UKH

Our increasing dependence on satellite systems is leading to a loss of practical skills and self reliance, according to the Royal Institute of Navigation, and threatening the very future of map and compass navigation.

Read more at http://www.ukhillwalking.com/news/item.php?id=69693

In reply to UKH News:

Navigation is only known by those that choose to go out and learn and practice it, this has been the way for a long time.
Maybe there will be a reduction in those choosing to learn but the increase in technology does bring greater awareness of the outdoors and providers/guides. Technology has made learning a new skill easier as people no longer have to go out and buy a book or find an instructor as everything in these books can be found online.

My opinion of increasing technological advances and this article is mixed.

In reply to UKH News:

Can they teach route finding at school too? Definitely required for some areas in CC guides :P

In reply to UKH News:

This is a major plus point for the Scouts.
Its taught from a young age

In reply to UKH News:
Navigation got easier. Get over it. Imagine showing an Australian aboriginal a map 200 years ago when they had spent their life learning a songline. "Your paper" will never replace what is in my head" they would have said. GPS is great, I get lost less and have more fun, I will take sedation or just think about how nice the place I am is with the bit of my brain that is micro navigating anymore.

In reply to UKH News:

Just as a "Kindle" has many valid uses so does GPS. But a Kindle is not a book and cannot replace it. Modern electronic ways of listening to music may have superseded discs and tapes, but they are part of the same continuum of sound technology. None of the ways of producing sound electronically can replace live music production with acoustic instruments, nor is the experience of listening to electronic sounds a substitute for listening to a live performance. It may be that there are many advantages to interacting with electronically stored music (film etc) but the experience cannot be other than of a different order to live experiences.
My analogy extends to modern navigational aids. They have valid and important uses but cannot replace the experience of a living being interacting with a living landscape.
The navigational aptitudes which are generated through travelling in, seeing, hearing, smelling and touching the landscape are basic. GPS cannot be useful to a mountaineer unless it is overlaid on these basic aptitudes. (This applies to map and compass too.)

I find a G.P.S. system allows me more freedom to enjoy the terrain as I'm not worrying about navigation you can go where curiosity takes you knowing that you can always find your way back. and I don't see how a g.p.s. could help if you had no basic understanding of maps. Without knowing a steep slope from a cliff your still screwed.

It is a strange argument that you should teach an outdated navigation technique, ignoring scientific advances in order to teach an appreciation of science. I would also challenge the people at the 'institute' to even name the language the firmware on their gps was written in instead of complaining that other people's brains are left 'largely inert' or 'reliance on computers presents no conceptual challenges'. no conceptual challenges? we carefully arrange sand so it will conduct electricity and make switches that can turn on and off. now make angry birds.

The beauty of maths and science streams from these devices. The mathematics that drives Google's route finding or the fact that we need special and general relativity to synchronise the time on the g.p.s. satellites with clocks on earth is far more beautiful (in my opinion) than 'now add 5 for magnetic variation' will ever be.

Science moves fast, one day soon with everything we have learnt about real navigation we could begin to explore other worlds with no compass or map in sight. When we do I wonder if the people from the 'institute' will still be walking, map in hand reminiscing about that time 10 years ago that their first generation gps told them to drive through a river.

edit, i might have got a bit carried away there

In reply to UKH News:

On the pciture, it shows a UKC app. Whats this?

In reply to mwatson:
I'm in two minds about the whole thing. Lots and lots of this depends on context, but I think the article makes a fair point, at least about how stuff's possibly changing.

In an outdoor context it used to be that you had to have some location awareness and understand where you are in order to get through an environment, or at least you'd have to be with someone who did... maybe less so if you're religiously following clear signs on well marked routes.

Maps and compasses and altimeters and the like don't discourage location awareness. They enhance it by helping you to understand where you are relative to everything else and force you to keep knowing that, which is why they get pushed so much in arguments about location awareness being important. With very few exceptions, you can't really use them without also paying close attention to environmental surrounds, how they relate to the measurements you're making, and where you're going. Even if you lose something, it's just one tool when the real nav process is happening in your head, and it's likely you'll still have a good handle on where you are.

GPS tech and similar is a fantastic advance in nav tools. It's great to have, but there are also few common use cases with a GPS that encourage or require a user to understand and remember where they are. Many times, it's just shifting that responsibility of knowing where you are, and perhaps also where you're going, from your head into an electronic device. Even if you're not following straight directions from a GPS, repeatedly relying on it for position updates, if that's what you're doing, still isn't too different from relying on another person to handle the navigation for you.

So, a significant change. An important change? I guess that depends on perspective and context.

