Mapping
Software
 Streets & Trips is a mapping application sold
by the Microsoft Corporation. It contains a large map of Canada and the United States showing landmarks such as
mountains, rivers, lakes, railways lines, and roads. It features a route planner to find and schedule stops, set
route and driving preferences, plus calculate and optimize a driving route. It also contains a search function
whereby you may search for cities, airports, businesses, attractions, and other points of interest including any
point on the map specified by latitude and longitude.
GPS Receivers
GPS receivers take in data from the Global Positioning System, a group of 24 satellites orbiting the Earth.
The 24 satellites that make up the GPS space segment orbit the earth at about 12,000 miles. They are constantly
moving, making two complete orbits in less than 24 hours. These satellites are travelling at speeds of roughly
7,000 miles an hour. GPS satellites are powered by solar energy. They have backup batteries onboard to keep them
running in the event of a solar eclipse, when there's no solar power. Small rocket boosters on each satellite
keep them flying in the correct path. The satellites were developed and launched by the United States Department
of Defense at a cost of more than $12 billion. This system is the most advanced navigational technology ever
developed. It can provide precise latitude, longitude, bearing, altitude, time, sunrise, sunset, plus speed and
direction to a moving receiver anywhere on Earth, in any weather, at any time. There are no subscription fees or
setup charges to use GPS.
There are some limitations to the Global Positioning System. All civilian GPS receivers are subject to
degradation of position and velocity because of Selective Availability (S/A), an operational mode imposed by the
American Department of Defense that degrades civilian signals for security purposes. Consequently, the accuracy
of civilian GPS receivers may be degraded by up to 100 meters (330 feet). SA was intended to prevent military
adversaries from using the highly accurate GPS signals. The government turned off SA in May 2000, which improved
the accuracy of civilian GPS receivers. GPS receivers equipped with WAAS (Wide Area Augmentation System)
capability can improve accuracy to less than 3 meters on average. Also, because a GPS receiver must track data
from at least three satellites at once, it must have a direct line of sight to the sky when used.
To work with Streets & Trips, a GPS receiver must be compliant with NMEA (National Marine Electronics
Association) standards, and its input/output format (interface) must be set to support NMEA 0183 version 2.0 or
later.
Photo Location Accuracy
 Garman GPS receivers are currently available in Canada for as low as $179.
Latitude and longitude coordinates given with each photo are derived from one of these small handheld receivers.
The coordinates are NOT accurate to within 3 meters. However, using this software and these coordinates
you should be able to easily locate and drive within walking distance of each photo location.
Streets & Trips is mainly intended for route planning so the road maps are reasonably accurate. However, when
it comes to railway line locations the software displays some glaring errors and is not reliable. Natural
landmarks such as rivers are shown in some cases but disappear when you zoom the map. The coordinates supplied
were tested in Streets & Trips version 2001. They have not been tried on any other version of the software.
Hopefully later versions of this product will contain less errors. For now, the road map display is workable.
Download of Map File
For this downloadable file to be useful you will need Microsoft Streets & Trips installed on your
computer. To save the map file to your computer click "Download Now" below then choose "Save this
file to disk". You will be asked where you wish to save a file named
"mission.est". Choose any suitable folder on your computer.
Start
Download
Associated Links
Garmin GPS Products
National Marine Electronics Association
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