Re: New iPhone App helps MR find lost couple
« Reply #1 on: December 22, 2011, 10:53:52 PM »
Smart thinking by MR people.

OS Converter is a nice app, does exactly what it says on the tin.
Tested it in various locations alongside my Garmin and it is pretty accurate.
Transfer to maps is definitely more suited to urban areas, a blue dot on a grey or green screen is all you get when out in the wilds.

Still beggars belief that people "go for a walk" up a mountain with no nav kit.
Everyday's a school day...

Callum

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Re: New iPhone App helps MR find lost couple
« Reply #2 on: January 23, 2012, 08:27:19 PM »
Read in 'The Mail' - only because it was on the table in the staff room ;) - that mountain rescue in England have developed a program to use the geo-location API of the browser on a smart phone to obtain the position of it, anyone know anything about this?

Lyle Brotherton

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Re: New iPhone App helps MR find lost couple
« Reply #3 on: January 24, 2012, 11:04:26 AM »
Yes :)

This clever program, SARLOC, has been developed by someone I am in contact with called Russ Hore (a friend and member of the Ogwen Valley Mountain Rescue Organisation) and the project is gaining momentum with MRTs having success in the Lakes, Scotland and Wales.

It works by using the geo-location API of the browser on a 'smart phone' to obtain the position of ht e'phone and update a web based database from where the positions can be plotted in Google Maps or passed into a bespoke MR GIS application such as Mountain Map or SARMAN.

I plan to meet Russ to discuss a distress app that I am developing and share my knowledge with him to see if we can work together on a combined project.
“Opinion is the medium between knowledge and ignorance” - Plato