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Old 02-18-2010, 11:25 PM   #9 (permalink)
3-Wheeler
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Location: Southern WI
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Quote:
Originally Posted by daqcivic View Post
...Since you've been doing this for a little while, with a lot of attention to detail it would seem, does my procedure seem adequate to you, or would you have some suggestions for me?...
Yes, the video camera method seems like it should work better than my particular GPS model. And the scan rate of 30 fps is also excellent.

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About the only thing that the GPS can tell you is if the road is reasonably flat or not. It can give readings within 10 feet or so, and usually better.

However, driving through thick over head trees and such can block the signal enough, that now the data appears much more erratic and inconsistent.

I also think that the cheaper units like I have appear to move the elevation about 20 feet from one day to the next, and this is traveling down the same exact road in the same exact location. The GPS has been stabilized for at least one mile before any meaningful readings are taken. This allows all the satellites in the area to sync up.

And this is my main beef with using the GPS. It seems rather arbitrary in it's output from day to day, and run to run.

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I am going to look into digital bicycle speedometers, and see if there are any that record speed every few seconds, and store it for later retrieval.

The hardest part about using a video camera, is getting the data back out after each run.

Jim.
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