NavList:
A Community Devoted to the Preservation and Practice of Celestial Navigation and Other Methods of Traditional Wayfinding
From: David Pike
Date: 2016 Sep 18, 15:12 -0700
My daughter ran in a 100mile race through woods and along a canal yesterday and today. The race started at 08.00BST yesterday and she finished around 05.20BST this morning, so about eight hours was in the dark. Not bad for a 43 year old. However, what also impressed me was the tracking system. Each runner had a GNSS tracker attached to them (apparently costing £100 each). Anyone with a computer or smart phone could go to http://www.hobopace.co.uk/robin-hood-100-tracking/ and monitor up to all the 50+ runners running around the course (a bit like AIS). My poor old laptop at home could just about track one runner, but at the aid stations we visited the more up to date marshals with Gb of RAM (i.e. most of them) had tablets or smart phones capable of following all runners simultaneously in real time. As well as showing where each runner was on the map, there was also a traffic light system against their names. Black – tracker not working, Green - tracker working and runner moving, Amber – runner stopped, and Red – alarm activated. I mention this partly to say “Isn’t science wonderful”, but also to say that things which 30 years ago were unheard of, and 15 years ago were in the realms of being only available to the CIA, MI5 and in spy novels, are now common place for anyone with £100 to spare. That being so, what is the ordinary consumer going to have readily available for use in the next 30 years? DaveP