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Old Jan 6, 2012 | 11:31 am
  #25  
Connecta
 
Join Date: Jul 2010
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Sure, albeit slightly OT: https://buy.garmin.com/shop/shop.do?pID=69043

My wife wanted a GPS device to track her ultra hike at Oxfam Trailwalker HKG (100km over 4,000m+ cumulative elevation gain, overnight). It tracks the entire progress incl. location, elevation and time. You can upload the data to the Garmin website to get neat stats and could even make a 3D flight simulation via Google Earth - in real-time or accelerated.

We were looking at a GPS device which would not only record progress, but has as well a long battery life (up to 15h, extendable with USB power source) and customizeable maps to show relative position when getting lost (some only record, don't show). It's like a car navigation system recording your exact route and is even much smaller than a phone. Most other car nav systems and mobile phones with GPS function can run only for a couple of hours on batteries. It's as well useful for walking in other countries, being much more convenient than carrying around paper maps or Google Maps on phone without draining phone battery and generating data roaming costs.

It has to be placed by the airplane window though to get a satellite connection. Even if the satellite connection gets lost temporarily, it interpolates between the last recorded points. So like when discussing in the other threads about whether flying over the North Pole or not, ETOP, etc: no guessing required - you can accurately record it within maybe 20 metres, incl. elevation (how fast it climbs/lands). It obviously records the waiting loops as well before getting a landing slot.

To bring it back to the topic: Since it only receives GPS signals which are constantly raining down on the plane from the satellites anyways, and doesn't send any GPS signals, it should be totally harmless. But I still had a sheet of my WSJ discreetly covering it during take-off and landing to avoid any discussions...
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