I note that the article is
'in association with GPS Training'. I am not sufficiently knowledgeable about GPS receivers to judge the competence of Peter Judd and Simon Brown, who manage this company, in training walkers in their use. But I do know somethtng about cartography and, judging from their book
Getting to Grips with GPS, they are by no means as expert about maps as they could be. Here are some of the more glaring errors:
Page 3: Referring to Ordnance Survey maps, the authors state
'These maps contain rights of way information for England, Wales and Scotland'.Correction: rights of way are not shown on maps of Scotland.
Page 16:
'It is difficult to choose the best global positioning system for your needs.'Correction: at present, there is only one global positioning system with universal application. What the authors probably mean is that it is difficult to choose the best GPS receiver.
Page 101: the captions of the illustrations of the maps are incorrect. The map at the top of the page purports to show an extract from a 1:50,000 Landranger.
Correction: it is a 1:25,000 Explorer.
The caption on the map below purports to show an extract from a 1:20,000 Explorer map.
Correction: The OS does not publish any maps with a scale of 1:20,000 and it is, in fact, a Landranger which has a scale of 1:50,000.
Page 105: the illustration of an extract from Anquet software bears the caption '3D view of OS Explorer mapping...'
Correction: it is a view of 1:50,000 Landranger mapping.
Page 116: on the illustration of a route card, the grid reference of the waypoint for the pub, derived from the map, is given.
Correction: this is a fundamental error. The authors appear to be unaware that the pub symbol on Explorer maps is not a precise location. All that can be deduced from the symbol is that the village had at least one pub at the time of the survey. The pub might have closed between the survey and publication of the map, and even if it still exists, it could be several hundred yards from where the symbol is placed. If there is more than one pub in the village, there will still be only one symbol.
It's interesting to note that the precise location of car parks and public conveniences is indicated by an arrow.
Posted: 31/08/2008 at 20:29
