Messages

1

General Discussion / Mapped: every UK military search and rescue callout in 2013

« on: February 07, 2014, 03:57:31 PM »

An interesting info-graphic of Military SAR demographics for 2013.

http://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/interactive/2014/feb/05/mapped-every-uk-military-search-and-rescue-callout-in-2013?utm_content=buffer14bc5&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_campaign=buffer

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Emergency & Backup Equipment / Re: Is anyone aware of good video demo of ground to air emergency signalling?

« on: January 31, 2014, 10:38:23 AM »

What sort of ground air marker? A signal panel.

3

General Discussion / Re: A little history and a useful tip

« on: January 04, 2014, 02:49:23 AM »

The heaver the encryption the more likely the authorities will show an interest. And as Lyle said they can crack it.

With US law changing to allow the searching of electronic equipment without reason at it's borders it is probably wise to travel with a clean laptop with only the documents you need. Sadly for most people it is expensive to have clean electronics. However this is the advice I have given all my business clients for the years.

If you need personal or secure documents whilst you are away it is best to store them on line and if you open the file that you clear it from your caches when finished using it. Also password protest you hardware. But also password protect your FTP or File sharing site and use the password. Don't have the application running in the back ground all the time. 

There is software that deletes and cleans your pc on every shutdown, some delete the files in history, caches and other places then it over rights the clear space and then deletes this information. The more passes the software makes the less likely the data can be recovered. But if you chose this option for your travels then have a small capacity hard drive in your computer, this is a lot quicker to clean and you are less likely to get frustrated with it and turn it off. 

Finally never put anyone else's Memory stick into your computer.  The Stuxnet virus used to attack nuclear facilities in Iran by making  the bearings of centrifuges and other motors fail is thought to be delivered by a CD or memory stick by agent or even possible dropped from an over flying plane. It is human nature to plug a found memory stick in to see what is on it. People attacking computers know this and use it to their advantage.

Back in the early 90's when the rage was to have mini CD business cards it is thought that a huge percentage of secure computer systems where infiltrated in such a manor.     

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First Aid / Re: CPR Debate

« on: January 04, 2014, 02:00:53 AM »

As a late arrival in this CPR debate I feel compelled to say that talk of making decisions in the field as to whether one should or should not administer CPR based on statistically projected outcomes is a little worrying. I like to keep my life simple and if I see that CPR is required I give it. To date I have successfully resisted the temptation to initially turn to the latest copy of survival rate statistics to see if it's worth my while and energy getting stuck in. My simple approach is - DO IT if the need is there. I spent some years as a crew member of a motor sport rescue unit and I recall one particular instance when we attended a serious incident where the driver had suffered severe injuries, had stopped breathing and there was no sign of a pulse. We immediately got to work with bag and mask and defib with initially a successful outcome. Unfortunately the driver died while being airlifted out by helicopter. A doctor, part of the circuit medical team later suggested that we had wasted our time and should not have bothered to intervene in the way we did. We gave him our best regards in a way that only a close knit rescue team can and suggested to him that we suspected he was almost certainly being missed at the hospital where he works and should make every effort to return there as soon as possible!

Doctors have far more experience of death than we do and have training in detachment from Patents and death. We don't or can't be so cold because lack of experience of death of someone one you have worked on will hit you hard.  However it is easier to come to terms with death if you feel you did everything you could so I would agree with you, Do it. And if you are in a remote area more reason to do it. Far better than sitting their staring at the body or even worse, wondering of in shock. Action makes you breath, breathing makes you think and calms you down. It is a well documented fact that people that do things cope better with the aftermath than those that don't do anything.

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Emergency & Backup Equipment / Re: Spot/In Reach/ PLB - balancing them

« on: January 01, 2014, 07:55:37 PM »

Hi Oakleaf and welcome to the forum.

I am In full agreement with you. PLB wins hands down. I was dead against Spot when it first came out. They only had around 46% success rate when activated.  This has improved considerably as the system has been updated and improved but I am not sure they have got to 99% yet.   

The In-reach in theory should work better than the Spot because there are more satellites to receive it.

