John Stys is a 1st Lieutenant in the Civil Air Patrol (CAP), and he is the Health Services Officer and a Ground Team Leader at Palwaukee Composite Squadron. As a member of CAP and Palwaukee Composite Squadron he has participated heavily in air and ground based emergency services missions, and proudly served Presidential disaster recovery missions related to flooding in Illinois.
This year John participated in the Ground Search and Rescue portion of the National Emergency Services Academy in the Ground Team Leader school. It is an intensive combination of classroom and field training that provides advanced CAP ground team members with the opportunity to complete all requirements for the Ground Team Leader rating. Graduation requires overnights in the field, search operations (ELT and missing person searches), and significant cross-country travel.
Following the training session, John dropped us a note to say,
“MotionX-GPS was an indispensable tool for me during NESA. As part of our classroom and field training we spent a significant part of the academy reviewing and practicing land navigation skills. MotionX’s ability to provide coordinates in DMS, DM, D, UTM, and MGRS was particularly useful as a means to ‘double check’ our map and compass skills in the field. Also crucial to our success was the ability for MotionX to cache map data, as we were in areas of Indiana that had very limited cellular signal. As a self proclaimed gear-head, MotionX provides a value that far exceeds the big-box GPS brands in functionality and portability, not to mention the responsiveness of the developers.”
Daniel Ponce-Taylor is a Regional Director at Global Vision International in Playa del Carmen, Mexico. He has found MotionX-GPS to be useful in every aspect of life — for work and for play.
Daniel told us, “I feel I have been using MotionX to it’s full potential. I work with GIS for the marine conservation project I direct, and I have been using MotionX to obtain GPS coordinates, routes and points, to later download them and use them on ArcGIS. On top of that I have been using the software to track and map my runs whilst I am training for the NYC 2009 Marathon (November). It’s been a great tool so far, and really accurate.”
He also plans to use MotionX-GPS to climb Pico de Orizaba (the third largest peak in North America), to participate in extreme team sports challenges, and to track his climbs during the GVI Volcano Challenge in November.
Gunther Deichmann is an internationally multi-awarded Australian photographer (biography), traveling throughout Asia and Micronesia covering remote places in the region. Every year he chooses new destinations to capture images, and he recently starting using MotionX-GPS during his journeys. He enjoyed using it so much that he recommended it to his friend Dirk Fahrenbach, owner and dive instructor at Dugong Dive Center at Club Paradise in Palawan, Philippines.
Dirk says “I am totally amazed how great this software is, the Dugong Dive Center has three big dive boats and I have one GPS for each boat from well-known companies. They are complicated to use in particular for my boat crew. Then I brought my iPhone, Gunther gave me a crash course on the iPhone and installed MotionX-GPS. A few days later during a dive trip, my boat captain and I tried it out on my boat the Toshina, we were both amazed.”
Coron Bay, Palawan, Philippines
“Easy to use, there is no need for studying any manuals. You can go from page to page and the connection to Google Maps makes it even more enjoyable looking at the current location. Like some music in the background? No problems you even have a page with iTunes! Need a Photo from a waypoint? No problem either, you can find it anytime on your recorded track (with exact time and location at your logbook).”
Climbing Koko Head on Oahu is a great challenge – straight up 1048 steps on railroad ties. The view from the top is worth every step! Some people run it, most people hike up, either way it is an adventure! Check out the track created with MotionX-GPS here or in Google Earth below.
Successful Record Powered by iPhone 3GS and MotionX-GPS
HONOLULU, HI–(Marketwire – July 13, 2009) – The record for double-handing the Transpac yacht race from Los Angeles to Honolulu has been broken. At 4:38:35 a.m. Hawaiian Time today, Philippe Kahn and Mark “Crusty” Christensen, crossed the Diamond Head finish line in the Open 50 Pegasus, completing a record time of 7 days, 19 hours, 38 minutes and 35 seconds, shaving two and a half days off the previous record of 10 days 4 hours, 4 minutes and 49 seconds was set in 2001 by Howard Gordon and Jay Crum also with an Open 50, the Etranger.
The Transpacific Yacht Race is one of the longest standing and most prestigious ocean races in the world covering 2,225 nautical miles from Los Angeles to Honolulu.
“Double-handing the Open 50 to Hawaii is one of the highlights of my year,” stated Kahn, a noted technologist and the creator of the camera phone. “I love being out in the open Ocean. Once we’re out there, that’s all that matters — we had our sites on the record and we beat it. Mark and I are a perfect team. Mark’s experience as one of world’s greatest offshore sailors is invaluable. Transpac is a navigator’s race and that plays into our strength.”
“In the last reporting schedule, Mark and I broke the 24 hour record for Open 50s. It was 325 nautical miles, we did 339.3.” –Philippe Kahn
The Pegasus 50 is making incredible fast tracks towards Diamond Head, Oahu. Philippe and Mark are using the power of MotionX-GPS to plot their course across the Pacific. The magnetic compass is guiding them and the direct access to their iPod music from within MotionX-GPS is helping them through the days and nights on their way to Hawaii.
MotionX-GPS Sails the Pacific With Team Pegasus Providing Facebook and Twitter Track Updates to Followers
SANTA CRUZ, CA–(Marketwire – July 7, 2009) – MotionX™-GPS, the top selling navigation application for the iPhone, launches an updated version with expanded features and functionality made possible by the recent iPhone 3GS hardware and 3.0 software update. MotionX-GPS embeds the functionality of an advanced handheld GPS unit into a simple and intuitive iPhone application that is ideal for outdoor activities such as biking, running, sailing, skiing, kayaking and more.
Version 6.0 of MotionX-GPS is available now! All new for the iPhone OS 3.0 software update and the iPhone 3GS.
New Features:
- iPhone 3GS magnetic compass integration.
- Directly access and control iPod music and playlists from MotionX-GPS. Now you can easily listen to iPod music and personal playlists during outdoor adventures.
- With Apple’s new Map Kit framework, MotionX-GPS has fast Google Road, Satellite and Hybrid Maps.
- Map cache limit has been expanded from 50 MB to 250 MB. Now take five times as many map tiles with you for offline access where data coverage is unavailable.
MotionX-GPS is the perfect addition to all of your outdoor activities. Users from around the world have shared their Biking, Running, Skiing, Sailing, Flying and Hiking activities. These are some of the “Best of MotionX-GPS” activities. Click the links below to see more from each activity.
After a tornado or devastating straight-line wind storm, one of Andy Bailey’s duties as Warning Coordination Meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Kansas City, Missouri is to survey the damage, determine whether it was produced by a tornado or straight-line winds, and estimate the strength of the wind based on the damage.
“MotionX-GPS is a great help documenting the storm as I can quickly send waypoints with notes and photos back to the office in order to update our web page and get the findings out to the world quickly.” –Andy Bailey
The waypoint markers pictured, along with the associated photos below, were acquired using MotionX-GPS. They show how devastating (and dangerous) storms can be in the US Midwest.
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