[geeks] gps on plane

[Thomas Gallaway]

That whole thing with electronics on planes does not make any sense at 
all. I did fly a lot last year and I a few times had my gps hooked to 
my laptop with a mapping software. Was rather cool to see where you are 
right now in the air and how fast the car was moving on the map ;-)

So the thing is mostly on flights they ask you to turn off cellphones 
and stuff. Now here's my point. A lot of people have 2 way pagers. They 
can send/receive. Most people dont turn those off. How about most 
electronics transmit something. Ever put a radio near a laptop? There 
is so many electronics that transmit something and why would it be bad 
to operate an GPS in a plane. I mean am I wrong or not but are the 
signals not already out there anyways and the GPS is just picking up 
what would be there anyways? Same with radio's. That whole interference 
thing is just silly. Does not make any sense in my eye's. I mean I can 
understand cellphones and 2-way pager's as they transmit but devices 
that receive only.

How about laptop's with built in 802.11b cards?

Anyways time for the airlines to over-think some of their things. I 
dont see many improvement after 9/11. Just more of a hassle.

-- Thomas

On Friday, July 25, 2003, at 08:45 PM, Hugh Saunders wrote:

> The other day, I was using a small gps unit on a flight from
> uk-->greece, just looking at how far to go etc. Was fine for about
> 1.5hrs but then one of the flight crew asked me to turn it off. Thats
> fine, if they aren't happy with me having electronics then i'll turn it
> off -safety is way more important than gadegtry.  The thing that
> confused me was the reason given, they said that you arent allowed
> anything that is capable of transmitting or receiving a signal. But..
> they allow people to have walkmans with radio's in them! they are
> capable of receiving a signal!
>
> I think a more sensible rule would be disallowing anything that is
> capable of transmitting a signal or if they are worried about sparks 
> and
> stuff, just banning anything electronic.
>
> Am I being stupid here, or does anyone agree that allowing fm radio
> receivers but not allowing gps receivers is a bit illogical?
>
> --
> hugh
>
> [demime 1.01b removed an attachment of type application/pgp-signature]
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