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General Discussion / Re: A little history and a useful tip

« on: January 01, 2014, 10:55:40 AM »

I find backing up files is a waste of time and money. If I need a file recovered I just ring up the NSA and ask for it back!

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General Discussion / Re: A little history and a useful tip

« on: December 31, 2013, 09:42:29 AM »

Firstly I love InDesign, In fact i love all Adobe products. But I hear you re-indexing. Although InDesign has unproved its indexing feature over time. It is still manually intensive to set up. I have not used PageMaker for at least 8 years.

I used to have a couple of Apple Mac Pro's for when i was an image editor and designer, I had the same problem as you. The reason is they have a humidity sensor inside and is the air is too damp they wont turn on.

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Maps / Re: Explorers and Landrangers

« on: December 29, 2013, 04:21:43 PM »

At the end of the day we are all individuates and we have individual ways of doing things. There is no such way as carved in stone.

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Maps / Re: Explorers and Landrangers

« on: December 29, 2013, 03:31:34 AM »

Personally I don't take much notice of what people say in books. They only give their own opinion and often try to make it their own and in doing so over compliment things. I am not saying I have never learnt anything from a book because I have but normally by going out and practicing the technique and refining it to a way that works for me.

When I am on a planned trip I rarely have the map out because I write a route card and take bearings at the start of each leg. I try to avoid footpaths if I can walk on a bearing because I find paths boring (That is not always possible).   

One thing I do enjoy when in open country is once I have my bearing to put the compass away and use natural navigation to keep me on the bearing. I got very comfortable with this however I am rusty now.

I have had people walk up to me in some very remote open country with only a map and ask where are we. I find this shocking and worse than walking with only a mobile phone of GPS unit.

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Maps / Re: Explorers and Landrangers

« on: December 28, 2013, 09:23:15 PM »

Interestingly all Keys are not the same. As can be seen on this map it clearly states all contours are at 5 meters. So can I surmise that it would state all contours are at 10 meters

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Maps / Re: Explorers and Landrangers

« on: December 28, 2013, 08:36:10 PM »

Yeah I know they use a standard key across a series. The reason I asked was because attached is the height info on a 1:25000 map.  That is why I thought they were mixed in High land areas from the illustration provided. I personally very rarely need or use field boundaries for navigation. There are normally enough features to navigate from even in poor weather conditions. If you are in Highland areas and there are no field boundaries, they are never an aid to navigation. I see they might be of use to people that follow maps but don't use or know how to use a compass. It amazes me how many people I have seen with only a map. And it seems it is mostly these people that stop you and hold out their map and ask where are we. Years ago a couple stopped me on North moor Dartmoor and held their map out and demanded I showed them where we were. So I obliged by saying "This is Brecon Beacon and the map is for Dartmoor!". The look on their faces was priceless.       

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Maps / Re: Explorers and Landrangers

« on: December 28, 2013, 06:46:42 PM »

On the 1.25000 the ones that have 10 meter contours is that across the whole map or just in steep locations. The reason I ask is because if you look at the Key of a 1.25000 map it suggests a mixture of both across the whole map. I only have a couple of 1.25000 maps of low land areas local to me. When I go to the high land areas I have only ever used 1.50000 maps. In fact most of my maps are 1.50000, I prefer them for some reason, may be that's an Army thing?

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Maps / Re: Explorers and Landrangers

« on: December 28, 2013, 04:45:28 PM »

I was under the impression contours were 5 meters on all 1.25000 and 10 meters on 1.50000. Is this no longer the case. I do know contours only appear on 1.10000, 1.25000 and 1.50000 scale maps. 1.250000 scale maps shows relief by shading incremented at 200, 600, 1000, 1400, 2000 and 3000 feet. 1.500, 1.1250, 1.2500 and 1.5000 show height as spot heights at datum points which are called Benchmarks and are accurate to 0.1m.

Today the UK is surveyed at 25 meters and the 5 meter contours are approximates. Benchmarks can be physical datum points that are surveyed into the landscape, usually marked on buildings or semi permanent structures. These are no longer updated. But modern datum points can be seen on roads and foot paths of urban areas as a metal stud that has been hammered into the ground, these sometimes have a yellow washer attached but not always. In rural areas these datum points are normally found on roads and are located at the center of manhole covers or other obvious feature. 

