I live in near vertical heavily forested country, Ka. Cellphones and GPS are about as much use as tits on the proverbial boar. If you've got an idea of where the person is driving around at, you can predict when the call is going to drop. Most of the locals know the dead spots and will hang up as they approach them.
With an average of forty snakes an acre and bears rooting around everywhere, people here have more to worry about than toy phones and GPS.
I got a nice view of the meteor shower last night on the main farm. No cell tower lights polluting the skies.
Ditto here in the Appalachian foothills of upstate NY. It's all hills and hollows here. UHF and above is nearly useless off the main routes, except on the hilltops. The next road above my place is a 5 mile long seasonal use road - an improved cow path - and there have been easily two dozen incidents of semi drivers mindlessly following their GPS units onto it looking for a "shortcut" across the hill. The local tow truck operators love it. The township finally put up a "no trucks" sign at each end of the road. This cut down on the incidents but didn't stop them completely. Yes Vince, I believe those types WOULD drive into a pond!
And backyard astronomy is still alive and well here also Pigmeat. My nearest cell tower is over 5 miles away. I have almost zero coverage, and I don't give a s**t either...
LOL! I live at near the bottom of ten mile ridge. The two lane ends about a mile and half up, the rest is one lane and tight turns, many blind, all the way out until it drops off about 600 ft in just under over a mile to intersect with another little road. That final mile is a doozy, sharp turns and a stomp on your brakes and hope intersection at the bottom.
A number of years ago I started seeing trucks from major carriers going out there. The first time I figured, "The driver must know someone out there and is going to turn around at the old water tower to come back out." Didn't give it a second thought until other trucks started heading up there. It is a shortcut between to major highways but only if you know the road and are in a car or on a motorcycle. Hell, getting out there in a large pickup can be PIA if there's regular traffic coming the opposite direction? I've gone off the road a couple of times out there over the decades and I know that road as well as I know my front walk.
A buddy of mine was a truck driver, we used to hang out a the same bar. One night I saw him and asked what was up all the trucks going up the ridge. He says "It's that damned GPS and prick dispatchers insisting that those drivers take the shortest route, the road be damned." He went on to tell me about all trucks that had gotten torn up going out the ridge. I said I'd seen a few hauled off the ridge but I thought it was a guy out that way in the scrap biz, as he was always bringing torn up shipping containers and other moderately large stuff on and off the ridge where he has a junkyard.
It was probably four years ago when the city put up a "No Trucks" sign at the bottom of the hill. It's cut down on it, but you still get one or two a month hung up on the first real tight turn out the ridge. I feel sorry the ones that are caught in that Catch-22 between a company insisting on the shortest route and having to take a rig down a roads that would be a challenge for a side by side ATV.
My wife is going out town this weekend. The last time these women went somewhere together they ended up on the wrong side of the state. Their GPS told them to turn left. What they missed was it said, "8/10's of a mile". They went about 160 miles and didn't notice until they crossed the state line. I said, "Didn't you notice signs telling you which way you were heading?" She says, We were too busy talking." God! And she got the GPS doodad because she's "not good with maps."? She's not good with GPS either.
That's why I drive. I might get a hair off course, but I know the Atlantic is east, the Pacific is west, the Gulf is south, and the Great Lakes are north. I can figure it out from there. If I see "Welcome to Canada" or "Bienvenidos a Mexico" I know it's time to turn around or stomp on the gas depending on the situation. And that dear friends, is why I've never been lost.
Topic: GPS Under Attack as Crooks, Rogue Workers Wage Electronic War (Read 5115 times)