GPS Orientation

Which GPS map orientation do you primarily use?

  • North Up

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Heading Up

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Total voters
    0
Heading up. I want to know right now if there is a rock in my path, and I don't want to sort out the boat's heading relative to the GPS's heading and then triangulate to see if I'll hit it. This seems like a no brainer to me.

In contrast, when planning out a route for the next day while anchored, I use charts in the "north up" orientation so I can read the gol-darn names and legends!!!
 
Heading up for me. I tried North up once but when I was headed South I had to turn the GPS up side down to get it to look right.

Larry K
 
Heading up. It's far more intuitive than North up. Keeping the 21st century GPS set the same way as was as paper maps have been drawn since the first century doesn't make sense to me....(Ptolemy established this trend of N up). I say, take advantage of the technology to it's fullest. With the map oriented heading up, it's very easy to look out the window and spot landmarks, buoys etc. as their position relative to the boat is displayed as in real-life on the screen. N-up is tradition but not necessarily the best...
 
Al - I wonder if where one was raised influences that decision. Here in the big sky country of Montana, North is a very important direction, particularly when those cold Canadian fronts begin to slide down the Rocky mountain front. But with the the GPS and the bread crumb trail to follow back, who cares where North is. I'm not, however, comfortable driving, flying or boating without knowing which direction I am heading. Force of habit, I guess. What drives me to distraction are those backwards compass cards. Even if I am in a strange city sitting in a hotel room, I look out the window and attempt to establish direction. Some people organize spacial relationships differently in their brains. Recall being on a troop transport to Korea in 1953 and 3,000 miles from the nearest land. Had to get on deck to look at either the sun or the stars whenever I could. North was obviously a pretty important direction to that captain.

John
 
Give me a chart and I want it NORTH UP! (Janet is always turning the charts every which way!) But I like heading up on the GPS. I tried both, and surprised myself by liking heading up better. I still want my flat paper map NORTH UP! So, smack me UP SIDE THE HEAD!
 
North up...with a heading line going to the edge of the screen.

The biggest benefit to me of north up - identifying the relative location of objects. This is far more difficult (for me) when using heading up.

With north up, at a glance, you can immediately communicate to somebody the following:

- Where you are, relative to objects on your chart plotter or RADAR. "I'm approximately 2 miles southwest of buoy X."

- Where objects on your chartplotter/RADAR are, realtive to you. "X Island is approximately 3 miles northwest."

- Where objects are on your chartplotter/RADAR, relative to each other. For example, helping somebody out in the fog for whom you can only see a RADAR blip: "Hey buddy - the rocks are about 1/2 mile to your west - head northeast."

With north up, and the heading line extending to the edge of the screen, I find it simple to adjust course based on chartplotter/RADAR objects - you just turn the wheel, and the heading line rotates in the same direction.
 
North up. I like your explanation Bill, I too always like to know the direction N-E-S-W of objects around me, helps communications with others (sometimes that is...cause a LOT of people could care less about map directions!). Just ask someone over the phone that has worked at a business for a long time which corner they're on, Northwest, Northeast, etc, most times won't know -- only that it's across the street from the Shell station!!!

Just natural for me I guess to orient by map directions.
 
Steve
Have you noticed when receiving road directions some are right, left, right and left, left. ( ok I am lost) and others like my self would say north, east then west on bla bla and south into the lot. I wonder if this is the same for gps heading up are the right left people and north up are the north south east west people? hm? :roll:
 
This is fun! I literally CANNOT drive the boat South with North up without standing on my head! So I always set it to Heading up! Then when Patty takes the helm, it goes back to North up, the way it is "supposed" to be! Good thing it is fairly easy to change back and forth!
 
That's too funny Pat! I have to relate a quick story. When my wife and I took the Coastal Piloting and Seamanship course (...years ago), she actually beat me on the final exam score, 97 to my 93, which was/is amazing considering she has never driven or steered for any length of time any of the 15 boats we've owned!!! I envy you for having a wife that a) Can and will take the helm, and b) Is a NORTH UP kind of gal!
 
Course up.

I've flown more hours with a VOR or compass than I've driven a boat with a GPS plotter. If I ran north up I would be contantly running into things I didn't think were in the way and dodging things that weren't.

Is north up something that's hung on from the old Loran days when processing power was so limited. It was probably simple to display north up but hard to display heading up without more cpu power?
 
Actually, thinking about it, I use BOTH. My radar is heading up, used for colision avoidance, the GPS is North up for course navigation. So....that's makes me bi-oriented? :?
 
OH! My turn.

North up always. All my life, North up... haven't got a clue what's going on if I put course up. Can't imagine any other way :lol: :lol:

Dusty
 
Eyeballs out the windows.

Who needs to turn on the GPS or Loran on a lake with five 25 mile long fingers?

I do use the RADAR once every 3-5 years, though, which is heads up!

Joe.
 
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