GPS Frustrations

I had hoped that this post would be chalk full of interesting information such as: exactly how far it is from our apartment building to our nearest grocery store; both as the crow flies and as the Dave walks.

Unfortunately, however, it would seem that Poland actually does not exist. Or so my GPS would have me believe anyway. I spent countless hours recently playing with it in a vain attempt to get substantial signal.

For those of you not familiar with how the GPS system works, and I think that's probably everyone with the exception of my father-in-law, I'll explain. In order for the GPS system to triangulate your exact position it must receive signal from at least three different satellites at once. Hence the triangulation. Once the GPS unit has figured out where in the world Carmen Santiago is, it then only needs to maintain contact with one or two satellites to keep track of where you are.

Every time the GPS is activated you get a little screen showing exactly how many satellites the GPS is currently tracking. Once that magic indicator hits three, you're supposed to immediately freeze and pray to the GPS gods that signal will be maintained long enough for your position to be calculated. Or at least, that's how desperate I was for a decent signal after an hour of trying to get a position fix. I'm convinced that the GPS was actually mocking me. I would finally hit that magic number three only to suddenly have the counter drop down to zero.

The other incident that solidified my suspicion that the GPS was mocking me was the time the counter actually reached four only to have the GPS lock up, refuse to do anything for five minutes, and then power itself off.

From nowhere on Earth,
-Dave