[gps-talkusers] Re: Situation 11

Peggy,

The Magellan receivers are very water proof. The Earthmate receivers are less water proof but a bit of rain shouldn't hurt them. I had the receiver and PK under my jacket and you could do the same with the BrailleNote and serial Earthmate assuming you had a somewhat loose jacket. The receiver picks up fine through material like a jacket or within a backpack.

Mike
At 11:55 AM 4/28/2005, you wrote:
Michael, you told how to keep the BrailleNote (or in your case the PK) dry, but what about the receiver? I imagine it was still on your shoulder. Is it okay if a receiver gets wet? Or perhaps you were wearing it under your hat, as you told us at the CCB convention? But what about those of us who don't have wireless receivers or PK's? Any comments or recommendations? <smile>

Peggy

At 10:41 AM 4/28/2005, you wrote:
Situation 11
I was headed to a hospital in San Francisco to visit my mother, which I had never been to before. I had several public transportation options and it was raining hard.

Question 11
What transportation would get me most efficiently to the hospital and how would I navigate on the street without getting the BrailleNote wet?

Answer 11
I set the hospital's address, 45 Castro Street, as a virtual location. From Virtual mode and I searched for the nearest POI in the Train category. The 16th and Mission BART station was closest. I knew that a taxi ride from the Amtrak stop would be expensive so I took Amtrak to Richmond and switched to BART there. I pulled up the BART stations from a route file I had previously created and counted the number of stops since I couldn't hear them being announced

I ended up with a 1.3 mile walk from the BART stop to the hospital and partially up hill. I jumped on the first bus that came along and asked the driver to drop me off as close to my destination as possible, which turned out to be about 6 blocks from the hospital. The GPS was tracking great, even inside the bus and it was easy to see I was getting closer and where to get off the bus.

When I got off the bus it was poring rain so I stepped into a doorway to explore my remaining route to the hospital. I set my Explore position to my GPS position with Chord G. I then set a route to my destination and studied the route. I learned that I had 5 streets to cross on my side of Duboce street before I reached Castro. I did this simply by advancing from block to block with the Chord dots 2356 on the PK. I then pressed M for Multiple repeat and D for destination. I turned the volume up and zipped the PK inside my jacket. I knew to count 5 blocks and I could just hear the PK talking inside my jacket, protected from the rain.

Besides hearing my destination announced, each intersection was announced as I approached it. Once I heard that friendly announcement that I had reached my destination, the tricky part was finding the correct entrance to the hospital. For the first time on this trip, I asked a sighted person for directions. Before going inside, I marked the entrance as a POI for future reference. When I walked into my mother's room, I felt like a little kid, fitting a puzzle together as the last piece snapped into place.






Michael G. May

CEO Sendero Group

Developers and distributors of BrailleNote GPS
Distributing BrailleNote, VoiceNote, Miniguide, The Tissot Silen-T tactile watch, Talks cell phone software and the ID Mate, bar code reader

MikeMay@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
http://www.SenderoGroup.com

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