Datum points are surveyed and as I said are accurate to 0.1m. But there are also other spot heights known as Air heights which are accurate to 1 meter, these are captured by photogrammetry and are usually shown on hilltops, river crossings and valley junctions among other places.

However there are approximately 190 Benchmarks that are maintained known as Ordnance Datum Newlyn (ODN) and are marked on the ground as fundamental bench marks (FBMs) these are very important and as such their locations are restricted for commercial and security reasons. One of their uses was in the creation of the orthometric to GPS height correction model.
   

14

Maps / Re: Explorers and Landrangers

« on: December 28, 2013, 02:21:28 PM »

One of the advantages of vector maps is that it is made up of layers that can be turned on and off. And there is nothing stopping customers editing any layer or adding their own layers. This is what allowed geographical information systems (GIS) to born. GIS is used in every part of planning our lives. Everything from planning land use, food production, product distribution, planning building projects, distribution networks, emergency services even disaster management.

The list is endless and it is a growth industry. Basically any information that can be collected and added to any point on earth is a GIS. Google maps is probably one of the best known ones, they have set up mapping to show the spread of diseases, changes in demographics, tracking migration of both people and animals and so on. Yet there are many GIS systems in every imaginable  industry.   

15

Maps / Re: Explorers and Landrangers

« on: December 28, 2013, 01:35:45 PM »

Hugh your summing up is sort of correct in a very simplistic scenes. OS supplies can supply hard copy Raster mapping in 1.500, 1.1250, 1.2500, 1.5000, 1.10000, 1.25000, 1.50000, 1.2500000 scale maps and a number of specialised scales usually confined to that used by government departments and agency's. Rasterised images are basically any image, drawing or photo that is made up by dots or pixels. So a painting that is painted with a paint brush is a raster image. If you wanted to view it in a computer or any viewing platform you would need to scan or photograph the painting to turn it into a digital image. Depending on the resolution it is scanned or photographed at determines the size of the image that can be viewed. For instance if you tried enlarging the image by say 400% the image will start losing definition and will look fuzzy or of viewing on a computer the image will look pixelated.   
 

1   A vector is a series of mathematical coordinates to which values can be attached.
2   The OS has a digital MasterMap of Great Britain in vector format at a scale of 1:1250 which is constantly revised and updated by surveyors using hand held computers.
3   The MasterMap data can be manipulated so that it can be ‘instructed’ to produce the data required for a map of the required scale e.g.1:10,000, 1:25,000 and 1:50,000 which can then be printed.
4   1:25,000 and 1:50,000 maps were originally sourced from the 1:10,000 map but nowadays from the MasterMap.
5   The 1:10,000 map can be ordered in sheet form from a limited number of OS agents.

A vector graphic uses math to draw shapes using points, lines and curves. So the best way to think of them are as Plans or technical drawings. They are infinitely scalable so do not lose resolution i.e. however you scale them they do not pixelate.

I was approached by the MOD to produce an impact risk assessment mapping for the Type 45 radar facility that was being built on Portsdown hill, Portsmouth. Their need was for 1.1250 mapping to a radius of 5 miles from the radar and a second at 1.5000 scale to 25 miles radius from the radar. The 1.5000 version was as a Raster map printed on paper to be copied and viewed in meetings and the like. The 1.1250 scale mapping was as a vector map that they could keep on their systems, which could be viewed at  1 to 1 scale if necessary and could be precisely marked and annotated. If a piece of paper was produced large enough it would be possible to print out a paper map at 1 to 1 scale.

To partly answer Captain Paranoia if I remember correctly OS uses bespoke software that is a plug in to AutoCad. This allows mapping to be viewed in Plan or 3D and is built on layers, which can be turned on and off. There are many many layers that the public will never be privy too. One of the most interesting I have seen is Mortar Base Plates, firing radiuses and shrapnel radiuses, in and around London. I have also seen the layer for the air defense assets that were deployed in London for the Olympics.