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OVER 2 YOU 212 (02/01/05)
SWIMMING THE WEB
My daughter plans to swim the channel in 2005
as a member of a team of 6 and they would like to have a web cam covering the
swim. Does anyone have any suggestions
as to how this may be best achieved from a small pilot boat crossing the
channel with them?
Roger Hawkins, via email
My suggestion would be to use a web cam and
laptop PC and connect to the Internet via a mobile phone. Most web cams come
with suitable ‘streaming’ or video conferencing software and the latest WAP and
3G phones can easily handle video from a web cam. I know from countless
cross-channel trips that you can stay connected to UK networks until you are at
least two thirds of the way across, after which you are automatically connected
to a French network.
Brian Hewett, via email
Why not use one of the latest 3G camera phones?
You should be able to say in contact with the UK most of the way. Check to see
if there’s a compatible French company that can pick up your signal when you
get out of range, you might even try approaching one of the phone companies for
sponsorship.
David Charles, via email
I’m not a radio expert but I have seen several
companies advertising ‘wireless’ video cameras, which operate over tens or
hundreds of metres. I wonder if the transmitter, in the pilot boat, and at the
receiving station, situated up on the cliffs above Dover, were equipped with
sensitive antennas, the signal could be picked up all of the way across and fed
into a normal PC or laptop and then onto the Internet.
Stephen Willow, via email
A satellite phone would provide uninterrupted
coverage across the channel. You would have to work out a way of connecting it
to a portable PC with a web cam. I suspect this method would prove rather
expensive though, I’ve heard of satellite phone charges being several pounds
per minute.
Michael Stevens, via email
DISTANCE NO OBJECT
Can anyone suggest a web site that can
calculate distances between two places by using their latitudes and longitudes?
Bill Saunders, via email
There is a very good website at: http://gc.kls2.com, which calculates distances by latitude and
longitude, airport names or airport codes.
Phil Thompsett, via email
I suggest a look at the following website which
is run by Northern Arizona University:
http://jan.ucc.nau.edu/~cvm/latlongdist.html.
It worked for me.
Bob Simpson, via email
www.multimap.com
gives latitude and longitude for all addresses in UK so if you knew the
postcode for the two places, you could use the directions feature of Multimap
to find out the distance between the two places. Having found the name of the
street you could use www.postcodeanywhere.co.uk
to tell you the postcode for the number of the street. This site gives you a
couple of free searches a day. Bill Saunders, does not say what country he
wants to do this in but this would be possible in at least most of Europe as
well as they have post codes too, except in Ireland. Multimap also gives the
grid reference
Michael Ogden, via email
Your correspondent should have a look at: www.indo.com/distance.
Mick Walters, via email
Bill Saunders should try the site www.gliding-in-melbourne.org/gccalc.htm#top,
which gives true bearings and distances in kilometres between any two given
positions.
Joe Glover, via email
There are a number of learned papers on the
Internet relating to Geodetic Distances etc.
However the following link (www.ngs.noaa.gov/PC_PROD/Inv_Fwd/) covers
four programs - INVERSE which computes the geodetic azimuth and distance
between two points, given their geographic positions; FORWARD, which computes
the geographic position of a point, given the geodetic azimuth and distance
from a point with known geographic position; and the three-dimensional versions
of these programs, INVERS3D and FORWRD3D, which include the height component.
These programs are based on the April, 1975 paper published in Survey Review by
T. Vincenty.
Alec Bowman, Lindford, Hants
I use the Globe program from www.pdawin.com on my IPaq. Is calculates distance and azimuth
between any two cites. Main cites are preloaded but others can be entered. It
does lots of other things like currency conversion, sun up and sundown times. I
do not however know if it is available for a desktop.
Dave Craddock, via email
Bill Saunders can find exact Great Circle
Distances between any two points on Earth at: www.gb3pi.org.uk/great.html. It is a brilliant
and easy site to use and will give distances in miles and kilometres. Just
enter exact co-ordinates of latitude and longitude for any two places.
Alternatively enter "Great Circle Distances" on Google. There are several sites but not as good.
E.J.Hadley.
Shropshire.
A website that can calculate distances between
any two points, using latitude and longitude or the names of cities, is
(curiously) at "Bali & Indonesia on the Net": (look for 'How Far
is it?'). The URL is:www.indo.com/distance/
Dr Robin Hendy, Canterbury, Kent
If Bill uses Excel, then I would recommend this
excellent website: www.cpearson.com/excel/latlong.htm.
Kevin James, Tua'r, Goleuni
Your enquirer can find the solution at: www.wcrl.ars.usda.gov/cec/java/lat-long.htm
David Jagger, via email
I recommend GPS Utility at www.gpsu.co.uk, which I use to handle the data for my GPS, but
which works equally well without the GPS. This takes position information in
lat/long or a number of other formats, such as Ordnance Survey grid, displays
the information as a map, converts between different systems and so on. If you
overlay a copy of the map, you can digitise the positions directly. There is a
shareware version and a freeware version: for simply measuring distances, the
freeware version would suffice.
Peter Roome, via email
CAN YOU HELP?
Does anyone know of a web site or resource that
can identify the names of films from the
plot alone? I would like to know the name of a
film I saw on TV in the early 70's (I think), but cannot remember the title,
the names of the actors.
Peter Jones, via email
Does anyone know of a source of British clipart
with graphics relating to the Fire, Police and Ambulance emergency services?
R.A.E. German, via email
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