2012-10-20 47 -122

Location

Off the end of a cul-de-sac in Steilacoom.

Participants

OtherJack
Jay the drag-along and chauffeur

Plans

Around 5:30pm my car-owning, travel-loving friend Jay and I were trying to decide what to do with a bunch of spare time we had, and it occurred to me this was the perfect opportunity to drag him on a geohash. I proposed the idea, he enthusiastically assented, we purchased Top Pot donuts for the road, went to his place to retrieve his coat and check the map, and we were on our way. Due to the spontaneity, I had no GPS on me so we resolved to use his smartphone's, with the help of Geohashdroid. Neither of us thought to bring a flashlight. This was my first night geohash.

Expedition

The drive was straightforward, down 99 and I-5 through Seattle and Tacoma and the gathering dusk, and then past Gravelly Lake (can it sing like Louis Armstrong?) to the cul-de-sac of the hashpoint, by a power line corridor. When we got there, we were first accosted by a neighbor who asked if we were lost. When we explained what we were doing, she seemed to basically understand, but warned us not to run over her planters... I think she thought we were trying to drive the 20 yards off the road to the hashpoint for some reason.

Anyhow, once she retreated inside we went to geohashdroid, to find that the satellite reception was horrible, even if Jay got out of the car and held the thing pleadingly in the air for minutes. Usually it thought we were either 5km (!) or 90m from the hashpoint, occasionally saying something like 6m or 8m for a few seconds before reverting back to confusion. I tried to get pictures of the smaller numbers with my dumbphone (Jay did not know how to take a screenshot) but the focus was not nearly good enough. So there will be no evidence, even though we could and did walk about 8m in the direction of the hash (northeast) before running into the corner of another neighbor's fence and the power line fence. So I think we stood inside the circle of error. Hard to know though. I'll provisionally call it a success.

I tried to assure Jay that daytime hashes are better, and that hashes with a proper GPS are better. He replied that this night-android-hash was quite good enough. Hopefully that is a good sign for future expeditions.

-- OtherJack 02:53, 21 October 2012 (EDT)

It now occurs to me that maybe the reason the android GPS was so awful was interference from radio waves emitted by the power lines?? Does anyone know if this is realistic physics? -- OtherJack 14:08, 22 October 2012 (EDT)

I'm not sure, but I may have furtively noticed that while riding my bicycle under HT lines during my last expedition. Namely a lost in accuracy right under the lines. But I can't remember exactly as it didn't last long. — Zertrin 18:28, 22 October 2012 (EDT)