Purely where immediate navigation and safety is concerned, if you lose the only thing you have which will tell you where you are, and you haven't been paying attention, will it be a problem? That's really something to consider on a case-by-case basis.

Maybe it doesn't matter in the slightest. But it's also relevant to note that location awareness is normally well improved with experience and practice, so if you think you might ever go somewhere some day that where loss or failure of a GPS device could be problematic, then it's not necessarily such a bad idea to try and build some location awareness skills beforehand.


This is not to say that GPSs are bad or destructive to use. Sometimes it's just a huge help to be able to look up exactly where you are. But if you *want* to foster your location awareness skills when outdoors (and I realise not everyone cares), then I don't think it's such a bad idea to just put it away for most of the time and try to use other methods of working out where you are and where you're going.

In reply to UKH News:
Maybe we ought to start experimenting with journeys without maps. We could start by walking down the street without a mobile phone in our hands, driving without a satnav, hillwalking without a map and compass, climbing without a guidebook. It'd be interesting to note how vulnerable you felt with nothing but your hands and feet, eyes and ears and mind (and trousers) and the planet under your boots.

In reply to UKH News:

Hmm. Venerable institution with vested interest in traditional navigation techniques bemoans lack of interest in traditional navigation techniques.

In reply to mwatson:


Not really, as this is how most of us learn mathematics and science at school. It became somewhat of a tradition to start a new year at school with "Everything you've learnt up till now is wrong.". I'd be interested to know if there are any schools that have eschewed Newtonian Mechanics and Euclidean Geometry entirely in favour of Quantum Mechanics and General Relativity.

In reply to planetmarshall:

you've probably never learnt any wrong mathematics, newtons model of reality is accurate for the scales it is taught with in most situations. I don't remember ever using an abacus. Now that I know the basic theory of multiplying numbers I use a calculator because machines are better at some tasks than people. Likewise I'm sure you would be a little confused if the check out people took out a pen and paper instead of scanning your items. You might even want to check they added up right.

In reply to UKH News:

No no, WE are sedating OURSELVES. We have a choice!

It's all about personal aims and goals, really. If your goal is to able to navigate accurately, anytime, anywhere, then using a GPS is a non-sustainable way of doing that. You can still use one, but eventually it will lose power and you will lose the 'skill'.

But being aware about technology is helpful too. As with learning anything, it is best to take a varied approach and gain as much info as possible, and then build up the experience and 'gut instinct'. Ultimately, if a map, compass, and a bunch of stars are all that is required for survival, then why complicate things? A good environmental knowledge will be far more helpful than a GPS in the long run. A GPS will only deliver short term results.

Using a GPS does not really help with learning navigation. It helps with learning how to use a GPS...

In reply to UKH News:

When I was a chemistry teacher trying to teach kids to do chemistry calculations they would routinely reach for the calculator for even the most basic calculations which could have been done much quicker by mental arithmetic. These weren't thick kids but top set classes, many going on to do A level sciences and beyond but they had been brought up with an over reliance on technology to the point where they could barely even imagine that you could do mental arithmetic without your brain exploding.

One consequence of this was that they had no concept of numbers or scale. When an answer clearly had to be many times bigger than the starting point and their answer was many times smaller because they had divided instead of multiplying they simply couldn't see that it was obviously wrong and when told it was wrong had no idea as to how to rectify their mistake.

Performing complex mental tasks (or even relatively simple ones) instead of relying on technology, opens up mental pathways which can be applied to other situations where no quick technological fix exists or is available, it allows you to see the bigger picture rather than blindly accept an answer.

Of course technology can't be ignored, I have a GPS and sometimes I even use it, but its not my default tool, it might send me in the right direction but with only a GPS I don't truly know where I am.

Reliance on GPS lulls people into a false sense of security like the people who once asked me if they were heading in the right direction for a particular hill in the Lakes whilst trying to follow the map on their phone screen which clearly meant nothing to them.
They had never made the effort to gain even the most basic navigational skills but hey, they've got a phone that tells them where to go. They were an accident waiting to happen.

In reply to mwatson:

Actually the check-out analogy is pertinent. I'll bet you have a good idea of how much you've spent in relation to the figure that comes up on the screen. You're going to know if it's way over or under, you may have even done a rounding exercise to be nearer to the total; but you're not just going to hand over a sum of money without any idea.
This is what you do on the hill when you move off from the summit, then stop and say to yourself hmm... there's something up here, the slope aspect is wrong, the sun should be on this side, funny that the wind has veered right round etc.
The map is really only for checking (unless you're orienteering). Although the information a map gives you makes a trip more fun, like which sea this beck runs into and hey! that hill has a Celtic placename.
GPS is great, but it's not essential; real navigation nouse is essential.