Re: current GPS technology "is of limited value and difficult to implement" ....

From: Andreas van Hooijdonk (ahooijdZ_at_piZ.beZ)
Date: 11/26/04 

Date: Fri, 26 Nov 2004 21:16:20 +0100

Dale DePriest wrote:
> Andreas van Hooijdonk wrote:
>> ....based on experience with other permitted heli-ski operations.
>>
>> What did he mean?
>>
>>
http://www.jhzone.com/viewinfo.cfm?ObjectID=C6CF317C-4279-40C5-BBB0328CE7D3BF70
>>
>
> A little bigger quote:
>
> "The Forest Service will monitor compliance with the terms of the
> permit by requiring High-Mountain Heli-Skiing to file monthly and
> season-end activity reports. The agency had considered requiring the
> company to install a Global Positioning System device on board the
> company’s helicopter to monitor compliance. But the agency concluded
> that current GPS technology "is of limited value and difficult to
> implement" based on experience with other permitted heli-ski
> operations."
>
> I suspect he is not saying that a GPS is difficult to install but that
> it is difficult to use as a tracking device used to monitor
> compliance. A GPS is easy to disable temporarily and cannot be
> trusted for small data samples. Using it to verify that you have not
> gotten within a certain distance of a group of animals would be next
> to impossible.
>
> Dale

Unless both the heli and the animals are tracked in real-time. 

-- 
Andreas van Hooijdonk
http://www.gps-practice-and-fun.com