GPS navigation commercials on TV are pretty common these days. If you know your "left" from your "right", you can now find your way anywhere with the aid of a GPS receiver. Cute, I suppose. I doubt, however, that I will ever own one. At least not as long as road maps continue to be published.

Map reading was my favorite subject back in my high school ROTC days, and the interest continued into my Army tour lasting 6 years, 7 months and 23 days. I mastered map reading rather quickly and have enjoyed it ever since. I've always taken pride in the ability to navigate from point A to point B with a minimum number of errors along the way. Large cities or small, foreign or domestic, it makes no difference to me. I love the challenge. And, yes, sometimes it is a challenge.

I'll use a little Amateur Radio analogy here. For me, using GPS instead of a printed map would be like using Morse code reading software to copy CW instead of doing it by "ear". It would be like using a repeater instead of simplex. I could go on and on.

As GPS becomes more and more popular, will America forget how to read a map? Will printed maps go the way of the 8-track tape player? Maybe Google, Yahoo and other online mapping programs will keep the art somewhat alive, but I have serious doubts.

Should I care? Probably not. I'll probably be "out of service" before printed maps are, anyway!

73,

WF5TX

The Simplex Preservation Society
www.73SPS.com